Well three days in Kolkata have been an experience indeed. The traffic, the beggars, the grime, the filth, the crazy looking street food, the sorry looking dogs, human pulled rickshaws, umpteen numbers of yellow taxis gunning for you in the street, smog, filth, ladies in saris of all colours in the rainbow, and lots of decaying colonial bulidings. Ooh and don't forget the Tea! This is one place like I have never seen anywhere in my life beofre, and am not entirely sure I would want to repeat the experience, though have to admit I am sorry to be leaving before we have seen so much that there is to see here. The weather has been utterly foul today and my newly purchased brolly (following many attempts by hagglers abd touts to advise me reagarding handicrafts and invitations to view many shops) has been put to very good use.
We took a ride on the tram today, finally working out that you just holler it from the street and then leg it across the road dodgind the rickshaws, taxis and any other "vehicles" and try and jump on before it starts moving too fast!! A bargain at only 8Rupees for 2 people for the whole ride. And I think the most interesting way to see the city, took most of my few pictures from Kolkata this way.
We have been for many cups of tea, very very good, in fact just off for another one in a min, we have found a rather decrepit 20s style tearooms with fabulous cakes- and even a pretty good cheese and tommy toastie! So its hasnt been curry at every mealtime :)
Off to sample the first of our night trains tonight- fingers crossed its not cancelled!!! We are on AC3 not AC2 as we hoped for, but I think sharing the carriage with another 2 people cant be too bad. Can it?!
We have as advise bought the lock and chain for our rucksacks- though why anyone would want 2 bags full of smelly clothes is anyones guess, and will probably entertain ourselves with scrabble and more cups of tea!
Varanasi is our next stop, bit ubsure what the touts will be like here, think it is bound to be worse than here, though we are now quite adept at pretending to hold an in depth conversation with one another whilst completely ignoring the "sir, sir, come and have a look in my shop"... This seems to do the trick, thoughf feels incredibally rude to do this, but we really do not need a rack of new clothes each and numerous handicrafts!!
