A Nice Quiet Beach Community
And No One Intends to Keep it that Way

I feel like I'm at the end of the world. After a five hour bus ride over bumpy, rickshaw-congested roads with a beeping driver from hell, I arrived in Cox's Bazaar, pulled the tissues out of the ears, gave praise to the almighty that the one-lane train bridge turned passenger passway didn't collapse or have a train on it, and promptly replied to the babbling rickshaw drivers that I was neither their "friend" nor their "boss."

Life is cheap and easy in this beach-front town. This place has almost single-towndedly restored Bangladesh as a destination worth its weight in Lonely Planets. Could also be the weather that did it. After a week of solid rain, we had sun today.

I had forgotten the power and beauty of the ocean. The almost dangerously high waves sent me scraping along the sand at the bottom. When I walked toward land, with the water rushing back to the sea under me, I felt like I was flying. There were even Bangladesh surfers (though the women swam in the saris)