Kolkata

So after leaving Myanmar I arrived in Kolkata India on a Friday evening ready for the Indian experience. Bracing myself for the worst I headed out from the airport and towards an area containing hotels. However I didn't find the initial shock to be as bad as others had described: there weren't tons of beggars or touts (there were still some though) and the only thing that I noticed was that it was VERY dirty.

I spent 4 days wandering around Kolkata, seeing a few sights but mostly just trying to get accustomed to life in India. During my first day there I just walked around the streets seeing how people live and trying to get orientated. Again I was bracing myself for lots of touts, beggars and the city being very dirty; but the only thing that I noticed was the dirty city. There were a few touts but they didn't bother me as much as I expected, there were also lots of beggars but no more than in Cambodia I think (the second worst place I've visited for beggars). One thing that I did see lots of were homeless people though however most of them didn't seem to beg, they just mostly went on with their lives or slept on the side of the street. Only the homeless children were always begging.

On the second day in Kolkata I visited the Indian museum which was fairly interesting and contained lots of exhibits to see including: fossils found in India, the geology of each province (including rock samples), animals in India, Indian artwork, a description of some of the native tribes, and even an exhibit on Egypt. Exploring the museum took quite a while, but most of the exhibits were poorly labeled (if at all) so at times it just seemed like a random collection of objects (like the rock samples). After exploring the museum I headed down to the Victoria Monument in time to see it for sunset. I managed to arrive in time for sunset; but unfortuneatly the interior closed just before I arrived so I was limited to walking around the very nice and clean gardens surrounding the monument and admiring the sunset.

My third day in Kolkata I walked to Chinatown, or at least what used to be Chinatown. Now there isn't anything to suggest that it's Chinatown anymore except a few old buildings with Chinese signs painted on. However the small alleyways running throughout the area were interesting to walk through and there was a small section where homeless people had tunneled homes into a large garbage pile (not sure if that means they're not homeless anymore though...). After seeing Chinatown I headed over to a nearby flower market at the edge of the river. Holy crap was it busy, I don't think I've seen a busier market in Asia (but maybe it was because it was limited to a fairly small space) and all they sold was flowers. I guess that selling flowers is a major business here. The flower market was also a nice change from the rest of Kolkata as it was very colourful and smelled quite nice (something that doesn't occur otherwise).

On my last day in Kolkata I didn't do too much, just relaxed around Suddar street (the area that I was staying) and used the internet lots to catch up on my blog. I also made the trip back to the Victoria Monument so that I could actually enter the building. The interior was quite good, containing lots of artwork, photographs and more impressively a complete history of Kolkata (although it would have taken an entire day to read all of information there). In the evening I headed to the bus stand to catch a night bus heading towards Siliguri and then Darjeeling, my next destination.






A view of the Victoria Monument at sunset.















An overview of the flower market, see how busy it is?















A close up of a section of the flower market showing some of the vibrant colours that were everywhere.











A typical busy street scene: the traffic was terrible, cars going every which way and mostly comprised of yellow taxis (something I would imagine in New York not Kolkata).