Blogs from Kolkata, West Bengal, India, Asia - page 4

2014 India Well it started well with my suitcase booked through to Mumbai – on the tag it said Kolkata but I knew I had to pick it up in Mumbai. I got my boarding cards for Cape Town and Johannesburg and was all set. The flight was marvelous – as I am usually a cattle class client to be in business was awesome. Of course I did have a few glasses of Tattinger and why not I had nowhere to go and it was only lunch time I could sleep it off. You get a meal before landing but noooo more drinky poohs for me then as I knew I had to keep my wits about me for India. On leaving the plane I struck up a friendship with a girl called Nikki who was ... read more

I am a little bit “on the spectrum” as they say. Technically (DSM-V) called “high functioning autistic”. But then again, maybe many of us are on the spectrum. And so, making the transition from my structured life in down town coastal Australia, with my routines around my daily ocean swims, meditation and yoga, pedantic meal preparations, and self- talk alone in my house, to the chaos of India requires some re-structuring of mind and space. I had an arduous journey over 36 hours via three legs from Hobart (having spent 3 weeks in Tasmania) to Kolkata. Mind you, i'd had put together the very cheapest flight itinerary as is my bent. I now needed a bit of readjustment to again get into my 'just so' pedantic stride. Arriving in Kolkata by plane was amazing – last ... read more

Kolkata was our last stop in India before we moved on to Nepal. We’d heard and read that this was going to be an intense end to our time in India. However, Kolkata is remarkably unobtrusive: I think that I was hassled by one taxi driver over our two nights there (no tuk-tuk drivers, yay!). In fact, if I had to live in India – and this is a really, really big “if”, like a million-dollar-a-year salary "if" – I’d live in Kolkata. Granted, as in Mumbai, we didn’t visit the slums, but Kolkata has a fair amount of street signs, nice architecture in parts, and a public transit system that is not overly difficult to follow. We visited several of the popular sights, but unfortunately inadvertently chose Monday for our day of visit when all ... read more

Nous avons quitte les petits états du Nord-est qui sont tellement différents du reste de l'Inde: en nourriture (moins épicée), en typologie (tibétains- népalais- birmanais), en religion (la plupart bouddhistes, Nagaland chrétien et seulement Manipur hindou), en coutumes (c'est beaucoup plus propre, les gens jettent moins de détritus dans les rues, il y a beaucoup de poubelles et les trottoirs sont paves et bien entretenus, pas de mendiants et de rabatteurs) et en climat (il faisait une belle température dans les derniers 3 états, nous avons eu froid seulement au Sikkim).Nous sommes revenus a Kolkata, la vraie Inde: une vraie fourmilière, bruyante, assourdissante, sale, pleine de mendiants et de rabatteurs, brûlante de chaleur humide, mais fascinante en même temps. On l'aime bien. Nous sommes retournés au marché de fruits en vrac (tellement spécial), nous avons visité ... read more

So it’s off on the travelling trail again after our 3 weeks (what seems like a holiday period) with Satish & his family. He even refused to take any contribution from us for the Ajanta & Ellora trip – just as well we had made some contribution to the petrol and food. He says it was a gift from Kaka – anyway to both of them and his family a heartfelt thanks for a fun experience. We say goodbye to Satish at Pune station …. The train leaves 5 mins late for our 33 hour journey (aboard the Azad-Hind Express). Anupam doesn’t quite make it to see us off as he is stuck in Lectures at Uni so how Satish got home we are not sure as he was hoping for a lift on Anupam’s bike. ... read more