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Published: October 13th 2010
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Victoria Memorial
The memorial and it's gardens were absolutely stunning. The city is starting to gear up for Durga Puja, a five day annual holiday celebrating the worship of the Goddess Durga.
This is what About.Com says about the Hindu festival:
"Durga Puja is celebrated in a similar manner to the Ganesh Chaturthi festival. The start of the festival sees huge, elaborately crafted statutes of Goddess Durga installed in homes and beautifully decorated podiums all over the city. At the end of the festival, the statutes are paraded through the streets, accompanied by much music and dancing, and then immersed in the Hooghly river"
The city becomes awash with thousands and thousands of people, and over 2000 pandals are set up, along with numerous roadside food stalls. Traffic grinds to a standstill, with some people abandoning their cars altogether to continue their journey on foot. The festival is often know as the Rio Carnival of the Eastern Hemisphere.
The Sudder Street area is being gradually decorated with more and more lanterns. It should look spectacular when the festival gets into full swing. I'll try and take some photos if I get the chance. There is also a temple at the end of Marquis Street, which looks temporary,
although so do a lot of buildings in Kolkata, which have actually been there for years. The temple is actually the entrance to a large passageway which folds out into another street. I was walking past it last night and a congregation suddenly started singing from inside. It was fed through megaphone style speakers which has been erected at various locations around the street, and was truly amazing to hear.
I've got a mobile phone sorted out at last, but I still need to try and plan a route out of Kolkata to Siliguri, from where I can make my way to Darjeeling. The problem is that as it's festival time, the trains are booked up well in advance. The earliest date for a train booking I was given yesterday was 21st October. The travel agent is going to try to get me a Takal ticket (reserved 10% quota of train tickets released at 8:00am two days before the train is due to depart) but he says they sell out extremely quickly.
At least it's apparently not hard to find accommodation, even with the festival about to start, which is a relief as I'd been worried I'd have
no transport and no hotel.
Yesterday I took a walk down to the Victoria Memorial, which is Kolkata's pride and joy. I eventually found it after getting lost a few times, being sidetracked by one of the shopkeepers who stopped me the other day to try and persuade me to see his shop (it still didn't happen), failing to use the subway station (massive queue for tickets and no machine), and finding the Memorial initially seemed to have no way in as most of the gates were locked.
It was well worth the walk in the blistering heat, along with the above diversions once I got inside. The architecture and many gardens and water features were beautiful. This along with the sun and heat made for an amazing scene, so lush and tropical. Something you could never get close to in the UK. I've tried to include as many photos as possible, but they don't do the place justice. I guess you'll have to got there yourselves if you want to see it in all it's majestic glory.
I was slightly annoyed with myself that I left a bit early, trying to shake off one of those
self appointed guides you get at tourist attractions. The guy had struck up a general conversation with me while I was taking photos at the front of the building. I could see where this was going so I politely tried to end the conversation and walk off, naively assuming he wouldn't follow me. But follow me he did. He was actually very polite, charming, and genial, but I didn't want someone following me round uninvited and then asking for money. Still, although I can give the shopkeepers, taxi drivers, and rickshaw wallahs the brush off, I'm still on a learning curve, and I was too polite. I should have told him to go away. Instead I told him I was leaving as I was short of time - at which he literally walked me to the exit, hovered around smiling like some eccentric uncle as I was stopped by a well off young Indian couple who asked me to take a couple of photos of them, and then asked me to buy him a mango drink from the roadside stall.
You live and learn!
Other than that I think I've acclimatised quite well, I've found some good places
where you can eat for 130 Rs, and where the beer is pretty cheap. The food's ok, and you get a choice of Indian, Chinese, English, and Italian food. Last night I went out to a bar - the "Super Bar"! which is part of the "Super Restaurant" and "Super Hotel" on Sudder Street - and bought a pizza, two large egg spring rolls, and two 650ml bottles of 8% Cobra Beer, which came to 410 Rs, which is about five pounds.
I'm off now to see if I can get a ticket to Siliguri, it won't be too bad now if I have to wait around in Kolkata as I can catch some of the Durga Puja in the meantime, and hopefully still have a roof over my head.
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Yasmeen
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Good stuff
Just catching up on your blogs.... its all seems great. I am so jealous!!! Just Toughen up, if you don't want something just say NO you don't have to worry about being polite... Looking forward to the next entry