Friday, December 26, 2008

Cox's Bazar

Cox's bazar is one of the world’s longest unbroken 125 km sandy sea beach with a gentle slope . The setting for this beach with its silvery gold sand is tropical-forested hills. The best time to go there is at sunrise and sunset when the sand changes colors. Enjoy water-related activities, shop for handmade clothes, relax and enjoy the scenery.
The modern Cox's Bazar derives its name from Captain Cox (died 1799), a naval officer serving in British India. In the 18th century, an officer of British East India Company, Captain Hiram Cox was appointed as the Superintendent of Palongkee outpost after Warren Hastings became the Governor of Bengal. Captain Cox was specially mobilized to deal with a century long conflict between Arakan refugees and local Rakhains. The Captain was a compassionate soul and the plight of the people touched his heart. He embarked upon the mammoth task of rehabilitating refugees in the area, and made significant progress. A premature death took Captain Cox in 1799 before he could finish his work. But the work he had done earned him a place in the hearts of the locals and to commemorate his role in rehabilitation work a market was established and named after him as Cox's Bazaar (Cox's Market).
After the independence of Bangladesh Cox's Bazar started to get the administrative attention. In 1972 the town committee of Cox's Bazar was again turned into a municipality. In 1975, The Government of Bangladesh established a pilot plant at Kalatali, Cox's Bazar to assess the commercial viability of the heavy mineral content in the placer deposits of the area with the cooperation of the Australian Government. Later, in 1984 Cox's Bazar subdivision was promoted to a district and 5 years later (in 1989) the Cox's Bazar municipality was elevated to B-grade. In 1994 the Marine Fisheries and Technology Station (MFTS) was established at Cox's Bazar. MFTS is a research station of Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute (BFRI) headquartered in Mymensingh. The station covers a land area of 4 hactor and is equipped with 5 specialized laboratories, and one indoor and one outdoor cistern complex.In April 2007 Bangladesh got connected to the submarine cable network as a member of the SEA-ME-WE-4 Consortium, as Cox's Bazar was selected as the landing station of the submarine cable
Cox's bazar is very quickly becoming a well visited tourist spot for Bangladesh and during the months of September and October the beach can get very crowded. Usually hotel walk-ins are almost hard to find, specially the ones which are closest to the beach

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