Kolkata Airport is only about 5 years old and is a haven of
peace and calm at 5am, us from the front of the plane were whisked off to the
terminal and within a couple of minutes out popped our cases. The rep from VJV was waiting for us and the
drive to the hotel only took about 35-40 mins – a good time as the city was
only just waking up and in a few hours would take a lot longer. My camera was in the boot so no photos but I
just love the way the largest/heaviest items are wheeled along on carts pushed by
seemingly very old men. There are 3
types of rickshaw here; auto, cycle and the rickshaw which involves a poor chap
pulling a two wheeled cart. There have
been attempts to outlaw the latter but at the moment for many it is their only
way of earning a living and they are prepared to risk the physical dangers it
involves. We saw rows and rows of carts
lined up and they look so heavy even without any one in them, something you’d
expect a horse to pull.
There are about 15m people living in Kolkata’s 158 sqkm of
City (originally just 3 small villages) but so far there is considerably less
rubbish in the streets than a lot of Indian cities we’ve seen. The driving standards are however on a par
with other cities and crossing the road is a life threatening exercise.
Kolkata was once the capital of India and in those days our
hotel, the Oberoi Grand built in 1860s, was THE hotel in India, it still
retains its old world charm and the staff are amongst the loveliest we’ve ever
met.
As I mentioned before we’d paid for the room for the night
so that we could have somewhere to go at 6am and so we took advantage of the
included breakfast before we had a few hours much needed catch up sleep.