Welcome to the Bazar

My nine-day vacation to Cox’s Bazar not only introduced me to the beauty and intrigue of the Bangladeshi countryside, but it also reacquainted me with art of writing by pen and paper; given the illegibility of my handwriting to anyone other than myself, it’s safe to say that I should stick to the keyboard.

Nevertheless, I’ve managed to decipher my chicken scratch and type out the following (revised and amended) version of events as they unfolded. Unlike typical blog date stamping, the earliest day will be last, and the first day will be placed at the beginning. Happy scrolling.

Saturday, November 13^th, 2004

I expect this trip to be a first on a several fronts, but I know for sure that it will be the first time I will have gone over a week without checking my inbox for as long as I can remember. Most importantly, though, is that it represents the first time I’ve left chaotic Dhaka since I arrived on September 1^st.

We only found out about the office closures resulting from this celebration of the end of Ramadan three days before it began, so we had to rush to book the seats on the most reasonable mode of transport available. All the busses leaving the city were sold out, packed full of locals returning to their home villages to visit friends and family, but we fortunate enough to find two seats on GMG Airline’s Dash-8 flying to Cox’s Bazar, “Vacationer’s Paradise”, through the port city of Chittagong on Thursday.

Sandwiched between the Bay of Bengal and the mountains separating Bangladesh from Myanmar on this country’s southern panhandle, is the seaside resort town of Cox’s Bazar [named after Captain Hiram Cox, Superintendent of the Government of East India Company who was sent to rehabilitate the Arkanese (Burmese) refugees after the defeat of the Burmese king in 1799) and the world’s longest beach.

Using my trust Lonely Planet (LP) guidebook [no, they’re not paying me to say that] as our only reference point, we found our way to the Sea View Hotel on Sea Beach Rd, where we found a decent double-room [with western toilet!] for 350 taka/night ($6 CAD). Our third story room overlooks the lush green rice paddy that separates the town from the wide expanse of evergreen trees behind which lies the famous beach and the shores of the Bay of Bengal.

The safest and most populated part of the beach, though, is a 10-Taka rickshaw ride south of here. This is something we found out the hard way on our first afternoon in town on Thursday. While walking down the narrow road, which cuts through the fields scattered with grazing cows and lonely farmers plying the soil with their scythes on its way to the beach, we were joined by a local, somewhat disheveled looking man and his companion, both of whom, we so innocently thought, were only curious to see what the foreigners were up to. It’s not uncommon for us to pick up a few stragglers, like the small fish that latch onto sharks to feed off their algae, but they’re usually small children who lose interest rather quickly. This proved to be a supremely naïve assumption.

After five or ten minutes of enjoying the solitude of the next-to-deserted beach while our companions sat near our bags and watched as we took pictures with our oh-so-valuable cameras, we were approached by a RAB soldier [Rapid Action Battalion – they’re stationed almost everywhere in the city to keep the peace. They’re one of the main reasons why I haven’t felt anxious or insecure when walking alone, but are also alleged to be one of the worst perpetrators when it comes to the use of torture on civilians]. After forcefully telling the two men to, in a word, ‘scram’, he warned us not to spend any more time on this portion of the beach. His sign language – making a large X across his chest – suggested we were in danger of something slightly more serious then a casual request for ‘baksheesh’, something I had considerable difficulty getting my head around for the rest of the evening. Suddenly losing our appetite for sand, sun and surf, we quickly packed up our possessions and made our way back to the safe confines of our hotel room, complete with barred-off balcony.

I went to bed that night somewhat shell-shocked, unable to understand how such a harmless looking man could be capable of the things acted out by the RAB officer, but also armed with the knowledge that assumptions can be dangerous things if they’re not tinged with a healthy dose of reality.

Friday began after a long sleep-in and rickshaw ride to the well traveled portion of the beach, home to a boardwalk-lined row of small shops selling everything from conch shells to tie-died sarees and Burmese handicrafts. Chandeliers made of small spiral shells looked to be a popular item, (according to the number of small children hawking them to tourists on the beach), but I had trouble imagining one of them put up inside someone’s house. Nevertheless, as a kid who begged his parents to let him bring home the starfish and other miscellaneous sea treasures he found in the tidal pools of coastal British Columbia, I can understand the existence of the demand for such things.

