Kool in Kolkatta ... not

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We are in the heat now... and it is winter in India!

Spent a day on a tourist bus roaming around the city. Had absolutely no idea wher we were except we were driving around the city past mentionable buildings which were pointed out on the right but were really on the left and mentioned after the crazed driver, who did not realize he had tourists on the bus who wanted to take shots of the places, had already lurched past aforementioned attraction.

Every time the traffic stopped the bus it was beside a not so fragrant pile of rubbish that was either in the process of being picked through for someone's idea of a treasure or was being dumped into a three sided rectangular cement "storage" place or shovelled onto an already overflowing garbage truck.... any way you smell it it was a lot, a lot of times during the nine hour tour and that is not counting the piles left to themselves or being used as food depots by dogs.

The hotel we are staying at is called The Broadway Hotel. It is in a very busy, noisy, dare I say run down area, and it is not what I bargained for. The building is old (60yrs), dark, has a lift run by a n old man who waits on his bench till someone buzzes for the lift and has ancient locks and doors leading into, again, dark rooms where one cannot open the windows. How this was described in the Lonely planet I will have to check because it is no where near to the usual places Ihave chosen so far! It certainly does not get a "clean" description from me ... and the hot water for bathing comes in a &%*$#*@ bucket!!

The breakfast is served in the bar and yesterday we went to eat our diner in the bar and it was filled with drinking, smoking, loud talking men....not a woman in sight.... Oh well...diner was no gourmet affair and I am still mainly on plain rice .....although

At the 31st Annual Kolkatta Bookfair I did eat a mango ice cream and I have been drinking 7UP. Wendy is very much enjoying her food. I have stopped trying to keep up with her.

The Bookfair is a sight to see. MacMillan, Prentiss-Hall, Britannica, Penguin, Scholastic in the form of Clifford the Dog, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, even Russian publications plus many others were all represented. And it is huge!! I was lucky to find a map about the rock formations of India. Since our wild rides in the mountains the outcroppings have been a mystery to me so now I can satisfy my curiosity as to what is in my pictures. Also at the Tea Board of India booth I bought a boook about the history of tea and received some recipes for interesting tea combinations. I also bought some top notch tea leaves in Darjeeling. I will not let the mice nibble these as they did my tea that I brought back from the NorthSea in Germany where the small town store had a hundreds year old history of tea importation.

The food preparation is a chronicle in itself. The business man's lunch takes on a whole new meaning. When we walked to the tour office this morning at 07:30 the food stalls were just beginning to get organized. The frying pan for the eggs was not washed from yesterdays busy shift of egg frying.The bread cutting wood is given a quick wipe with a rag that has not seen soap or water since its inseption as a textile! The knife for cutting the breqad is taken from the young veg chopper after a quick wipe on said textile and then the bread slicing begins.

A young boy squats on the sidewalk peeling cucumbers, potatoes, onions and dices, chops and slices them in the same position. Others were seen to be sitting on small platforms from which they serve during the day but in the morning the chopping goes on at the bottom of their crossed feet. All chopped sliced and cubed items are put into their respective bowls and are used during the day for the meals that are on offer be it curries, stews, fried rice or vegie noodles. Wendy had toast with egg and even though it was a bit too much bread she did enjoy the egg. I waited till we got to the tour office and even though I looked for bananas I had to be satisfied with bisquits. At 14:00 our tour guide finally took us to a restaurant for lunch. We both had thalis....a huge metal dish with a pile of rice in the middle and 6 sugar bowl sized dishes around the edge of the rice filled with various veggies. When your little bowl is empty or yoour rice is gone the man comes around and gives you more. It was very good ..... a bit too much rice .... and one too many cockaroche ...good thing I killed it with my napkin at the end of the thali!!

Need I mention I am having a bit of a hard time eating.

On the first day, in the search of food I wandered down an alley and there were all numbers of street side kitchens in view. AS we proceeded down the alley we were approached by a handsome man and told that "this place is good to eat at..very hygienic....they was the cups in warm water....we eat here all the time....we are rugby players...." Welll he did look good and he did help us figure out what to have ...so we ordered and sat down on the benches lined up along the wall in the alley!

Wendy had chilli chicken and then found it too hot. I had breaded fish and plain rice with a little salad garnish...very little...could have had more than was served....Mr.Handsome said the salad was very hygienic...I saw it floating in water under an aluminum cover in an aluminum "vat?". Ate this yesterday and i am not even considering a bout of Kolkata Kaos.

Once the tour was finished we were let off at the most touristy area. I invited an interesting english woman who had sat behind us on the bus for a coffee. She invited us in turn to her hotel which was a large number of notches above ours and wesat and had a most lovely cappucino in a classy cafe. It was most enjoyable. I had to confess to her that we were in rather a disappointing place and I hope she did not mind that I thuroughly enjoyed myself in the hotel bathroom ...after all I have used some of the best facilities on three continents!!

Once we left our new aquaintance it was already dark outside. After much asking we finally found the internet place and a place to download my memory stick.

I took some great photos from the toy train and I did some videos too. I will be putting together a petit point ... no .... power point presentation when I get home and then I will be avasilable for speaking engagenment! 😊

Is it possible that 150 million people live in Kolcatta or is it 15million?

At the train station there are yellow taxis as far as the eye can see.

The trams looks like the original cars are still rolling down the street, many with enough coats of paint to increase their dimensions.

The busses all have corners scrapped off and some have been repaired with wood.

Every bus is full of people sitting squished against one another. Will not be taking one of those.

There are no bus stops. A man with bills in his hand hangs out the entry door and shouts ...I assume he is the 'conductor and is shouting the destination... and if you need the bus you wave your hand and it slows doen and you hop on. I will not be doing that!

Have not yet checked out the subway and doubt I will go further than to view the station!

The taxi drivers are rooking me. The next one is not getting a rupee more than 30....they try for 50 ...I have been giving them 40 but tonight I will hold out for 30 and see if it works.

Putting my memory card on CD will cost Rs 100 per disk...I have a 2mg
memory stick but it is not all full.

Feb. 1 we have our first cooking class.

Have to buy a tiffin for our trip to Mumbai. It is a stainless steel combination of 4 bowls held together by the handle clamp. Wether I buy food from a restaurant or just put in my washed fruit and bisquits, i will have something to eat for the 40+hr. trip.

On the train one can buy food that comes in plastic bags or tin foil containers. Water is available. Tea in small plastic cups served from big aluminium tea pots comes around all the time. Who knows where it was boiled. I will take soda pop and water. I can last 40hrs. Wendy has been eating the food on the train...mainly because she needs meat.

Ans speaking of which ...we must be on our way to eat. It is 20:00.
Rice and soup for me ...that's all I can face.

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