Day 10:
Donny and I got up early and skipped breakfast because we had to catch an early bus from Rangamati to Cox’s Bazar. Well, as we were waiting for the bus (the “bus stop” is wherever you stand along the route and wave your ticket in the air) who do we see, but the manager of the hotel, once again asking us why we didn’t eat breakfast at the hotel! Again, he wasn’t convinced that our early bus would prevent us and tried to get us to come with him anyway.

We hopped on the bus to Chittagong, took a rickshaw across town to another bus station to get on a bus for Cox’s Bazar. The town initially had the feel of a very touristy place, as soon as we stepped off the bus, touts were trying to convince us to go to some hotel or other. We already had our room reservations, so we checked into our hotel and headed down to the beach. We were the only people swimming as far as the eye could see, so we ended up drawing a few spectators.

Then we walked down the beach to the most popular area, filled with chaise lounges, beach umbrellas, and Bangladeshis dipping their feet in the water.

We headed back towards the hotel and tried to watch a sunset that ended up being obscured by the clouds.

After showering off, we headed to dinner at the much-lauded Mermaid Cafe. Ben had warned us about the procedure, and that was a good thing. The rickshaw pulled up at a place where the signs pointed, and we started walking. Then a guy came running down the beach asking us if we were looking for the Mermaid Cafe. We followed him down a torch lit path in the sand and over some bamboo bridges until we got to the cafe.

We’d been told not to expect much from the food, so we didn’t. The ambiance was absolutely amazing.

We each ordered a pasta dish, Donny’s with crab and mine with fresh calamari caught off the coast of St. Martin’s Island. Before the food came, we got a personal tour of the complex. An old guest house had been turned into an art gallery for a Dhaka artist. A pretty neat concept; showcases local (well, national) art, and gives the patrons something to do while waiting for the food. Our server even took us inside the kitchen. This was pretty interesting because Donny and I had just been talking about what kind of sanitation rating these places we were eating at would get in the U.S. Well, this kitchen was actually very clean. Three young guys working in the kitchen (all looked younger than us, even the head chef). I think even Gordon Ramsay wouldn’t have had too much to say here.

The pasta came and it was absolutely amazing. Homemade pasta, fresh seafood, great atmosphere, and an enthusiastic wait staff. This is exactly the kind of place that could grow the tourism industry in Bangladesh. After we finished our main course, the rain started coming so we sat under the pagoda and waited for our crepe dessert.

A real gecko decided to lend a hand to the beach feel:

Day 11:
We woke up to the sound of a steady rain. This seemed unusual, because up until now most of the rain had been a powerful burst that lasted less than an hour. So, we donned our swim suits and quick-dry shirts and headed to the docks to catch a boat to a nearby island. After paying a toll to use the dock, then another toll to walk across some boats arranged in the mud during low tide, we got to a speedboat that took us across to the island.

Walking across the boats:

All the fishing/transport boats had a very pirate-ship feel:

We didn’t really know what to expect on the island, except that there was a Buddhist stupa on the top of a hill. We ended up getting a tour of a Buddhist monastery, then heading up to the top of the hill where there was a Hindu temple and the stupa.

Monastery:

We got some great views from on top of the hills.

We walked to the end of a jetty, from which we could see the dock back to Cox’s Bazar, and another dock on the other side. We wanted to catch a row boat to the other dock, then walk back along the ridge of the sea-side cliffs:

The oarsman and the rickshaw-wallah both warned us that the people who live over there are “bad people” and wouldn’t like it if people they didn’t know came to their side of the island. JUST LIKE THE OTHERS!
So, we heeded their warning and took the row boat back to the dock, and headed back to Cox’s. We went down to the beach; this time there were tons of people on the beach, and lots of boys playing in the water.

Me on the longest beach in the world:

The day before we had seen some cliffs in the distance, so we decided to see if we could get to them. We walked down the beach a good ways, then wound through a village until we found some stairs dug into a mud cliff face. We ascended, and ended up on some livestock trails at the top of the cliffs. This was an amazing sight. On one side, we saw the jungle village life, on the other, multi story hotels being built along the beach.

We headed back to the hotel, packed up, and grabbed some dinner before it was time to head to the bus station. The bus company called us and told us that the bus was leaving an hour later, so we had some extra time to kill. We sat in the bus station and I taught Donny how to play Shed, a good two player card game.