The pretty city with the dark soul - Kolkatta (Calcutta)

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I was told today it was Friday, it’s a good thing I was told as had I been asked I would not have been able to give you an answer. I have genuinely completely lost track of what day of the week it is and what the date is because these things have simply become irrelevant. It is a truly liberating feeling to not have a single concern about two pieces of information which used to dictate my life and mood. Monday no longer means despair at a full week of work, Sunday no longer means the day to rest (or usually nurse a brutal hanover), Saturday no longer means party night. The only thing I keep a lose track of these days is the time and thats just so I know when to expect my next meal! Thinking about all this made me realise once again why I’m taking this year off and how lucky I am to be doing so.



Initial impressions of Calcutta were good, like Mumbai the streets were mostly lined with leafy green trees and most of the buildings were built in an appealing colonial style which appeared to be relatively well maintained. The streets also appeared to be relatively rubbish free, perhaps a result of the anti littering adverts you see littered all over the city. One thing I did however notice was that the streets and roads of Calcutta were not quiet ones, in fact they were probably the most manic I have seen in all of India, getting to our hotel and parking the truck turned out to be a major logistical operation and a cause of much tension and stress. Our hotel was on a very busy street with 4 lanes of traffic and a tram track (which cars used as normal road despite this being extremely dangerous), we did eventually find somewhere to park briefly although this was a few hundred metres down from our hotel entrance. About half a metre (1 and a half feet) to the left of us was the tram track which meant getting out of the truck and collecting our luggage (locker on left hand side of truck) became a game of chicken, we had to depart the truck very rapidly a few at a time and dash quickly to get our bags before an oncoming tram, lorry, motorbike, rickshaw etc hit us. It was not a pleasurable or relaxing experience especially after a near 12 hour drive and 6am start.



After a very quick shower we headed out for dinner, we had a booking at an Italian restaurant called Fire and Ice, unfortunately we couldn’t find a taxi driver willing to take us to the restaurant. No explanations were given, the taxi drivers in collective asshole unison simply shook their heads and drove off, this was our first experience of the notoriously rude Calcutta taxi drivers. Not knowing where the restaurant was we decided we would walk up the street and try and find a restaurant, this wasn’t ideal as we were all very tired and hungry and now needed to get an ‘on the street’ consensus of restaurant choice, never easy when you have 15 people with different budgets/tastes. To top that off we also had to find a restaurant able to accommodate 15 people at peak eating time on a Friday night in India’s second largest city. We did eventually decide on a rather posh looking place called Marco Polo, it was not everyone’s first choice given it was a little pricey but enough of us wanted to give it a go so we all took the plunge. I was excited about my meal firstly because I love eating in good restaurants and secondly because they served beef, yey! The food, finicky service and plush surroundings were not however to provide the evenings main excitement, no something much more exciting and most definitely more surprising was in store for us. We had realised at the start of our morning drive to Calcutta that our GPS (sat nav) had been stolen (we believe by people who came to fix the truck fridge), it was something of a surprise when I heard a chirpy voice say “did anyone order a order a GPS”, my goodness what excellent service the electronics stores of Calcutta have! However whilst this was indeed a GPS delivery it was not from a regular courier or indeed from a staff member of one of Calcutta’s electronics stores, no, no this was a delivery from a much better known source, it was my good buddy Sonia. To say we were surprised to see her is an understatement, to the best of our knowledge Sonia was back in Toronto having left the trip 2 weeks previously back in Chennai. As it turns out Sonia had decided to rejoin the tour (Jenny had kept this as a surprise for us) after realising that going back to the Canadian winter wasn’t such an attractive prospect, a wise decision. We were all very pleased to see Sonia again and after a few minutes of chatting it felt like she had never left in the first place. As for the food, well my beef was average to decent, nothing worth getting excited about and in all honesty I would say I was a little disappointed (but not seriously), this was certainly no Indigo, but then again neither were the prices.



Walking back from the restaurant the streets were now much quieter, all the street traders had closed shops and the customers had gone home. It was at this point that I noticed a new side to the streets which had seemed so atmospheric earlier in the evening, this was the ugly and distressing sight of poverty on a massive scale. I had heard that poverty was a major problem in Calcutta but hadn’t really seen much evidence of it earlier in the day, with the shops all closed and expensive cars gone it was however now very noticeable. Stalls I had noticed previously on the pavement no more than 2 metres by 1 metre had now become the traders bed and home, families who were selling trinkets on the pavement were now asleep on the small sheets they were previously selling their wares from. It was very upsetting to see children as young as 2 or 3 sleeping on a sheet on the side of a pavement, what a miserable life, what hope could they possibly have for the future? It certainly made me think that perhaps we shouldn’t moan so much about our homes being too small. I was feeling conflicted, Calcutta looked like a beautiful city but the poverty seemed rampant and the atmosphere ugly.



