A short flight across the Bay of Bengal brought me to another colonial destination Calcutta or as it's now referred to Kolkata
I've been to India before so the shock to the senses was not unexpected - smells (good and bad!) noise, colours, poverty pollution and beauty huge numbers of people - there's no where quite like India!!
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| Knife sharpener...note the raised back wheel on his bike! |
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| Indira Ghandi statue |
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| Street temple |
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| Colonial Calcutta - The Victoria Memorial |
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| Illicit photo inside Victoria Memorial!! Don't tell anyone!! |
Pico Iyer the great travel writer describes India perfectly...
"...for the sights of India are, to a large extent, the streets themselves, and the streets are chaotic open-air stages presenting life in the raw and humanity in the round. Through the avenues of Bombay stream sadhus and shamans, bullock carts and cows, rickshaws, rusty Ambassadors, turbaned men and veiled women, three-legged dogs, two-toed beggars, buses and bicycles and rites and sights and more people, more soldiers, more cows. Bleeding into this pandemonium is the confusion of the temples – not, as a rule, havens of meditation and quiet, but the Indian compendium all over again, a bombardment of sights and sounds and smells, monkeys, flames, chants, offerings, holy men, pilgrims, wonder-workers, musicians, more rites, more sights, more people. The streets of India are swollen with an embarrassment of riches, a richness of embarrassments. And it is on the streets that millions live, make love, defecate, and die..."
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| Queen Vic in front of the memorial |
The next few days were spent eating incredible food - Dosas Vadas Puris
Chats and Momos to name a few - and quite a few things I couldn't tell
you the name of - point and eat - food roulette!!
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| Calcutta by night |
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| Tired rickshaw puller... |
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| Typical Calcutta street... |
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| British Colonial Legacies.... |
Calcutta was the British capital of India and the buildings
are on a grand scale - there was more money here than in Rangoon that's
for sure Interestingly they have not tried to remove any traces of
colonialism as in Burma Statues of Victoria are everywhere! India is either a place you love or hate - the
poverty and squalor can be difficult to handle - but it is endlessly
fascinating - just so amazingly different and unique As I said the food
is amazing here - there is even a Calcutta food tour you can go on!
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| Checking the scales.... |
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| Lawyer takes a chai outside aptly named shop... |
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| Shining shoes.... |
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| Sitting on the Ghats.... |
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| Child flower seller.... |
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| Cobbler repairing my sandals.... |
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| Open air butcher...not a fridge in sight!! |
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| The haves and the have nots.... |
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| Down by the Ganges... |
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| Even the trees are holy.... |
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| Dog down by the Ghats amongst the rubbish... |
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| Howrah bridge |
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| There are still a few ancient trams running... |
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| Street dogs take a snooze... |
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| Some of the amazing street food of Calcutta.... |
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| Night market... |
Below - Calcutta's old cemeteries are a great way of getting a flavour of the historical past - where India was known as the East India Company and people died young of tropical diseases
Another fascinating visit was to the old colonial cemeteries - they are
a reminder of both the amazing wealth witnessed by the opulent
mausoleums but also the shortness of life - many of the British who
moved here succumbed to tropical
diseases at an early age and often their children died in infancy There
was even a cemetery dedicated to the Scots who moved out here - they
built an impressive St Andrews Church in the main square here Unfortunately the cemetery is in very
poor repair because of vandalism and grave robbers - a heritage trust
has been set up to help restore it but the going seems slow - but that's
India...
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| Cows, rickshaws and rubbish - India in a nutshell... |
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| Mother Teresa's simple room |
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| Nun number one - Mother Teresa of Calcutta |
The week in Calcutta flew by and it seemed no time before I was heading to
my final destination on this trip - the Kingdom of Nepal
