Kolkata

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Geo: 22.6473, 88.3104

WB - CALCUTTA 26th - 30th April 2007 and 5th-7th May 07

Staying in Fairlawn Hotel, Sudder St. mad old english place, more a massive guest house with chintz and touch's of Fawtly towers (but well run), even the waiter looks like Manuel but is grumpy - the only time he looks happy is when he is whacking the crap out of the dinner gong. C's ears really sore so taxi'd up rather than bus it (and arrive at the bus station at midday and then try and find the hotel.) Can't get to Darjeeling overnight train til 30th and can only get back on 4th so that part is less days than we hoped so we now have 6 nights in total in Calcutta which is ok too. Tried to book the dearest place in town in Darjeeling as it will be me birthday but due to some idiot plan they have about transferring money in advance they have lost out quite a bit of money and now we are staying some where even better for cheaper in another town nearby Kurseong - Cochrane Place, thanks to recommendation from Fairlawn.

So anyway Calcutta is a bit full on but easy enough to navigate, first task was to buy those Darjeeling train tickets from a foreign travel bureau that has foreigner quota's which was an hours walk away from our hotel and then we overshot it by another hour, d'oh. So 1st afternoon was hot and testing. Good job we did it straight off though due to limited availabilty on certain dates. Weather really sunny, hot and humid but there was a freak storm (very impressive) one afternoon for an hour that took awnings off shops and all (luckily we were safely inside a tea house stuffing our faces) but we did have to wade down to our next stop which was Mother Teresa's in AJC Bose rd (had to wash feet in tcp after as you have to be really careful with any little open cuts). Volunteer work by the way involves washing clothes from 8am-12pm and that's about it.

So Calcutta is not as poor as I expected but obviously there is poor people still there, population c. 15 million. But there are plenty of professional beggars who work the tourist or tourist restaurants and you have to wise up to them quick as give into one and then ten more descend on you. But down in the slum where Mother Teresa's place is no one is begging off you and that's a fairly serious slum. So I think some of the city beggars have read the lonely planet and wait outside the places they recommend. But the street kids who aren't working you are so cute, all they want to is touch you and talk to you, and even though you are surrounded they don't seem like pickpockets as they would elsewhere. The other thing is the pavements don't have those big holes like in Thailand and we haven't seen one rat or anything horrible. People really stare at us though but if you smile or wave at them their face light up and they smile back.

The streets are always busy and you can see people having a nap on the sidewalk day or night. There's are loads of road side eateries and businesses e.g. shoe mending, shoe polishing, men's shaving and the shops can be little more than the size of a long kitchen cupboard with the shop keeper squatting inside and with a cubbyhole in the back he can reach in for more supplies including refrigerated water. Very enterprising. Conversely there are some amazing big air conditioned shops and restaurants and better tea-houses and cafe's than Dublin. There's also a massive market 'New Market' but you do get a lot of hassle there so shopping there not too comfortable (and I even like haggling but the pressure they put on you to buy from them in the 1st place is too much). Also you'll be delighted to know we bought some new clothes (and not those de rigueur nappy pants travellers seem to favour) to replace the ones I wrecked in the wash and now let the laundry wallah (wallah=man) do the washing, he even irons all for 20rs (.16c) an item.

At night you also see alot of people asleep outside which at 1st I was thinking 'Oh my God so many homeless' but that's not it, they have campbeds etc. that you do not see in the day so we think it's cause they have no A/C in their flats, and as this is the hottest summer they have had thanks to global warming, so it's cooler to sleep outside (I remember a friend from Bombay once told me it's the same for them in summer), taxi drivers even sleep on the bonnet or boot of the car. Also they have human pulled rickshaw's which I felt a bit weird about til I heard the taxi wallah's are trying to get them out and it's their only source of income and the hardest part is not pulling the rickshaw as it's all very finely balanced but it's the initial lift up is the only hard part but still I feel weird using them.

They have a massive park in the city centre 'Maidan Park' which amazingly has not been turned into a shanty town - after partition 4 million refugees from Bangadesh had to come here and then another flood of people came after India-Pakistan war in 1971 so it's a busy city. This park leads to Victoria Memorial which after you go past all the british royal blah blah blah stuff has a good display about the history of India (and even the likes of our Irish hovels is cited by the brits when comparing their findings in India). History so similiar it's not funny and even now the things they are debating in the papers (The Times of India is v. entertaining) are all the things we debated 30 years ago - sex education in schools etc.

They have this amazing modern looking Sydneyesque bridge 'The Howrah bridge' here that you cannot take photos of! There's a lot a strange little rules here, like there's a
Marble Palace but you have to get a pemit to see it from the tourist office which (the tourist office) is not open on weekends! Then there's the Indian museum which is so old fashioned it should itself be in a museum, last updated 50 years ago but it was kinda interesting. We met 2 Irish junior doctors one night and got talking about it and they thought it was a joke. Loads of stuffed animals and rocks and a crap fake volcano like you'd see on tv in 'South Park' and even a human baby in formaldehide. But the hindu God statues are cool - famale ones have big firm bosoms unlike normal Indian women. There was even a God called Tara in the 10th century. Speaking of which there's the Kalighat temple (of goddess Kali) which is pretty sacred for them but oh my God what an opportunity to fleece tourists in the name of charity. However they do take this temple business seriously with beheading 25 goats as sacrifice for instance. And there's South Park Cemetary which is some cemetary but is now a monument to British imperialism. Every single grave is a mausoleom, like there's no ordinary graves and they are all for british people, makes you wonder who the hell did they think they were. It is a lovely cemetary but we can't get over how it survived Indian Independence, just shows you how civil they are - I think if it was in Ireland I bet it would have be razed to the ground.

Well after all our time in quiet places earlier in the month we actually went to some bars & clubs in Calcutta. Calcutta is not a late night kind of place (seeing as they are all asleep on the pavements & the heat wakes them early) but there are a few places to go. Bars that are not in hotels are sleasy enough with singing troupes of girls who have a manager who strikes me as a pimp but I am sure it's not that bad. Punters give money to the girls while singing and presumably it gets divvied up between them all and the 'management'. Tantra nighclub is a big a/c modern club, the hindi and bangla music was good but sweet mother of God the modern western stuff was awful, I blame Jayzee C . blames Craig David. The best western song was 'Illusion' by Imagination (showing my age now I know). And then there was 'Dublin' an Irish themed club in a (soon to be 7 star) Sheraton hotel in Salt Lake city (suburb) which closed at 12 and was dearer than the real Dubin for a glass of beer!!! They said it was to keep the locals out, more like the Spanish Armada. There was just us and the 2 irish doctors and we made them stay open til 1.30am, crap 80's music this time.

The traffic here is crazy but at least you get a chance to cross the road unlike Bangalore. But the horn blowing is excessive, like in all of India they drive by using their horn but it's worse in Calcutta and they do it even when there's no need. Was really getting on my nerves by the end, if I lived there I there I think I'd go 'postal'. Imagine in another life if I was an Irish missionary nun then I'd be known as the nun who turned a machine gun on the traffic in Calcutta.

So in conclusion would recommend Calcutta but 6 days was probably a bit too long (we had 2 more days after Darjeeling) and the heat & humidity has me a narky cow now (but we must be tanned as Italians we met at breakfast one day said we were!), so will see if the heat of the south (without so much humidity) makes me any more human.

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