Parkee is the best

You go to the Parkee Beach on a winter Friday, you'll feel the same. But, how do you go to Parkee? Not that easy. The Parkee beach is only one hour's journey from Chittagong, but the road through Anwara is narrow and broken, and the last three kilometres of the journey, paved with ground bricks as it is under construction, is pliable only by rickshaws and autorickshaws. The CNG-run four-stroke autos also ply up to Parkee Bazar.

From Parkee Bazar, however, you'll have to walk through two contiguous large swamplands before you reach the beach, a mud-packed sandy strip of wide coast, not really very propitious from a tourist point of view. You can neither bathe here, nor squat. For nature lovers, however, Parkee has a non-stop series of wonders to offer.

The water of the sea is dark and murky, and the crabs are not to be found here, but you span your eyes over the horizon from east to west, and you're instantly gratified.

At Patenga, the stationary ships clutter your view, and at Parkee it is the opposite, and if you hold your eyes overlong on the sea, you might feel yourself estranged from the din and bustle of the world. You may feel very lonely, and like a Pantheist you may communicate with the sea in its ethereal language.

The sea is there, but what has most adorned the Parkee Beach is a man-made forest of the tamarix trees (Jhau tree). I've never seen such a beautiful plantation of this sea-friendly poetic tree anywhere else (unfortunately, the tree has failed to attract the notice of poet Jibananda Das.

The trees, grown on geometrically straight lines, offer romantic vistas from vantage point. The high sun on the beach psychedelically counterpoises the cool shade spread by these trees.

Scientifically, Jhau tree is grown around the coast for land retention, and, poetically, it has in its appearance and colour something a touch tragic, which the beach lovers find very ecstatic.

The sound produced by the wind coursing through the Jhau frond, called 'nishan' in Bangla, fills up the air on the apparently quiet beach every now and then.

This abundance of nature, however, goes unappreciated as the tourism facilities are near zero at Parkee. No good restaurants are there to eat, though vendors selling drinking water and tea and biscuits aren't in the want. You may also buy cans of cheap beer and smuggled cigarettes. Certainly, a few horses of the very ordinary breed do scamper on the beach, riding which per round is Tk 20 per person, or a snapshot on horseback Tk. 10 only. No toilet facilities, except for a few tin-toilets erected on the open field, which men can somehow use, but women can never. No security people around, and that is with all these ladies of vulnerable age as visitors! Besides, businessmen having started shrimp hatcheries have forcefully occupied the pathways to the beach, compelling the tourists to take a long detour.

I've collected the information that a master plan worth Tk seven crore has been undertaken to develop Parkee as a full-fledged tourist resort. Only God knows how far it is true!