A taste of Kolkata
Bracing ourselves for an onslaught to the senses (Oh the Humanity! style), we were both almost a little disappointed as we emerged from the Kolkata airport last night to see such a small number of people wandering around. It felt like a rural airport in country WA rather than the international terminal of a city with the same population as all of Australia. To be fair it was nearly midnight on a weekend, but we had been led to believe (and one could reasonably expect) that fitting over a billion people into a country half the size of Australia would mean that people would be shoulder to shoulder everywhere, all the time. But in fact no - our experiences so far would refute that.
Arriving into Kolkata at almost midnight and being the middle-aged soft travellers we have become, we had booked into a top end hotel on the first night. We may have over compensated a bit as the hotel was a little OTT (just a little). If the 40 foot ceilinged marble lobby didn't tell us that, then perhaps it was the two-bedroom suite with couches in both the main room and the sun lounge...
Taking one look at us in our backpacking gear, the reception staff whisked us away to an isolated room on an empty floor so the regular hotel guests didn't have to see the types of riff raff that Internet booking allows to get in the door these days. Nevertheless, the shower was luxury, the pillows were plumped to perfection and the airconditioning was working so hard the earth herself was screaming. We slept like lamingtons, ready to take on Day 1 in India.
It appears Al may be a Kolkattan. Just like Al the city gets off to a slow start in the morning, despite the sun rising relatively early on this side of the country. People make their way through the day, but things don't really start to come alive until after dark. At 1am you'll find people wandering in to restaurants to order dinner. Apparently 10:30pm is a normal time for dinner. Which is about half an hour after Michelle's bedtime.
The day started with a walking tour of the back streets of 'black town', which is where regular Bengali people live, many in the houses where their ancestors lived before them. Black town is north of 'White town' where the Brits lived in the height of the Dutch East India Co days. It's hard to know if this is so named because of the colour of the skin of the residents, or the sheer amount of white marble monuments and buildings in the area. I suspect the former, given its history.
We wandered though the narrow streets of crumbling houses that used to be owned by the gentry of the Raj era. What we saw wasn't so different from many other '2nd world' countries we've been to previously.
Our patriotic Bengali guide told us that the people of Kolkata are the intellectuals and artists of India. This is (according to the guide) because they've never really had to work too hard. Water and produce is plentiful, as is seafood, which has meant that people spend less time subsisting and have more time for philosophical debate, education and learning. It is said that a Kolkattan cannot digest his meal without a hearty intellectual conversation to wash it down.
Later on we headed to the Victoria Monument, a huge marble structure built in the early 20th century in dedication to the British queen. The building is spectacular but the highlight was definitely the crowd control. As you enter the first gallery of photographs, rather then the usual hush that falls in a Western Art Gallery you are met with a harsh whistle being blown by a guard who is also yelling at people every minute or so to keep them on the correct path (clockwise around the room, not too slow as to hold up the procession of people).
Lessons learned today:
1. Not everything is as it seems (or don't judge a book by its cover, especially in dimly lit restaurants). Some of the green beans in your Biryani rice may, in fact, be green chilies. Michelle learned this the hard way, in a ten minute exercise where she went whiter than the British Raj, tears started streaming down her face and she was grabbing for any cooling liquid she could find within arms' reach. It wasn't until the chuckling waiter had helpfully brought a shot of sugar syrup that Michelle regained the ability to breathe.
2. Not everything is in your control. Despite your best efforts to stay 'food safe' - don't drink the tap water, avoid uncooked vegetables, don't eat the meat, you're probably still going to get sick at some stage due to circumstances out of your control. Case in point - same restaurant, we noted the charming gesture of the waiter of carefully wiping our plates 'clean' with a white cloth prior to serving our food. Same waiter, a few minutes later, carries the next customer's meal down the stairs with one hand, while with the other he holds the handrail... with the cloth between his hand and the rail. All the way down the stairs, gets to the customer's table, and with a flourish wipes the plate clean with said cloth before serving up the meal. Not everything's in your control. Roll the dice, relax. Keep the Imodium close by.
3. Indians love a good adjective. One of the pearlers we came across today included describing Kolkata as 'indescribable; a phantasmagorical blend of old and new'.
4. This one makes the list because it made me laugh when Michelle said it. An external keyboard's nice with an iPad. The onscreen keyboard's OK for typing in initially, but then doing subsequent editing, moving stuff around on screen etc is difficult with a touch interface. To quote Michelle, 'the old finger's a bit of a pain in the arse, as it were.'
