Frozen in Time
That was our first thought when we landed in Kolkata. The airport was built in the 1930s and it appears that little has changed. No computers at immigration, customs was a joke, no ATMs anywhere, and once you step outside you find a fleet of yellow taxis made circa 1950, lovingly called Ambassadors.
The drive to our hotel revealed the modern side, complete with neon lights. The whole city is an interesting mix of old and new. Many colonial buildings remain but most in dismal shape with vegetation growing from the roof and bricks crumbling under the moss that has taken hold. Kinda sad really, there were many times when we said to ourselves, “that was pretty once upon a time”.
We got mixed results after spending one whole morning trying to locate the tourist office to get a map or sign up for a tour. They gave us a map, a free one even, but we were told to come back at 8am the next day with fifteen people if we wanted to go on a bus tour. Since we were the first two people to ask about it that day and they couldn’t remember the last time a tour actually happened, we decided not to wake up early just to face certain disappointment. Instead, we woke up to find out the taxi drivers were on a one day strike. So our travel was limited to a jam packed subway that only has one line, military-looking buses, or walking. We had tried the subway the day before when there was no strike and Mike almost lost his glasses. Not due to any malicious intent, but just the crowdedness of the car. The doors opened and people spewed out, limbs failing. The glasses fell in the doorway of the car, narrowly missing the crack to the tracks, and Heather managed to pick them up before they were trampled. We have no idea how we lucked out there, everything happened so fast. Needless to say we were not going to try that again, one ride was enough. We also passed on the crammed buses. We weren’t even going to try to figure out routes and stops and even if we knew the street name it’s hardly ever signed so we would probably end up riding around in circles. So we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would be walking around all day in 90+ degree heat with matching humidity and found ourselves hoping to be drenched from the rain instead of our own sweat.
Okay, Okay so what did we see? The New Market, which was actually built in 1874, is a one stop shop. Lots of fabric, clothes, spices, flowers, and they’ll even slaughter a goat for you. The Victoria Memorial Hall was built after Queen Victoria’s death and is supposed to resemble the Taj Mahal. We’ll see about that. The building houses a couple of galleries of art and history. The Indian Museum is like an old Smithsonian that has a little of everything. Dinosaur bones, native tribe displays, an Egyptian mummy, and lots of artwork are all inside. St. Paul’s Cathedral looks like a castle from a far so we thought we’d take a peak, but it was surprisingly small to walk around. To beat the heat we saw the only English movie playing one afternoon. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, not recommended.
We found a Bengali restaurant right in our neighborhood one evening and the owner helped us order the best things. We have noted that most restaurants have veg and non-veg sections. Non-veg generally translates to just chicken and if you’re lucky maybe mutton. And lots of restaurants are veg only, this will be fun for Mike.
We also swung by the Consulate one afternoon to see if we could get more pages for Heather’s passport. We were surprised to hear they were charging $82 since Mike had his done for free in March. The price increased on July 13th, we’d missed it by two days! Since she still has four full pages left, we skipped it for the time being.
The train station, although just as crazy as the rest of the city, had a surprisingly simple boarding process. If you already have your tickets (which can be bought online months in advance), you just walk in and get on the train. It was quite the contrast from the complex Chinese system, the Indian trains were not as nice though. I guess you can’t have everything. One thing that was a bit odd, is that we had to go though a metal detector and got a full pat-down to get into a movie theater, but there are absolutely no security checks to get on a train. After dinner and ice cream at the train station we are hoping to cool off a little in the foothills of the Himalayas. Oh, the ice cream, Baskin-Robbins only had one flavor. I guess they don’t have that 31 flavor slogan over here.