One day in Kolkata

So yesterday I spent the day on a little tiki-tour of the city: me, a driver, and a tour guide to take me cool places. It was organised by the man who provided my transfers to and from the railway station.

It got off to something of a bumpy start: I had organised it for Friday but when the car turned up, there was no guide! Apparently there was not one available, so I told them where they could put that, and that I'd do the tour on Monday if they could guarantee me a guide. On a side note, it has been quite shocking how badly people have tried to rip me off here. I guess they all think I'm rich or something. I suppose, compared to them, I am.

Anyway, the driver and guide picked me up at 9.30 on Monday. We went first to the Temple of Kali called the Kali Ghat. I saw where they sacrifice the goats every day; apparently they use the flesh to feed the poor which I thought was very nice. I also got a little glimpse 0f the Goddess, but we didn't go in... I'm not really sure why. *Shrug* On the way out we saw what looked like a dead tree, which my guide informed me was actually a cactus, to which people tie little blocks of what look like stone with red thread to wish for a child. As we left, the guide slipped a seemingly random guy some money. When I asked what that was about he said it was to ensure we didn't get hassled! Touristy destinations, eh?

After that we had some of the worst chai I've ever had in a stall outside before he took me to see Nirmal Hriday next door: Mother Theresa's Home for the Destitute and Dying. It was quite embarrassing really; he took me in and kind of left me to have a look around while he went outside to have a smoke. So here I am, all clean and touristy, standing around in a place where people are either very sick or very working. I left pretty quickly.

Next we drove to the flower market, which is apparently a must-see. It stank of crushed rotting greenery, but if I had wanted to buy strings and strings of marigolds or a neat little crown made entirely out of flowers, that would have been the place! It was also very crowded and I think I got "accidentally" brushed up against a number of times. People always seem to complain about this but it didn't really bother me, apart from the principle of the thing. There's nothing I find very shocking about having a hand brush your leg as you walk through a crowded area, but I know that the men were doing it with sleazy intent so I guess I felt like I ought to be at least a little annoyed. I didn't spend much energy on it though.

We then went to see the Old Howrah Bridge, a massive construction of steel cables which spans the huge wide branch of the Ganges which flows through Calcutta (called the Hooghly River when they don't just call it the Ganges) from the city Calcutta to the city/district called Howrah, which incidentally is where you find the station my train departs from and arrives to. There are two bridges across the river, the Old and the New. You can't always see the one from the other because of the atrocious amounts of smog here, but later on we went to see the ghats on the riverside at a point between the two and you could see both from there. The Old bridge is fairly similar to the new bridge except that the Old has lanes where massive streams of people can and do walk across it (and it looked like quite a walk! It's a long way across, perhaps twice or three times the straight length of our Harbour bridge), and the New bridge is formed of symmetrical wires holding it up, whereas the Old one looks very much as if it had been cobbled together.

The next two stops were the highlight of the tour. The Kumar Tolly is an area where artisans craft the idols for festivals and, one assumes, temples. They are made of straw tied into the required shape then covered in clay a few times, then painted and decorated. We saw them in all phases of creation and I was very impressed with how a few bits of string and some mud can turn a lump of hay into a goddess!

After this was the stunning Jain temple, a confection of marble and mirrors and mosaics. It's difficult to describe, so you should all go look it up - I think there's only one in Kolkata. I wish I could get some of the photos I've taken up here, but I think that's a bit of an ask for the speeds of the computers here! As we left the guide encouraged me to give a small donation to a priest for a little red-and-yellow wool bracelet. It was for protection, he said, although it was immediately after this that I noticed feeling sick (see previous post) so perhaps it is not so good! I am still wearing it though, just to prove to myself how not-superstitious I am ^.^

They took me back to the hotel for lunch and then at 2 o'clock we headed out again. This time we went to the Old Park Street Cemetery first, which was rather neat. Massive monoliths from the 17- and 1800s, memorialising British men and children from the East India Company are crowded in to a small section of land which is amazingly quiet for this city. The light had a lovely green quality to it from all the ancient towering trees, which was echoed in the green of the moss on the ground, although not on the graves: these were scrupulously maintained.

After seeing the riverside and bridges and a quick stop at a souvenir shop where I bought three postcards and they tried to sell me yet another pashmina (I haven't bought one but it seems to be what all the touts think western women want so I swear if I hear that word again...!) we made our last stop at St Paul's Anglican Cathedral. They had some beautiful stained glass there, and the guide told me (a number of times - perhaps I wasn't suitably impressed) that it was where Princess Diana visited when she came to Calcutta. I was, however, impressed when the guide told me that one of the priests or whatever-you-call-'em said that when he saw me he thought Diana had come back to visit! Hehe, I am easily flattered. Apparently she wore a very similar salwar suit with her dupatta (scarf) over her head the way I was wearing mine, when she visited.

So quite a good little day's outing really, though exhausting. I feel now that I can say I have "done" Kolkata, apart from my one outstanding sight which is the Victoria Memorial. Maybe tomorrow.