I've recently had one of the most awesome trips ever and this is me, beginning to tell you "The Tell" of a once in a lifetime experience.
Okay that was a stretch lol. But this definitely was one of the most interesting travelling experiences of my life so far.
The trip was from my home to Cox's Bazar. Now here's a ss from Google Maps to show you how absurdly far Cox's Bazar is from me. So in general, we; my people and me, basically end up dreaming of visiting Cox's and the the plans never gets actualized. I mean there's so many factors! Time, distance, money, people etc. are never in synch with each other to make the trip happen.
I've only been to Cox's Bazar once before this time, and that was back in 2015. Since then I've been a part of countless plans to visit Cox's which, as I said above, never happened.
And this time, there was zero plans for me to go to Cox's and what a blessing not having a plan was for me, cause I'm pretty sure if we made a proper plan, it would've gone down the drain like the rest of them.
Let me start from the very beginning of this story here.
So my semester finals were on. I'm not a very bright student in the class, but I'm not a very laid back "who cares?" kinda student either. I do take my exams quite seriously. So I was quite busy those days with my studies and all. While my exams were going on, one of my relatively close people, a brother you can say, invited me to his wedding. Fortunately his wedding fell in a 4 day gap between my exams so I was like, this is manageable and is gonna be fun. So I was all the way in.
Here's a photo of me trying on the Panjabi for the Holud ceremony.
Anyhoo, the Thursday, on the day of the Holud ceremony, I attended an exam, came back home, took a shower and got ready ASAP as it was already the afternoon and we (the groomsmen you can say) were to reach the grooms house by evening. I left my home, called the others and gathered at a common place by 5 in the afternoon. We were all ready to leave for the grooms place which was half an hour's bike ride from the town. But where's the groom?
Nobody knew.
We waited till 6 at that place, then left for another place to wait longer, and we waited till almost 8 in the night untill the groom finally contacted us and said he went out for a pre-wedding photoshoot with his bride to be.
Now one thing about me is I'm a very punctual guy, or at least I try to be. But even more than that, I try my level best to be a responsible person. If someone's waiting for me somewhere, the least I'd do is contact them and make sure they know why I'm not on time. And this guy kept us waiting for 3 hours and didn’t bother to adress the situation properly. He basically lost my respect right then and there, and I lost the crumbs of interest I had to attend this wedding altogether. But as a member of the group, I couldn’t just walk away as that'd be extremely rude and most of the people in that group actually loved me and were trying to convince me to stay calm. And I was, acting calm at the very least.
So we finally left for the groom's house, at around 8:30 in the night. I was riding a bike with 2 others as my pillions. Right before we reached the venue, I started getting calls; continuous calls. As I was driving the bike, I couldn’t pick my phone. But then one of my pillions got a call, picked it up, asked me to stop the bike and told me, "X is calling you and says its very urgent. You should call him back right now."
This "X" guy is one of my closest friends and I became kinda anxious hearing this. So I did it, stopped the bike, called back, and the first thing I hear is "তুই কি কক্সবাজার যাবি?" (do you want to go to Cox's Bazar?)
I was kinda startled with the whole encounter and had to ask him to explain what he was talking about. And he explained they're leaving for Cox's Bazar, he along with one of his friends, Z, and Z asked him to ask me if I'd want to tag along with them (I met Z only 2 times before this encounter but the guy seemed to like me quite a bit).
I was so dumbfound that I didn’t know what to say. I just casually said "you know I'm going to; I'm at a wedding, right?"
He said "yes I do, but Z wanted me to ask you as he'd like for you to be with us if that's possible."
I confusingly said, even if I were to go, I neither had any preparation, nor any money.
He casually replied that I don't need to think about these. I have to decide in five minutes, and If I decide to go, he'd call another friend of our close trio, Y (we're like the Three Stooges), and the 4 of us would leave asap. The car has been managed and they'd pick me up from the wedding venue, we'll buy casual clothes from a pitstop and for the rest we will go with the flow.
I hung up the call saying I'd let him know shortly.
Now, I was in a fix and didn’t know what do say. Cox's Bazar is like the dream destination for leisure travellers like myself in Bangladesh. And every plan I encountered to visit there, always ended up being just another plan. So I knew this is one of those chances I might never get again, as this was actually happening, right then an there. But there were so many factors to consider here. First of all, my exams are going on. He said we'd be back in town at least one day prior to my next exam but I didn’t know If it was even possible for me to go through that huge syllabus in a day. After that, what am I supposed to tell my parents? They'd never let me leave in a time like this, and I won't like to lie to them for a trip. And lastly, I was basically at a wedding venue, the program had started already, I'm part of a group, and if I want to leave, it'd be rude af and most of them would be disheartened. I didn’t even have the time to carefully evaluate and take a reasonable decision in a calm manner, as they were literally waiting in the car for my returning call.
So I asked myself, what's the most important thought going through my mind right now?
And my brain answered, "This groom made you wait for more than 3 hours like an irresponsible brat while he was taking photos with his bride, you left home before 5 in the afternoon and you're only reaching the venue at 9 in the night, all thanks to the groom. So you my boy, hate this guy along with the situation right now, you don't want to attend this wedding at all, and this is a golden chance to avoid being around this program altogether. Go."
So I called my friend X, told him I'm in, asked him to give me an hour at least to take my notes and pack some clothes, and meet me at 10.
I entered the venue, said hi to the people I knew there, and was waiting for a chance to leave. My closest friend was attending the wedding with me. He was skeptical and didn’t want me to do this during the final exams, but he knew I hated being there so when I asked him what I should that very moment, he asked me to go for it, and dropped me back home from the wedding.
I reached home, gave my family a weird explanation about how I am attending the wedding but I'm going there with two of my friends, in their car, and I won't be home for a few days as the wedding programs are gonna take a few days bla bla bla. I technically didn’t lie, and my dad bought my story. So I was good to go.
I packed my bag, took my notes for the next exam thinking I'd study in the time-gaps I'll get (funny I know), and left my home to meet my tourmates who were waiting for me just around the corner, all ready to go.
Thus began the most awesome trip.
From left to right: Me, Y, X & Z.
Cox's Bazar. My favorite place.
Already I have visited two times & Surely I will go there again & again.
Ayeh man! Even with all the chaos and over-crowdedness, the beauty of the sea makes it all worth it. It was my second visit there and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
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