Although I thought the street poverty scene was pretty bad, by far the worst I’ve seen, apparently things have improved considerably over the years, indeed I have heard that in years not long past carts would roam the streets every morning pilling high the bodies of those that had died overnight, often from starvation or other avoidable forms of death. No funeral, no family, a very sad end to a very sad life. So while poverty is still a major problem in Calcutta it is perhaps encouraging to think that things are getting better, although evidently not fast enough.



I didn’t spend much of my time in Calcutta sightseeing despite having two whole free days here. After talking to Becky in Orissa I had come to the conclusion that I was going to buy myself a decent camera, the logic being that I wasn’t happy with my photos and figured that I would be heading to some of the most beautiful places on earth and it would be nice to capture at least some of their glory. I was very much suffering from camera/picture jealousy, especially from those damn Mexican girls who seemed to be able to make every photograph look like something from National Geographic or an exotic photo shot from Vogue! As such I decided to dedicate my time in Calcutta to buying a camera as this would be the last time for a while that I would be in a big town. Being the second largest city in India and also appearing to be very cosmopolitan I figured buying a camera would be a doddle. A doddle however was not what it turned out to be. The first day was a complete, unbridled, epic failure although in reality this was mostly due to poor quality research on my behalf, I had decided I wanted one particular camera which as it happens isn’t yet realised in India. I’m actually glad I didn’t find the initial camera I was looking for as intensive internet research alongside conversations with some very good photographers on the trip pointed me in the direction of both a completely different brand and most importantly completely different class of camera. The Canon 550D was to be my new destiny. Decent electronics stores in Calcutta don’t really exist, those that are available are poorly stocked and are few and far between. I was surprised and frustrated that this was the case considering the size and stature of the city. After trailing around several (and I mean several) stores on day 2 of the big camera search I finally found my camera purchasing destiny, Spencer’s. I ended up getting a Canon 550D with the standard 28-55m lense for 37,750 rps (around 470 GBP), this is a little more than you would pay on Amazon at home but I did also get a tripod, carry case and a 8gb and 16gb memory card thrown in so I didn’t feel too hard done by. I was instantly very pleased and excited with my new purchase, who doesn’t like getting a new toy? You will see photos from my new bad boy coming soon, I hope you can tell the difference!



As I mentioned earlier I did very little sightseeing in Calcutta due the big camera search, I did however visit the Victoria Monument which was impressive (especially from the outside) and set in a very pretty and well maintained park. Becky, Jenny, Sonia and myself spent the later part of the afternoon chilling in the park at Victoria Monument, it was a welcome bit of relaxation after the hectic camera search and numerous near death hell raiser taxi rides.



Calcutta was to be the last stop for one of the original Kathmandu departure crew, my good friend and super awesome (and slightly retarded) travelling companion, Becky Bates. To commiserate (celebrate!) Becky’s departure we decided to go for a meal at Fire and Ice the Italian restaurant we had tried to visit on the first night (this time we walked and actually made it). After the meal we decided we would push the boat out, go wild and really celebrate by going to Calcutta’s premier nightclub which was situated in the very posh Park hotel. Apparently this was the place to see and be seen, we knew it wouldn’t be cheap but we thought it would be nice to say goodbye to Becky a much loved group member in style. Cue major disappointment, followed by laughter at the epic anti climax, followed by a savage emptying of my wallet London style, rounded off nicely by a frankly ridiculous closing time of 23.30, two and half hours earlier than we had been told and were expecting! Still while the experience wasn’t exactly what we had hoped for we all had a great time laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation and discussing how India must be one of the worst and most difficult countries in the world to go clubbing.



The following day, after a KFC bucket, we said our sad farewells to Becky and headed in taxi’s towards Kolkata train station to board our overnight train to Siliguri (from here we would take jeeps to Darjeeling as sadly the toy train is not currently in operation).



So to conclude, did I like Calcutta? Well no I don’t think I did really. Initially the city looked both beautiful and exciting, walking down the street on our first night through all the crowds, smoke and tempting food smells I found the city to be vibrant, exotic and exciting. However the city quickly showed it’s dark side which for me made me think that despite the positives Calcutta was not a place I enjoyed being. In the end the poverty, rude/pervy taxi drivers, congested streets and roads and the general rude attitude of the cities inhabitants were simply too off putting, give me Mumbai any day.



I would like to add a little note that my views are based on a very limited experience of each destination I visit. Due to time constraints it is only possible for me to see small areas of each destination I visit. As such I’m sure I may have missed some great and terrible places along the way and I’m sure my feedback has at times been unrepresentative of the city/town/resort as a whole. Wow that almost sounds like a disclaimer.

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Comments

[sonz]

I love reading about meeee:) You're so funny! That totally made me laugh:) Btw, maybe you already knew this, but I just found out that the GPS wasn't stolen afterall and was in the truck the entire time lol