With trains, Cox's Bazar tourism on fresh track

Uniformed attendants with welcoming smiles will greet you at the entrance of the shining compartments of the brand-new Parjatak Express. Once you are in, you will forget the stinky platform-5 of Kamalapur railway station in Dhaka. 

"It is good enough, at least in Bangladesh's standard," a young travel enthusiast, perhaps leading a group of family and friends to Cox's Bazar by the newly introduced train, said to others. The inside is well decorated, with a neat floor, and air-conditioner and automatic switch doors functioning.

Already well-connected by road and air with the rest of the country, Cox's Bazar is now connected by train, 160 years since Bangladesh came under British India's railway network. And the rail link has added a new vigour to the beach town's booming hospitality industry. 

The train started at 6:18am, three minutes behind the schedule. And it reached Chattogram railway station, much cleaner and without a strong odour of ammonia, at 11:18am — a non-stop five-hour journey linking the country's two largest cities. But the next part of the journey, from Chattogram to Cox's Bazar, seems a bit longer as it takes roughly three hours for 102km. The train goes slow, almost all the way, because the works on the new rail track and rail stations have not yet been completed.

The beach town now boasts the country's most magnificent, oyster-shaped station. At the exit, auto-rickshaws are waiting to take you to the city centre, 6km away, or any place you want to go.

Parjatak Express is the latest of the two trains pressed into the new 330km rail route since the first one, Cox's Bazar Express, was launched on 1 December last year from Dhaka. Another pair of trains also run between Chattogram and Cox's Bazar.

This period of year is usually the peak tourist season for Cox's Bazar and trains have added a new dimension, with impacts already being felt all around. 

"We are getting good trips now. Train in Cox's Bazar was beyond our dream even," said Redwan, whose CNG-run auto took us to Hotel Prasad Paradise close to the Sugandha point of the Bay of Bengal beach. The 98-room hotel has almost 100% occupancy now and the trains have a visible role with each trip bringing some new boarders, mostly families who waited for days to book tickets for their first train ride to Cox's Bazar.

"It is because of trains we are getting more tourists and earning more," says beach biker Sohel, comparing his income of the day before with that of two months' average before the launch of train service. He says his daily earning rises to Tk2,000-Tk2,500, almost double the amount he earned before.

Sohel is one of some 40 beach bikers working at Inani Beach and their rate is fixed by the Ukhiya upazila administration, at Tk400 per trip around the beach. Previously, Sohel, a local youth, was a green coconut seller, who switched to this profession since the four-wheel beach cruisers were introduced a few years back.

Beach photography has also grown into a profession for youths like Nehat, one of 50 photographers with registration from, what he describes, someone in the district administration. He takes a snap for Tk5 and transfers the images to tourists' mobile phones instantly. Nehat, who works for a commercial studio, had a two-week training on photography in Dhaka. He gets Tk300 per thousand he collects from snaps and his collection the day before stood at Tk5,500 as the train service brings more clients every day.

In the eyes of rights activists, Abdul Aziz is a child worker who operates a low-height black horse matching his own size, to entertain tourists mostly of his age. The boy charges Tk200 per horse ride and gets a part from it to support his family. The owner has four horses and 12-year-old Aziz is in charge of one. Boys like Aziz also manage horse rides at other points, including Sugandha and Patuartek, a relatively new spot developed along the Marine Drive that links Cox's Bazar with Teknaf.

Rezaul Karim, a beach biker there, hopes the tourist flow will be higher during the off-season this year because of the train link.

More tourists mean more earnings, though too small, for boys and girls selling a pop-corn packet on the road for Tk10 or souvenirs such as shells of oyster or snail, or garland of local flowers, for which they will ask you to pay "whatever amount you are pleased to pay". They are either dropouts or still going to primary school, but they do not beg. They sell something to earn whatever they can for their families.

Being the country's biggest tourist spot, the hospitality industry has been booming in Cox's Bazar. Apart from its wide variety of seafood, Cox's Bazar is also a hub of dried fish, which is a mainstay of the district economy engaging roughly 75,000 people.

Adiba Shutki Arat, one of the town's scores of dried fish (shutki) wholesale and retail outlets, is having busy evening hours bargaining with customers, mostly from other parts of the country, for price and quality. Its owner, Shiblu, says dried fish is a tricky business and the same Loittya or Chhuri shutki differs widely in quality and price. He says they give some secrets only to trusted customers to help them find good ones.

