Today is our second day in Kolkata - having travelled through the night (and eating curry for breakfast at something like midnight somewhere in the air over the Persian Gulf), we arrived here yesterday morning and promptly fell asleep for about three hours.
Driving through the city from the airport was an eye-opener... three lanes of traffic squashed into a space that look only room enough for two vehicles, add rickshaws, tuk-tuks, motorcycles crammed with the whole family plus a hen, and pedestrians everywhere - waiting to cross, crossing, eating, washing - the dishes and themselves - I've never seen anything like it!
The hotel is also crazy - a place from the past for sure, rickety and crammed to the gunnels with nick-nacks and photographs of celebrities, cuttings from newspapers, statues of gods and goddesses... but the room is clean and the airconditioning works - thank heaven. Did I mention the heat? Probably best if I don't.
I expected poverty, I expected beggars. I expected the continual accompaniment of car horns and a crush of people. I expected the smell of strong, stale urine that has you reaching for the hanky to cover your nose, combined with the smell of strong aftershave and perfume, which has the same effect. All this I got, and more - there's no way to walk down a street without someone 'adopting' you, telling you his life story (its always a him, of course), and then finally inviting you to buy from his shop. Its hard to ignore, and ignoring doesn't work anyway. They stick with you. We almost ended up inviting one young man in for coffee in the hotel, he was so reluctant to leave us! I hadn't expected that.
But those a just some of the faces of Kolkata. There are others. Today we had a whistle-stop tour around the city with Suvendu (who knows everything there is to know about the city) and the most amazing driver in the world. Trust me, he is - heaven only knows how he got us around - and he just wades out into the maelstrom of traffic and stops it dead so we can cross. I got a vision of the parting of the Red Sea!
We're off tomorrow to Kurseong, and the story will unfold from there.
Driving through the city from the airport was an eye-opener... three lanes of traffic squashed into a space that look only room enough for two vehicles, add rickshaws, tuk-tuks, motorcycles crammed with the whole family plus a hen, and pedestrians everywhere - waiting to cross, crossing, eating, washing - the dishes and themselves - I've never seen anything like it!
The hotel is also crazy - a place from the past for sure, rickety and crammed to the gunnels with nick-nacks and photographs of celebrities, cuttings from newspapers, statues of gods and goddesses... but the room is clean and the airconditioning works - thank heaven. Did I mention the heat? Probably best if I don't.
I expected poverty, I expected beggars. I expected the continual accompaniment of car horns and a crush of people. I expected the smell of strong, stale urine that has you reaching for the hanky to cover your nose, combined with the smell of strong aftershave and perfume, which has the same effect. All this I got, and more - there's no way to walk down a street without someone 'adopting' you, telling you his life story (its always a him, of course), and then finally inviting you to buy from his shop. Its hard to ignore, and ignoring doesn't work anyway. They stick with you. We almost ended up inviting one young man in for coffee in the hotel, he was so reluctant to leave us! I hadn't expected that.
But those a just some of the faces of Kolkata. There are others. Today we had a whistle-stop tour around the city with Suvendu (who knows everything there is to know about the city) and the most amazing driver in the world. Trust me, he is - heaven only knows how he got us around - and he just wades out into the maelstrom of traffic and stops it dead so we can cross. I got a vision of the parting of the Red Sea!
We're off tomorrow to Kurseong, and the story will unfold from there.
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