calcutta - been there, done that

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One last tale from Mussoorie before we continue. David's love affair with the local monkey population came to an abrupt end days before leaving when one wayward monkey hurled a half eaten mango at him. Worse still was that he (David not the monkey) was wearing a sparkly new white shirt bought only the day before. At first David thought a man who had just thrown a banana skin on the road was the culprit but the man quickly pointed skyward and, laughing, just said "monkey". We believed him and walked off, with one of us covered in old manky mango pulp.

So..onwards...to Calcutta

Hardcore travelers that we are, we have just spent 7 days in a super luxurious room in one of India's finest hotels. Costing little more than a travel inn, the Oberoi Grand in Calcutta is a magnificent colonial hotel in the heart of the city - the only hotel in town full of memories of the Raj and restored to all its former glory. With the help of a call to hotel management by Tanuja's sister back home, we pulled the honeymoon card soon after arriving and by the time we left had received cake, champagne, flowers, several handmade chocolate deliveries to the room, a room upgrade, offer of a free lunch at a swanky country club plus a round of golf and free drinks with the manager at a cocktail do for important guests. We were quite a novelty at the party as it was mostly an opportinity for business types to talk business talk and hotel management to tout for new business accounts. Nobody quite knew what to say to our tales of honeymooning around the world!

The hotel was a welcome sight after our first marathon train journey - 1500 miles across country from Delhi. Disaster had nearly struck at Delhi with a five hour delay but we found the clean air conditioned foreigners ticket office with comfy seats and clean toilets and hid there. Anyone unfortunante enough not to have a foreign passport had to find space on the station floor in 45 degree heat.

Our tickets meant the 2 of us had to share a four berth area. Obviously you always wonder whether you'll have to share with a psychopath or raging drunk so it was with great joy that we found one berth empty and the other taken by a friendly and helpful Calcutta resident - our new friend Pankaj Roi.

Pankaj repeatedly insisted that his English was terrible but, despite a noticable american twang due to learning most of the language from US internet downloads, he entertained and looked after us the whole journey.

And it wasn't just 'What's your name' and 'What do you do' which is about as far as our Hindi would get us, but such questions as 'What do you think are the major differences between India and Europe' , ' What do you think of Princess Diana', 'Have you ever been on a magnetic train' and, the one that really got us, 'What do you know about particle physics'. We also had a long chat about David's glittering career as an Oracle DBA which sent Tanuja straight to sleep, and a short chat about diesel engines. It might have been longer if David had been able to contribute more than 'they don't have spark plugs'. You'd never guess he has a mechanical engineering degree

Pankaj told us about Calcutta, about India and it's ways and gave a commentary of places of interest as the train hurtled by. All in all a very nice fellow and a enjoyable journey. Maybe we'll meet again.

Calcutta was great but as usual we spent most of the time wandering aimlessly around taking in the noise, smells, people and places, rather than "doing the sights". The closest we got to sightseeing was the undiscovered Marble Palace hidden away in Calcutta's backstreets and slowly decaying. Imagine Buckingham Palace left to rack and ruin for 100 years and quietly opened to just the odd tourist, with no fee, with no-one else there except an old guide and the watchman. There were paintings by Reubens and Bottichelli pretty much rotting away on the walls, and floor to ceiling carved mirrors in rooms with 10 enormous chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. It was good that we were allowed to see this magnificent palace but it was a site that needed protecting from the heat and humidity of Calcutta or it will soon fall down like the similar building next door.

The outstanding memory of Calcutta was the extraordinary traffic. We have both already experienced Delhi traffic which itself is nothing like you can experience in England - hot, loud, fume filled roads with precious few rules. But the congestion is so great in Delhi that in the worst traffic on the major roads nobody moves very fast so things are manageable.

The difference in Calcutta is that the roads are that little bit wider and the drivers that little bit crazier so the whole enormous traffic mess is moving at 30 rather than 10mph. The buses in Calcutta are real life caricatures of crazed cartoon buses, with oversized offroad tyres, belching black exhausts, covered in vivid graffiti. The taxis look equally intimidating - hundreds of the classic Indian Ambassador car - a complete rock of a car - painted new york yellow. Our first journey in Calcutta was across the Howrah bridge in one of these taxis. Our driver grunted and muttered, one hand on the wheel as we took part in some kind of X rated wacky races, up against the buses, the usual selection of wildlife, autorickshaws, bikes and incredibly, hand drawn rickshaws. According to our guidebook these antiquated vehicles are pulled by men with 'short hard lives' . Judging by the trafic chaos they compete against its not surprising.

After a fabulous week's stay in our five star palace we made the chauffeur driven trip to the train station. We were met by another five hour delay on a train that we were taking to get to Nagpur to see Tanuja's uncle. This time we sought refuge in an air conditioned cafe where we bought food or a drink every hour so we wouldn't get thrown out in the muggy hot station. Unfortunately, no Pankaj Roy greeted us on the train this time. Instead we got a grumpy family who shut us out of the compartment and spread themselves out on the seats to sleep at 6.30pm. The attendant was nice though and Mr Tomato soup man and Mr Chocolate bar man kept us fuelled with food. Even after two months here we weren't brave enough to eat the variety of fried food that was always on offer. 20 hours later we reached Nagpur happy to see friendly family faces.

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Comments

[mum]

fun
Love reading about your adventures - it sounds so much fun and it's great to to live it with you both. I hope other people are sharing your brilliantly written journals - how about a book when you get back?!