Next stop, the train station. We have an overnight train tonight leaving Sealdah station, next stop NJP en route to Darjeeling, the land of tea and mountains.
Slumming it in Kolkata. Behind that curtain is a whole other room.
A walk through the streets and markets of "black town"
That's not a knife...THAT's a knife.
Victoria's place.
Arriving into Kolkata at almost midnight and being the middle-aged soft travellers we have become, we had booked into a top end hotel on the first night. We may have over compensated a bit as the hotel was a little OTT (just a little). If the 40 foot ceilinged marble lobby didn't tell us that, then perhaps it was the two-bedroom suite with couches in both the main room and the sun lounge...
Taking one look at us in our backpacking gear, the reception staff whisked us away to an isolated room on an empty floor so the regular hotel guests didn't have to see the types of riff raff that Internet booking allows to get in the door these days. Nevertheless, the shower was luxury, the pillows were plumped to perfection and the airconditioning was working so hard the earth herself was screaming. We slept like lamingtons, ready to take on Day 1 in India.
It appears Al may be a Kolkattan. Just like Al the city gets off to a slow start in the morning, despite the sun rising relatively early on this side of the country. People make their way through the day, but things don't really start to come alive until after dark. At 1am you'll find people wandering in to restaurants to order dinner. Apparently 10:30pm is a normal time for dinner. Which is about half an hour after Michelle's bedtime.
The day started with a walking tour of the back streets of 'black town', which is where regular Bengali people live, many in the houses where their ancestors lived before them. Black town is north of 'White town' where the Brits lived in the height of the Dutch East India Co days. It's hard to know if this is so named because of the colour of the skin of the residents, or the sheer amount of white marble monuments and buildings in the area. I suspect the former, given its history.
We wandered though the narrow streets of crumbling houses that used to be owned by the gentry of the Raj era. What we saw wasn't so different from many other '2nd world' countries we've been to previously.
Our patriotic Bengali guide told us that the people of Kolkata are the intellectuals and artists of India. This is (according to the guide) because they've never really had to work too hard. Water and produce is plentiful, as is seafood, which has meant that people spend less time subsisting and have more time for philosophical debate, education and learning. It is said that a Kolkattan cannot digest his meal without a hearty intellectual conversation to wash it down.
Later on we headed to the Victoria Monument, a huge marble structure built in the early 20th century in dedication to the British queen. The building is spectacular but the highlight was definitely the crowd control. As you enter the first gallery of photographs, rather then the usual hush that falls in a Western Art Gallery you are met with a harsh whistle being blown by a guard who is also yelling at people every minute or so to keep them on the correct path (clockwise around the room, not too slow as to hold up the procession of people).
Lessons learned today:
1. Not everything is as it seems (or don't judge a book by its cover, especially in dimly lit restaurants). Some of the green beans in your Biryani rice may, in fact, be green chilies. Michelle learned this the hard way, in a ten minute exercise where she went whiter than the British Raj, tears started streaming down her face and she was grabbing for any cooling liquid she could find within arms' reach. It wasn't until the chuckling waiter had helpfully brought a shot of sugar syrup that Michelle regained the ability to breathe.
2. Not everything is in your control. Despite your best efforts to stay 'food safe' - don't drink the tap water, avoid uncooked vegetables, don't eat the meat, you're probably still going to get sick at some stage due to circumstances out of your control. Case in point - same restaurant, we noted the charming gesture of the waiter of carefully wiping our plates 'clean' with a white cloth prior to serving our food. Same waiter, a few minutes later, carries the next customer's meal down the stairs with one hand, while with the other he holds the handrail... with the cloth between his hand and the rail. All the way down the stairs, gets to the customer's table, and with a flourish wipes the plate clean with said cloth before serving up the meal. Not everything's in your control. Roll the dice, relax. Keep the Imodium close by.
3. Indians love a good adjective. One of the pearlers we came across today included describing Kolkata as 'indescribable; a phantasmagorical blend of old and new'.
4. This one makes the list because it made me laugh when Michelle said it. An external keyboard's nice with an iPad. The onscreen keyboard's OK for typing in initially, but then doing subsequent editing, moving stuff around on screen etc is difficult with a touch interface. To quote Michelle, 'the old finger's a bit of a pain in the arse, as it were.'
Next stop, the train station. We have an overnight train tonight leaving Sealdah station, next stop NJP en route to Darjeeling, the land of tea and mountains.
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