Most of the afternoon was spent lying on the beach (much to the delight of the ever present onlookers who seemed to enjoy watching us lie there for hours on end) and trying to body surf on the decent, Tofino sized waves of the Bay of Bengal. It’s here that we met our two friends for the week, Talhed and Salekin. Two bankers from Dhaka in Cox’s Bazar for a much-needed break from their six-day workweeks in which they admit only having to do one to two hours of work each day, these two fine characters were, like us, enjoying what the town had to offer before the onslaught of post-Eid tourists. Talhed originally caught my attention by telling me all he knew about Canada, including the results of the 1995 Quebec referendum, but to my surprise has no intentions to try and immigrate; he simply enjoys reading about the country in online foreign newspapers and journals while he watches the clock tick away each day in the office.

They bought us lunch and were instrumental in negotiating a decent package deal to St. Martin’s Island, where we were to spend three nights beginning the day after the moon appeared to signal Eid, later that afternoon. I’m not sure we would have been able to make it to the island if we hadn’t had the benefit of a native Bangla-speaker’s negotiating skills, for the language barrier may have sunk the idea before it left the dock…if you will. It looks like we’ll be making the journey from Teknaf to the island on the most posh of the three vessels that make the trip on a regular basis, though according to no set schedule. The second-best option, the Sea Trac, was apparently not an option on the day we intended to go, but it’s more likely that it simply wasn’t included in the foreigner-targeted packages we were to be a part of. Since the oft-sinking open trawlers were out of the question (though their 50 taka price tag made me think twice…), we decided to agree upon the SS Sindbad. In the picture on the agent’s desk it looks like a yacht of western specifications, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

Either way, the package deal was a good one. Three nights at an unspecified hotel, five meals, a personal guide, return transportation on the ferry and seats in one of the microbus’ making the 2 hr journey down to Teknaf – all for about $60 CAD (3000 taka). The quality of our hotel will determine whether this was as an exceptional deal or only a good one.

Upon returning back to our hotel room later that evening after a decent Bengali meal at the Sea View restaurant and with tickets to St. Martin’s in hand, I discovered the souvenir I had involuntarily picked up during the day: a mean sunburn on my back.

Today began with a rickshaw ride through town on the way up to the Aggameda Khyang, Cox’s Bazar’s largest Buddhist monastery. It wasn’t quite what I had expected to see, but at over 200 years old and home to eleven monks, it was still a very interesting and peaceful place. Aside from the handful of monks, it’s also home to at least a dozen bronze or gold plated Buddha statues, three of which were recently donated by the Prime Minister of Myanmar during his visit in April. Though we didn’t have much to say to each other, the monastery’s head monk invited us into his living quarters. I didn’t leave any enlightened words of wisdom, but instead a piece of tranquility.

After leaving the compound and slipping our sandals back on, we were lead through the narrow alleyways of the residential area surrounding the monastery’s main buildings to the top of the largest hill in the area. From there we had an unobstructed 360-degree view of the surrounding region. Palm trees, thatch huts, rolling hills and sand dunes could be seen if facing one direction, and the wide expanse of the Bay of Bengal in the other. The top of the hill accentuated by a white, cone shaped minaret-type structure that was apparently constructed almost 900 years ago when people first settled in the area. These days, however, it’s a popular spot for “young couples in love”, as our local guide from the monastery told us. Human beings the world over are suckers for a great view.

The rest of the afternoon was again spent seaside, challenging the sun to unbleach my pale white skin after too many hours under fluorescent lights in the office. The waves were slightly larger today, so body surfing was the afternoon’s second priority. Needing some time on my own, I decided to walk southwards down the beach to see what I could find. The greatest treasure of the hour-long trek ended up being the sight of the local fishermen bringing in the day’s catch. The bottom sweeping method that they use to capture the fish is one that I’d compare to the methods used by aboriginals on the West Coast; instead of salmon, however, they catch small crabs and finger-sized fish that spend most of their time in the surf close to shore.

The nets themselves, about a meter to two meters tall and probably twenty to thirty meters wide, are pulled to shore by six or eight men at a time. Once in shallow enough water, the net is contracted and its catch is emptied out onto the smooth sand clear of the waves. It’s a labour intensive process, but the young children who sort through the cornet-shaped shells and other debris share the burden; they select the small fish that will be tossed into the waiting hand-made baskets and carted back home or to the market. When complemented by the wooden, banana-shaped trawlers coming to shore in the background, it’s a moving sight to behold. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me so will be sure to bring it along tomorrow.

While watching the fisherman do their work, I also had an interesting encounter with the other two white men who were watching the scene unfold. It turns out that they’re from Russia or the Ukraine, something I discovered upon only being able to understand “Russia” and “Ukraine” in his comments that followed my curious ‘hello’. They looked to be in their 60s, and if there’s ever to be a Russian version of ‘Grumpy Old Men’, they’d surely be the stars of the show. It wouldn’t be for their demeanor, as it was as friendly as ever, but more so for their appearance: one with short shorts and a towel draped over his head, and the other, whom I spoke to, with a scruffy beard and years of experience under his skin. Too bad I don’t know Russian.