The beach town has a nightlife of its own as it wakes up in the evening. Throughout the day, there is routine office work and business as usual, but the evenings are different, with street food shops getting ready to serve guests till midnight. The footpath along the Sugandha beach approach road remains abuzz with makeshift shops preparing fried sea fish and delicious dishes to tantalise the taste buds of visitors, tired of daylong sightseeing. Families with women and children can be found having food in the open and walking in a gentle sea breeze coming fresh from the Bay till midnight or beyond.

"The town is safe. You can walk in the street any time of the night. Even a girl can sit alone on the beach at 3 o'clock at night," says Rashed, who operates a battery-run auto-rickshaw for Tk2,200 for a round trip to and from major beach spots on Marine Drive. He gives credit to the tourist police for instilling a sense of security in the town. Signs of tourist police are put here and there advising to call them in case of any need.

The municipal authority gives licences and uniforms for auto-rickshaws, which, he says, is another safety feature here.

"And for those who need help at the sea beach can get a lifeguard in minutes just raising a hand above," he adds.

To make sightseeing easier, the district administration and state-owned BRTC have introduced tourist double-decker buses.  

The tourist district can create another job for young graduates, who can work as professional tourist guides. In India's Sikkim, every vehicle taking groups or individuals to any spot must have a registered tourist guide onboard. Here in Cox's Bazar, several hundred vehicles take tourists to various spots every day and drivers themselves work as tour guides. Tour guide is a skilled service which requires training, language proficiency and knowledge about the history and culture of a certain region. The relevant administration can take steps to help tour guides become a profession of locally educated youths.   

Becoming a plastic sea and jungle of resorts?

The beach town's tourism economy is booming on its own with people expanding the services and activities, facilitated by transportation and other infrastructures for the ease and safety of visitors. But it has a cost as it comes with an unchecked invasion of plastic waste. In the sand of the beach spots, in the sea, roads, footpaths, everywhere is littered with plastic bottles, cups, polythene bags, single-use mini-packs of consumer items – toothpaste, shampoo, chocolate, cake. Anything you buy is packed in a plastic bag, which is thrown anywhere.

Of late, the district administration in association with a social organisation, Bidyananda Foundation, in November last year launched a campaign, Plastic Samudra (sea of plastic) with the symbolic presentation of marine fish and turtles made of plastic bottles, to raise awareness against plastic pollution. The bamboo-fenced enclosure has two waste disposal bins at the entrance, with signs: Put a used bottle here as an entry fee. A recorded voice is aired telling visitors about the curse of plastic on marine lives and how millions of plastic waste goes into the sea worldwide every year, killing marine lives.

Bangladesh also has its share in the marine plastic waste menace, which cannot be checked only by raising awareness. It needs strong enforcement. The Indian state of Sikkim offers a lesson to learn. You won't get anything packed in polythene bags in retail shops there. A similar law was enacted in Bangladesh in the early 2000s and put in force, it is no longer in use. Plastic usage has only expanded, and so has its misuse. 

Cox's Bazar can set an example; it can ban plastic bags for retail business altogether in the beach town and along the seashore. Love for the sea and love for plastic cannot go together. A polluting industry must not be allowed to thrive at the cost of marine biodiversity, which gives livelihood to the likes of Gultaz, a 65-year-old woman near Himchhari Point, whose seven-member family lives on fishing. At least once or twice every year, her family has to leave home for cyclone shelters when the sea becomes rough and inundates her home. But every time she returns and starts life again. Her love for the sea is more intense than those coming in flocks to take a bath or see the beauty of sunset when the sea is calm.

Sitting in her son's small tea and piaju (local snack) stall on the beach, Gultaz recalls her old home across the Marine Drive, which has gone to make room for a resort of "rich people". "They gave us a small amount and took away our small land, saying we don't have land documents," she laments.

Scores of signs erected along Marine Drive tell a lot about major business groups and public/private institutions' growing appetite for resorts, which will be built on cropland and grazing fields of local people. The beach town may need more resorts, but it cannot afford to lose its greenery unchecked and see the Bay turn into a "plastic sea" – a death trap for marine biodiversity.