Hadn’t seen this little enterprise on past visits, so when my colleagues asked (during a walk in the camps two weeks ago) if I wanted to pay for the adventure I took the chance. I wanted to help this guy do the pulling, but he was too proud. It was hard work for him and mildly unnerving for me when the little raft rocked a bit, but a new experience, and it seemed the onlookers enjoyed it as well. Given the landslips I saw during the walk, including reports of a few lives lost in some of these, I worried very much when overnight and the next day or two much heavier rains came. One ongoing goal for me is keep reducing my carbon footprint as much as possible, given the frequency of all these extreme flooding, heat and drought events I feel like I’m seeing everywhere.
Some street & city scenes from Cox. One of my first posts during this recent visit showed you a few new graffiti panels in Dhaka, and here you see more of this flourising and colorful new graffiti art which I’m told sprang up rather spontaneously after the sudden departure of the PM in early August. I’ll share more from Dhaka itself, later.
l arrived home late Friday in Amsterdam, and am posting here the first aerial shots I recall ever managing to take that actually show the Coxs Bazar beach from the air. The skies were wonderfully clear, my seat in the plane perfect aside from one fleck on the window (which you’ll only see in one or two of the gallery below, because I’ve mostly managed to crop the photos to eliminate it), so these are photos as the plane flew southward from this northernmost shot to the final views, at the bottom, as we banked east then north for the return to Dhaka on Tuesday last week. There’ll be more seashells and others to come before we run out of our stock, but these will help you imagine those tiny shells in their larger context :-). Oh, and the selfie is the first time I ever succumbed to the most-common trope for people landing in or departing from Cox: everyone takes a selfie. Most folks visiting Cox are tourists, mostly Bangladeshi honeymooners and families. So I’m smiling, because the weather was nice, the visit lovely, and I was finally doing that most stereotypical of Cox airport things, the selfie.
After a few days in Ukhiya, I made it back to Cox this morning with a sufficient morning break from the constant rain to make a beach walk appealing. It felt extra poignant for me, since those who’ve followed these pages for a while will remember that “Longest Beach” was the very first series and the first time I committed to daily posts for a period of time. That first post went up in early January, 2019. Daily posts became more regular the following year as a motivation to get out and about in Dhaka, especially during our covid lockdown months, introducing series I’ve carried forward with a certain consistency in the subsequent years. Today’s walk – and this post – I’ve dedicated in my heart to Lyn Kimball, a family friend who first taught me and my brothers some of the arts of beach-combing during summer weeks in Maine many decades ago when we were boys. We received word this week that she’s passed, so I share these photos in loving memory and appreciation of the passion for exploration and enjoyment that she shared with us.
Taken during a Monday-afternoon walk in the same city from which we posted our very first Urban Garden post ever, back during the quiet covid lockdown days of May 2020.
Some street & city scenes from Cox. One of my first posts during this recent visit showed you a few new graffiti panels in Dhaka, and here you see more of this flourising and colorful new graffiti art which I’m told sprang up rather spontaneously after the sudden departure of the PM in early August. I’ll share more from Dhaka itself, later.
l arrived home late Friday in Amsterdam, and am posting here the first aerial shots I recall ever managing to take that actually show the Coxs Bazar beach from the air. The skies were wonderfully clear, my seat in the plane perfect aside from one fleck on the window (which you’ll only see in one or two of the gallery below, because I’ve mostly managed to crop the photos to eliminate it), so these are photos as the plane flew southward from this northernmost shot to the final views, at the bottom, as we banked east then north for the return to Dhaka on Tuesday last week. There’ll be more seashells and others to come before we run out of our stock, but these will help you imagine those tiny shells in their larger context :-). Oh, and the selfie is the first time I ever succumbed to the most-common trope for people landing in or departing from Cox: everyone takes a selfie. Most folks visiting Cox are tourists, mostly Bangladeshi honeymooners and families. So I’m smiling, because the weather was nice, the visit lovely, and I was finally doing that most stereotypical of Cox airport things, the selfie.
(so much world, so little time....) 