Blogs from Kolkata, West Bengal, India, Asia - page 38

Get that India! Well, Clare bear and I have finally left London - Clare after 6 years and me after 2 to head out on our 5 month journey through India, Sri Lanka and Asia. Leaving London was as expected - sad, chaotic and alcohol fuelled - as we packed up our belongings, gadgets and gizmo's a plenty, had our 300 pounds worth of immunization shots (well getting a rabies shot is always better than actually getting rabies) and packed our 20 kilogram packs of toiletries to head south to our first point of call - Kolkata. After an all-nighter in London, thanks to the crazy She Bu crew, boxing and shipping all of our worldly possessions still in our going-out clothes this was not an ideal start to the 24 hour journey that lay ahead! ... read more

Well we have always heard that the wheels of India turn very slowly. We arrived at the airport 2 hours early only to discover our plane was going to be two hours late. Great way to start. We arrived in Kolkata around 11pm and were very nervous to be arrivng late at night but it was suprisingly no problem. There were even prepaid cabs at the airport so that we would not get ripped off right away. Luckily we had met a friend named Biplob who lives in Kolkata so he met us at a metro station and we had a nice place to stay there. It made me feel alot more comfortable. His house was in an area where there are no tourists. So every time we walked out of his house everyone would just ... read more

Tak dnesny den bol zaujimavy - Kalkata sa mi paci aj ked vzduch je neznesitelne spinavy - miliony aut, smog a prach. Dnes som isla aj metrom a takisto preplnenou mestskou dopravou - podarilo sa mi obist par pamiatok. V mojej knihe ma sice varuju pred sialenou dopravou ale az na vlastnej kozi som sa presvedcila ze chodci tu nic neznamenaju - som fakt rada ze som z toho chaosu vyviazla so zdravou kozou. Takisto to bola celkom osviezujuca skusenost cestovat zase sama - bola som si panom svojho casu a som spokojna. Tu je par fotiek z prveho dna - zajtra rano mam este par veci na plane (zase sa velmi nevyspim) a vecer letim. ... read more

It's a good thing we started our Indian Immersion in Kolkata. 1. Kolkata is simply the craziest thing I have ever seen. A family friend, upon hearing that I was flying to this city, said that I was in for a heavy dose of humanity. He was dead-on. Kolkata is people--people everywhere jostling and shouting, and sounding like they're shouting even when they aren't because most of the city is at least partially deaf from all the noise (fact). The smells are impossible to ignore: underneath the waves of spice, incense, and perfume are strong currents of human feces and urine and garbage. Bengalis pack themselves into this patch of reclaimed wetlands and then treat it like a garbage dump; litter and rubble and human waste are scattered everywhere. Ancient trees seem to sprout from the ... read more

Okay, so I know I'm in love with Ethiel Chelymore Perpetual Zighe Ndaiya, but I just think I might be in love with this country India as well... Calcutta is madness; madness heaped upon madness upon madness; insanity and wildlife and blaring horns; the place is a bustling, noisy, assault on the senses; an urban jungle, a human jungle, a jungle jungle; we saw more of the new and strange and inexplicable in our first day than I could write about in ten; people, people everywhere; a celebration of poverty, such exquisite poverty and dereliction; filth fills the air and so does noise and the unexpectedly sweet and pleasant smells of perfume and spices; people jostle and shove and ask way too many questions and they all sound like they're shouting at you because they're every ... read more