Unfortunately due to the germ I got before we left England and
the travelling I haven’t had more than an hour or two of sleep for the past 4
nights and am pretty much wiped out. As
the rest of the group were only arriving this morning, our tour of Kolkata didn’t
start until 11am so we could have a lie in and a leisurely breakfast – so whilst
Ian slept on snoring peacefully, I roamed the room and watched the streets
slowly coming to life as dawn broke.
Fascinating to watch especially a group of 8 or 9 middle aged men who
carried water in two square metal containers suspended from poles. It don’t know where the water source was or
where they were taking it to but they went back and forth for hours.
Keith and Elma were exactly who we thought they were and
they’d also recognised our names – it is indeed a small world. The other couple, Stella and Geoff, seem very
pleasant, although they do walk incredibly slowly.
We spent the next two days touring around which involved sitting in traffic quite a lot :) so I'll just briefly mention some places and add a few photos
We started off today visiting a Jain Temple which was very
ornate and nothing like the one I’d been to in Rajasthan a few years ago.
These two school girls were very happy to say hello and have their photo taken.
After that we went to the tram depot to catch a tram, very old and battered and probably about 90 years old. It moves very slowly through the streets and was a very interesting way of watching the world – although unbelievably noisy.
This lovely old church was built by the Portuguese and the cloisters are now occupied by nuns.
The tram took us to Book Market which as you probably guess
is an area with row after row of book stalls.
We also visited the famous Indian Co-Operative Coffee House where
numerous intellectuals, including Rudyard Kipling, met for discussion; it was
also where Gandhi formed the Independence Movement. It's still frequented by students from the nearby Uni.
From there it was on to the wholesale flower market, where mostly flower heads are sold, either loose or made up in garlands etc which are eventually sold as temple offerings. What I can’t really understand is how the flowers/garlands stay fresh long enough to make the business viable; you’d think they’d all wilt straight away.
From there it was on to the wholesale flower market, where mostly flower heads are sold, either loose or made up in garlands etc which are eventually sold as temple offerings. What I can’t really understand is how the flowers/garlands stay fresh long enough to make the business viable; you’d think they’d all wilt straight away.
This chap was proudly showing off one of the new notes.
Then on to the Howrah Bridge, the 3rd longest cantilever bridge in the world, built by British engineers during the war for the assault on the Japanese in Burma and Singapore and the first bridge we’ve ever been on where photography is banned (don’t know why and we were told to walk along it separately and take sneaky shots.
This young girl was selling some sort of dried herb and I began to think I'd never coax a smile out of her even though she was clearly fascinated.
But .........................
Then on to the Howrah Bridge, the 3rd longest cantilever bridge in the world, built by British engineers during the war for the assault on the Japanese in Burma and Singapore and the first bridge we’ve ever been on where photography is banned (don’t know why and we were told to walk along it separately and take sneaky shots.
This young girl was selling some sort of dried herb and I began to think I'd never coax a smile out of her even though she was clearly fascinated.
