Another Great Day in CB

We left the fleapit hotel and moved to the one that we are in now, which is fantastic! We had to make the move by cycle rickshaw as it was quite far to walk. It was impossible to get us both into one rickshaw with all of our luggage, so we took two cycle rickshaws. We told the rickshaw drivers the name of the hotel that we wanted to go to and, due to a language barrier, he took us in completely the wrong direction. The ride was fun though.
When we got to the SeaView Hotel, we managed to bargain a room for 350taka per night, which is half the price that the hotel manager first mentioned. 350taka is more or less £3.50. After checking in, we did our first set of laundry!!! We were able to hang the clothes outside to dry too, and they were dry in just a few hours.
We spent the day walking the beach again and walking through the forest. Just outside of the forest, on the sand, was a small stall with the green coconuts and we just had to have one! Out came the stall owner’s machete and he sliced the top of each coconut clean off! The coconut water inside was refreshing and is apparently very good for health.
We stopped later in the Angel Drop restaurant again for our lunch (and more laccy!) and we had parathas, chicken pakoras, rice, chicken tandoori, dopiaza and vegetable curry. This really hit the spot and it boosted our energy levels, enabling us to explore more of the beach. We came across a small area of the beach where there was a shrimp farm, and we saw spectacular boats lined up on the sand, like mini-gondolas. From out of nowhere came a few young children playing football and before he knew it, Jon was getting stuck in and passing the ball to them skilfully. The children were enjoying themselves and were pleased to have Jon on the team! The atmosphere on this little stretch of Marine Drive was perhaps EXACTLY what we were hoping to find at Cox’s Bazar: small, picturesque favelas, amazing, tiny roadside stalls and lush vegetation.
As the sun went down once again, we stopped for more laccy before our 1 hour walk back to the hotel. On nearing our hotel, we saw a small kitchen on the side of the street with a couple of young lads inside making naan breads. Neither of us had seen how it’s done before so we stopped and watched for a while. One boy took handfuls of dough and rolled them up into little balls. He then rolled each one out with a rolling pin before putting them into a tandoor oven. The tandoor oven had burning coals in the centre of it, and we watched as the boy stuck the rolled naan bread dough to the sides and roof of the furnace. Each naan needed less than one minute to cook and we had to get one! For freshness, they were the best naans we have had on this trip!