It's been a long time (I find myself writing this too often these days....tends to happen when you vanish for a so long I guess) since the last time I went on a family vacation. Covid has definitely played its part. But my drought of family tours dates back nearly 12 years! No kidding!
Sure we've travelled here and there in between, mostly work and exam related. But none of those could even be remotely called a vacation. Everyone has only me to blame, because almost every time a plan was starting to show promising signs, I had to be the one to nip it in the bud! Sometimes it was exams, sometimes training. And sometimes I had used up my vacation days from hospital to get a few extra hours of sleep in the morning! (Again, no kidding!)
So this time around my sister did the wise thing, shoot first, ask questions later!
I was delved deep into a game of call-bridge with my cousins at dhaka the night before my journey to chittagong. The sole reason I was going back to chittagong was to sleep in peace for a few days and rejuvenate myself for the rigorous training and tiresome ward rounds in the coming days.
Back to the call-bridge game. Just when I was about to demolish one of the younger ones by letting him win a round he was not supposed to, my phone rang.
It was my sister, the conversation was as short.
"We're going to Cox's Bazar the day after tomorrow. Hotels have been booked. Bye."
I was confused for a while as I saw my cousin let out a fist pump for taking the points he expected, I forgot I wasn't supposed to play the Ace of Clubs in that round.
It's a known fact even in my extended family I have motion sickness, and I am not a fan of the fan-favorite medicine Stemetil (seriously, no pun intended).
As a doctor I welcome research, new techniques etc. This was most opportune. I decided to take NPO to the extreme level as a treatment option for motion sickness!
NPO- nothing per oral, a term used very often in the wards for patients who need GIT rest....patients of acute intestinal obstruction, peptic ulcer disease, post op, etc etc. The idea is to not disturb the gastrointestinal tracts and let it rest.
And that was my theory, if I gave extreme rest to my GIT, it might just bee too deep asleep during my journey to bother me with its stupid vomiting and shit (not literally).
So I kept myself NPO (the fancy medical term for fasting) for 14 hours before the journey, and for the 4 and a half hours of the journey! And bingo, no nausea, no vomiting! I proudly threw the empty, unused vomiting bag as I stepped out of the bus at Cox's Bazar!
It was one of the most enjoyable bus journeys I had, ever. Although I am not sure whether it was entirely due to the gloating success of my NPO experiment, or because I had such an amazing time with my two nieces....maybe both!
The hotel we were staying at was called Exotica Sampan, a pretty new kid on the block but my word! That view from the balcony! It was almost on the beach, a 43 second walk to the beach to be precise! Yes, I timed the walk. It was a small resort of sorts with only 18 rooms and because there were no other hotel or resorts around there, that part of the beach was almost empty the entire time. "Peaceful" doesn't serve justice to the frightening calmness of the waves.
The cafe right next to the resort was playing Wind of Change of Scorpions as the sun was setting into the roaring of the ocean that evening. This is a song I have listened to over hundreds of times. Never had it sounded so beautiful, and melodious. Almost as if it was written and composed to be played into the ocean!
No, I'm not going to bore you with excruciating details of everything about the tour, simply because some things are better without words. Also, there's almost no way I can put into words those amber lanterns in the evening....or the precious moments where my nieces refused to take any pictures without me.
@zayedsakibAt the expense of repeating myself, Sunsets are proof that endings can be beautiful too.