On the way home from dinner tonight I was pulled into the shop of an exuberant young shopkeeper who told me, after I accepted his invitation for tea, that he had many foreigners in such a way and had amassed quite the collection of business cards, photographs and letters from those who remembered his request to write him back once they returned to their home countries. I promised to send him a post card from Vancouver, so I must remember to do so when I get home in April.

Sunday November 14^th

While I didn’t step into any of the thatched huts we drove by in our CNG on the way to Inani beach this morning, I think it’s fair to say that today was my first real introduction to the realities of subsistence farming and rural life in Bangladesh.

The intention of the four tour, (as opposed to the more well known ‘three’ hour tour taken in a boat, not a baby taxi), south from Cox’s Bazar was to see the “waterfalls” that are found 10 to 15km south of here and to explore Inani beach, reportedly one of the broadest in the world at low tide and the highlight of all the other beaches along the coast in Chittagong division [see below]. The four of us (Talhed, Saleken, Marc and I) crowded into a forgivingly large CNG for the trip down, with Talhed, the smallest of the four, up front with the driver. While describing the narrow, coastal road leading to our destination as bumpy would be an understatement, it was certainly part of the fun – and for $3.00 each, well worth it as well.

It turns out that the real attraction of the falls themselves is not the tumbling streams of water themselves, but instead the rolling hills on top of which one can enjoy a spectacular view north, south, and west. The viewpoint is accessed by a long set of concrete stairs, the most conspicuous piece of tourist infrastructure I’ve seen so far, and at the top you’ll find a few small huts in which to hide from the sun. The (single) waterfall nearby was decent, but as a BC boy, I’m being diplomatic. Eroded out of the soft, red clay soil, the five-meter high waterfall left much to be desired, but to give it credit the other visitors who were happily having their pictures taken in front of it were certainly impressed.

Twenty minutes down the road was Inani beach. Rather than being the secluded oasis that I had pictured in my mind. The LP baits its traveling readers: “One of Bangladesh’s claims to fame, [Inani] is considered the world’s longest and broadest beach: 180 m at its narrowest at high tide and 300 m at low tide”. While it was indeed a massive beach, the cuts I received from hidden coral rocks I ran into shortly after entering the wind-driven surf were an indication that it’s clearly not known for its swimming (or bathing as its often referred to here) opportunities.

The 30 km trip back to Cox’s Bazar provided yet another opportunity for a glimpse into the daily life of rural Bangladeshis. Most of the hourses are thatch huts placed either directly on the beach or nestled amongst the palm trees on the other side of the main road. Cattle roamed the streets and dirt pathways, while children payed be the side of the road or carried their shore of the family load; for one little boy this meant carrying a chicken about the same size as his torso.

The impression I got from seeing the dozens of subsistence farms that we passed along the way was that children, particularly boys, play an integral part in keeping their families fed; the arguments of many a development economist obviously have considerable truth to them, for banning child labour can sometimes have more negative repercussions than positive ones; so much depends on context. Similarly, ‘high tech agriculture’ in this part of the world still refers to a strong bull or a sharp scythe rather than a John Deere tractor. The collection of eight or ten heavy diggers - some emblazoned with the white paint and black logo - sitting unused and dejected next to one of the small villages were a testament to this fact.

Monday November 15^th, 2004

While I wrote that yesterday’s adventure was my “first exposure to subsistence farming”, I should note that the large crops surrounding many of the houses must have been for commercial use, or at the very least produce enough to sell at the local market. Similarly, the handful of modern fish and shrimp hatcheries found along this stretch of coastline are an indication that aquaculture supplements agriculture and that modern technology has indeed been applied successfully into a third world environment. The villages were all very well kept, most of the kids looked relatively healthy and local shops sold the same manufactured goods available in the larger towns and cities. Nevertheless, the dual presence of these two ways of life is still one that I don’t understand, but I would assume that the well-being of individual villages can only be improved through a careful combination of the two.

Just as there is inevitable hardship hidden behind the pastoral exterior, so are there political viewpoints in each of us that are only revealed every so often. During a rather heated debate that began at the viewpoint near the falls and didn’t really finish until we were eating a late lunch in Cox’s Bazar, our friends Talhed and Saleken each claimed that the party the other supported, the BNP and Awami League, respectively, was more corrupt than their own. Both, however, agreed that in the end the political stripes of the ruling party, currently the BNP, make little difference at all, for its the entrenched secretariat that is responsible for the bulk of the endemic corruption. Hence, Bangladesh has been named the most corrupt country in the world four years in a row by Transparency International. Making matters worse is the fact that such corruption spurs little motivation to get out and vote to attempt to influence the process; both men have little faith in the democratic process and therefore usually abstain from voting.

