A typical long beach in Cox’s Bazar during the afternoon.
Cox’s Bazar is the most visited tourist destination from Bangladesh. The main attraction from there is the world’s longest unbroken sea beach. Regardless of the season, everyday a lot of tourists visit this natural wonder. Most of the visitors are from inside the country, but there are quite a number of visitors who come here from outside too. Most of the foreign visitors use to come here during winter. The reason is the winter in Bangladesh is very mild compared to the winter in Europe or other western countries.
Cox’s bazar beach as viewed from a hilltop.
The length of this world’s longest sea beach in Cox’s Bazar is around 120 kilometer long. Most of the visitors come here during the winter as the weather is very nice for traveling (compared to hot summer). The ocean remains calm mostly during the winter. That allows people to jump inside the water and enjoy the beach.
I visited Cox’s bazar sea beach 6 times in the year 2008. I wanted to visit the beach in different seasons. Bangladesh has 6 seasons. And I went there during all the seasons. I liked the atmosphere of the beach during the winter as there were a lot of people. It was very fun to do the water sports all together. During the rainy season the number of tourists was very low. I hardly saw a hundred people on the beach that time. During the rain it was a different fun in the water. But it was more risky than normal time. During the summer you’d also see a low number of tourists on the beach. The sun burns more in Cox’s bazar beach than any other part of the country. Most of the people gather around the Kolatoli beach or Laboni beach for the sunbath.
Taking a photo of our shadows on Cox’s bazar beach.
Things to do on the beach
There are actually a lot of things to do around the Cox’s Bazar sea beach. During the day you could rent a chair and sit there as long as you want. This would allow you to see the ocean in a more relaxing way. If you want to swim in the water then rent a tube and float in water with it. You could hire a speed boat (or similar) to roam around the beach water. There are small scooters available which you can rent and drive on your own. You’d see horses around the beach which you could ride by hiring. People are parasailing these days too. If you like to surf you could do that too for adventure. We do not have any sharks or jelly fishes around Cox’s bazar beach (as far as I know) so no risk at all. If you are not a good swimmer then use a life jacket and don’t show any bravado.
Near the city it has the nicest road drive in the country. One side of the road is the ocean and the other side is small hillocks. This 80 kilometer road is in between the Teknaf and Cox’s bazar. You don’t need to go all the way, just hire a local vehicle and explore till Inani beach. On the way you should be able to visit the Himchhori eco park. From there you could enjoy the bird’s eye view of the ocean.
During the afternoon, don’t forget to watch the sunset in Cox’s bazar. Having the beach at the western side, it provides a nice opportunity to observe sunset over the vast ocean. During that time a lot of tourists gather around the beach to get bathed with the orange light. This beach gets crowded at the 31st December when everyone come here to say goodbye to the year.
Observing sunset in Cox’s bazar.
How to go
There are several ways to go to Cox’s bazar. Fastest way is to use the direct flight between Dhaka and Cox’s bazar. It would cost you around 15 thousands Bangladeshi Taka for a single trip. If you use a bus then it would be around 8-12 hours of journey depending upon the traffic condition. Best bus services are Green line and Shohag (expensive too). Third option is to use the train from Dhaka to Chittagong and then use a bus from there. But I’d not recommend the third option to go Cox’s Bazar from Dhaka.
Delicious food from a restaurant of Cox’s bazar.
Where to stay
As Cox’s bazar is the most busiest tourist destination from Bangladesh, there are numerous hotels around the city which can accommodate hundreds of thousands of visitors. Here is the list of hotels from Cox’s Bazar which are available to book online. During my most visits I stayed in a budget hotel named Hotel Media for a reasonable price, plus the service was better. During the off season (May to October) the hotels from Cox’s bazar provide discounts and packages to attract more tourists that time. Most of the discounts are around 40% to 50% off. You could take that chance to reduce your cost.
Also there are few eco resorts available in Cox’s bazar (such as Mermaid eco resort). They are located slightly far from the city crowd. They have a nice environment there as well with a private beach. Enjoying a day or two with family on such resorts would be a nice experience.
As a note, during the festival time (Eid or new year) or any long weekend a lot of people gather in Cox’s bazar. On such occasions more than 100k tourists gather here. If you are planning to visit Cox’s bazar during that time, advice would be to book early. Otherwise you might end up staying in street or beach during the night.
Laboni point of Cox’s Bazar beach, as viewed from the Hotel balcony.
Where to eat
Cox’s bazar is a nice place to taste the sea fishes from Bangladesh. You’d find plenty of restaurants from the town which serve Pomfret, Koral, Lobsters, and many other sea fishes. Those are really tasty and mouth watering. I tried the restaurants like Niribili, Dhanshiri, Poushi, etc from Cox’s bazar. To me the food from all of those restaurants tasted more or less the same. Compared to the price the Poushi was a bit cheaper. Probably it was slightly farther to the beach which proved less crowded.
Cox’s Bazar sea beach,
District: Cox’s Bazar,
Country: Bangladesh.
Written by Lonely Traveler,
for the blog http://alonelytraveler.com/
June 2008
