Kauakata is the second most famous tourist spot in Bangladesh. It is the second longest sea beach in the country also expanding at 30 km long and 6 km wide. It is one of the upazilla of Pauakhali district and situated around 350 km away from the capital city, Dhaka. It is named due to the presence of “Kua” meaning “well” dug by the Rakhain community (one of the tribes) in search of drinking water. As the place had a crisis of drinking water this “well” become a very important place for this community and in the end the area named by it. But locals loved to call Kuakata as the “Daughter of the Sea” as the whole community depends on the sea for their livelihood.
The specialty of Kuakata: Being a sea beach it has the charm of the sea like any other sea beach but it has some specialty which makes it unique than others. Locals from Kuakata do not try to alter nature in any way. Even after the great tornado occurred in 2007 and few after that caused a great deal of destruction uprooted so many trees but they never cut them. Instead of keeping those made it unique for tourism giving a different view of a sea beach. It is one of the unique beaches from where you can see both sunset and sunrise both from the same point. Which is rare for any seashore. You can get a lot of fishes here at a very cheap price. It is also famous for its dry sea fish.
Ways to travel Kuakata: Traveling in Kuakata has several ways. You can travel from Dhaka by air+road or ship+ road or directly ship only. From Dhaka airport, you have to travel to Barisal district by domestic airlines which a only a 30 minutes fly. Which will cost you around 2600 BDT as the base price. You also can travel by river with luxurious ships which can will cost you from 600 to 5000 BDT depending on your quality of seat/cabin/VIP cabin. The ship leaves the Dhaka port every evening at 9:00 pm and arrives at Barisal at 5:30 am. This journey is way better than any road and air travel though it takes more time but ships are big enough to be safe and luxurious enough to make your travel pleasant and effortless.
From Barisal, you can take either a car rental or a use local bus to go to Kuakata. Local bus will is very cheap, will cost you around 250 BDT. Rental car usually takes 3500 BDT to 6000 BDT. For a small number of travelers, the
bus will be cost effective. But don’t keep your expectation high on these buses. It takes around 4 to 5 hours with the bus to reach Kuakata but time can be reduced by using a car.
Hotels: If you are coming in the long weekends please give a booking but booking.com Agoda is kind of useless here as most of the hotels are not enlisted in there. So search on the web or google maps they have better information. Call them and confirm your booking. But if you are not visiting during the long holidays then don’t worry just go there you can find plenty of options there. Use your bargain capability and get your best deals after checking the rooms offered. Except from the long weekends price of the rooms is quite reasonable costing around 500 to 10000 BDT. But the average cost is around 1500 to 3000 BDT.
Sites for visiting: There are several spots you can visit in Kuakata like Red crab beach, dry fish village, two famous wells, Buddhist temple, Rakhain market, Gongamoti Lake, Lebur Chor, and Sunderban. There are many bike riders who will rent bikes you give you a trip in the bike. They used to act as a travel guide, your ride and taking about the history of these places. I would definitely suggest you to take these bikes as they travel along the beach and then you will have an awesome adventure by traveling in the water. It will be a 3 hours long journey and costing will be 700-1100 BDT per bike for two person. You also can take a boat and travel in Sunderban from there.
Foods: local food is very cheap here cost around 70 to 150 BDT for per meal. Each meal includes rice, fish, smashed potato or smashed dry fish and lentil soup. But you can take continental foods in the hotel’s restaurant. Fish here is very cheap and in the evening they shopkeepers open temporary stalls to sell fish fry or Bar-B-Q at the beach. Which is too tasty and cheap also enhance the ambiance of the area.
Last of all I want to mention that traveling to kuakata can give you multiple adventurous moments like bike ride in the sea beach (which I will show you in a separate video in some other post), journey by luxurious ships and Sunderban (largest mangrove forest in the world) trip in a very cost effective way. So people who loves nature mostly should not miss this spot to have a real feel of the nature.