Politics aside, the conversation eventually evolved into a debate over the validity of Transparency International’s ranking system; they believed it was unfair, while Marc and I tried to defend its neutrality and validity. It took considerable effort to explain that the rankings are not a judgments on the people of the countries themselves, but instead an evaluation of their government. Just as my colleague Helal had mentioned to me several weeks ago, Talhed insisted that “95% of the Bangladeshi people are honest, but it’s the last 5% who are corrupted, and they’re the ones in power.” I told him Helal’s number was 99%, and he quickly revised his estimation. Either way, 1% of this country’s population is still 1.4 million people; with a bureaucracy as large and inefficient as Bangladesh’s, it’s possible that they’re all being paid by the same employer.

Thursday November 18^th

We arrived on St. Martin’s Island on Tuesday afternoon following a two hour journey by microbus from Cox’s Bazar to Teknaf and a four hour ferry ride on the SS Sindbad.

The ship itself was very decent, similar in many ways to those plying the waters off the BC coast, though the washrooms left much to be desired. It was a much smaller and less fancy version of the ship we were shown in the photographs; it turns out that they had photoshopped the ‘SS Sindbad’ label overtop of the name of the ship actually displayed in the picture, apparently unaware that there’s anything wrong with doing so. I tried to explain the illegalities of false advertising to our guide, but I shouldn’t have bothered. As a fellow traveler from India remarked after overhearing the conversation, “you wouldn’t be able to sue them anyways.”

The island, however, is as idealic and tropical as I had imagined, replete with good natured and colourfully dressed children, coconut trees, and an abundance of dried fish hanging upside down in the dozens of small shops lining the main, sandy street. It’s certainly much more developed than it was when the LP author first visited in 2000. There are more than two places to stay, plus a handful more being built as we speak, and there’s now a jetty against which the ferries can dock side by side. Among the five or six hotels, motels and guest houses is the one in which we are staying - the Green Abakash – found at the very end of the main pathway that winds itself through the village, starting at the main bazaar, passing the collection of small shops, houses, and the island’s central school and mosque along the way.

We’ve been put up in the new wing that was just recently completed. Actually, it’s still under construction, but it looks like they did the best they could do get it ready for the busy week following Eid when two large boatloads of tourists would come from the mainland each day. Our cement walls have almost one full coat of white paint on them, and our room is furnished with luxuries such as two beds and…two beds. What the room lacks in furniture, the window compensates for with its view of the beach twenty meters away. Electricity is available from 6-11pm at night thanks to the noisy generator outside, and there’s a restaurant serving good food despite a shortage of ingredients (rice and fish most days, chicken if you’re lucky).

Our days revolve around the rise and set of the sun; after dark, the only things to do are to walk over the large sand dune separating the hotel from the shore and sit and gaze at the star-filled sky, or to read for a couple hours under the fluorescent lights inside [as I would discover later, nesting sea turtles would provide a third activity].

Today’s breakfast was enjoyed at one of the small ‘restuant’, ‘restaur’ or ‘restrants’ lining the main road, an experience both tasty and extraordinarily cheap: 4 parathas, 2 eggs and a cup of tea for 31 taka (60 cents). Needless to say, we’ll be eating most of the rest of our meals there as well. While most of the meals are cheap on the island, the large green coconuts that gave the island its original name are definitely the best deal. For 5 to 10 taka, depending on which part of the island you’re on, you get two to three cups of sweet, clear juice plus the optional experience of having it chopped in half for you to access the soft, white flesh lining the inside.

The only real problem I’ve had so far arose when I first tried to pay for a meal with one of my 500 Taka notes. Not thinking ahead, I brought few notes of small denominations with me; finding a shopkeeper willing to give up that much change is like asking a five year old with ADD to sit still for an hour: almost impossible. The ironic thing is that 500 Taka can buy quite a bit on the island, but has little actual purchasing power if concentrated in a single note.

If I were to be asked for advice from any westerner about to visit the island, I would offer the following: bring lots of small bills, and leave any preconceptions of a tropical island vacation in Goa, Fiji or Bali at the door. There simply isn’t enough capital to provide those sorts of amenities here, and coming without those expectations would allow for a much more peaceful and enjoyable experience.

Having said that, the quality of life in this tradition fishing community trying to cope with the wave of tourist-oriented development that has sprung up over the last four years looks to be quite good. The kids are more energetic and generally look much healthier than they do in the city, and rarely pester you with attention and or sea shell chandeliers to sell (try saying that ten times fast). Most are genuinely curious as to who you are and why you’re here, while others are simply afraid and choose to run away when they feel you’ve gotten too close for comfort. As I found out on my walk around the island yesterday, that’s a distance of about ten meters.

It was a nice hike, but after two hours of walking under the hot sun without a hat and not having reached the southernmost tip of the dumbbell shaped coral island, I gladly accepted my guide Nazrul’s invitation to take a shortcut through the rice paddies filling up the majority of the island’s open land. I was happy to save the extra hour off of the walk, for we had another 45 minutes to go before we were back in the main village and my stomach was yearning for some chicken and rice.

Along the way we found six or seven blowfish washed up on the sandy shore, fully inflated, along with a badly decomposing sea turtle that must have been fifteen or twenty years old but mercifully smelled better than it looked. We also came across two sea turtle hatcheries operated with funds from the government itself rather than an international donor. There’s hope yet. The island’s broad, sandy beaches are perfect nesting grounds for the sea turtles that come ashore every night around 1130pm, according to local fisherman we met along the way. The only sign they leave indicating their presence is the plethora of shallow holes dug in various locations around the island, most of which can be found on the most isolated stretches of beach. I was determined to go back out that night at the appointed time, flashlight in hand, to see them nesting in their natural habitat. Unfortunately, the quickly rising tide and utter darkness made be change my mind.

We hope to catch the Sea-Trac or the Sindbad back to the mainland tomorrow afternoon, but will have to be prepared to wait after arriving early; each ship makes one trip a day, and both at the same time. Why they don’t have one running in the morning and one in the afternoon is beyond me. The other option, as mentioned earlier, are the open trawlers that make the journey throughout the day, but I’d rather depend on the law of averages which leaves frequent travelers to the island with the knowledge that it leaves “between 130 and 4pm” each day.

My fingers are crossed in hopes that it will leave as early in the day as possible to save as much daylight as we can for the winding journey from Teknaf to Cox’s Bazar, a trip made considerably more risky in the intense darkness of a rural night. Either way, patience and many long, deep breaths will undoubtedly be the key to a bearable journey home.

Saturday, November 20^th

Second piece of advice: the only bank in Cox’s Bazar that’s willing to cash travelers cheques is the Agrani Bank, a 5 taka rickshaw ride east of the Sea View hotel and just beyond the more visible Sonali Bank. Agrani’s sign is only written in Bangla, so it’s almost impossible to find without asking locals – who may or may not send you in the right direction, intentionally or non – for directions. I visited at least six branches, including the Arab-Bangladesh, Sonali, Islami and Eastern banks, but each one insisted they didn’t have the capability to deal with them.

After insisting that no other banks in town could help me, the manager at Agrani finally acknowledged that it would indeed be possible to cash my three cheques (a whopping 60 USD) at his bank. It wasn’t until the process was underway and my passport was being examined that my eyes fell upon the sign I’d been looking for all along: “foreign currency and travelers cheques encashed here.”

We made it back to Cox’s Bazar from St. Martin’s in a lightning quick 4.5 hours. A properly functioning ferry engine and a white-knuckled microbus ride through the countryside were responsible for the 2 hr savings compared to our original journey southwards. Our bus, packed full to the brim – and overflowing at one point – with fourteen people, made it back unscathed. I’m surprised that I can say the same for the man and two dogs who narrowly escaped becoming hood ornaments on our front grill. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the handful of frogs that took the great leap forward into the middle of the road at exactly the wrong time.

Our bus back to Dhaka leaves at 430pm this afternoon. The bus line, Shohagh Paribahan, is reputed to be the second best in the country next to Green Line, but I’ll have to wait and see for myself to understand what that actually means. Most importantly, the make-or-break variable – legroom – remains in question. It will be a 4hr journey to Chittagong, where we’ll rest for two hours before changing busses and commence the second leg of the journey, five hours northwest to Dhaka. ETA: 5am. [As it turns out, it was an exceedingly comfortable bus trip highlighted by a seat on one of Shohagh’s brand new Volvo coaches making what appeared to be its inaugural journey to Dhaka from Chittagong. We finally arrived back home at 5am, only to be greeted by a CNG driver who demanded 50 Taka for the hop, skip and jump to our apartment from the bus station – about five times the regular price. But at 5am, anything goes, especially after a 10 hr journey and an initial request for 100 from another driver.]

It’s been a great vacation, perhaps two to three days too long, but I’m ready to get back to a regular schedule and to the work that will definitely be keeping me busy during my last three months in Dhaka.