Kolkota, India

Several weeks ago, I went to Kolkata with Tatiana. She needed to leave the country to renew the duration of her visa and I went along for the adventure. We purchased a fairly inexpensive air ticket to Kolkata, India from Dhaka and spent just 24 hours there. (We couldn't afford to take any time off from the office.)

Kolkata (or Calcutta) is one of the oldest cities in India. I was afraid that I wouldn't like it because it was too crowded and dirty. The city did smell like a mixture of incense and sewage at times, but it was easy to walk around and people seemed rather friendly.

Look closely at the picture above. Tatiana asked for a "light" for her cigarette and was pointed to this. It's a rope that is kept smoldering for people to use to light their cigarettes.

Since we were such bad planners for this trip, Tatiana and I did not make any reservations in advanced. We ended up paying a bit more than expected ($65 each), but we stayed at a fairly nice hotel called the Astor Hotel on Shakespeare Road.

Another big difference between Kolkata and Dhaka - it's easy to hail a cab to get a ride around town. In Dhaka - cabs are not nearly as pretty (small beat up Tata motor cars) and they aren't safe. I've been told several times not to take car cabs in Dhaka.

This gentleman saw me taking pictures of the street and asked that I take a picture of him. He even posed for the picture as you see.

Since we were in Kolkata for just 24 hours before having to return back to Dhaka to work, Tatiana and I did some very simple things. We walked all about the area where we stayed, we shopped (quite a bit), ate and turned in for an early evening. We returned to the airport after breakfast for the flight home.

Memories of Kolkata:

• The beautiful room at the Astor Hotel
• My favorite store - Anokhi!
• How easy it was to walk around the city without being overly stared at or harassed
• The one asshole that commented, "nice boobs" as we walked by. (I retorted with, "asshole!" after a quick moment of shock.)
• Burp Card - we had to buy a card with credit on it to purchase foods at the mall for dinner. The individual kiosks didn't take money, they just scanned your card. (We didn't have time to sit down for a proper meal, and ended up eating at the mall in between stores. Surprisingly enough though, the food was quite good.)
• Being stopped at the airport screening - the guards were quite thorough, to the point of asking me to open a box in my luggage that contained jewelry so that they could check. The funniest part about the story was the guard, who was a lady, very nicely exclaimed over the earrings, then asked me to put one by my face so that she could admire how it suited me. She then proceeded to take the other earring and put it into my ear. She was quite nice - it was a bit unexpected as I was a little annoyed about having to open my luggage and have it so thoroughly examined during screening. They even ran my toiletries bag through the scanner separately and opened it to check it visually. In Dhaka, I would have called them nosy since they are rarely so thorough unless they open your wallet to see how much money you have inside. (YES - they do that at the Dhaka airport sometimes. The aren't doing anything but being rude to see how much cash you are carrying.)
• The beautiful old colonial buildings and architecture left over from the British rule.

For more pictures - see my album on Kodak Gallery. (Shocked?! I am too - I can't believe I actually posted everything!! I'm so bad at posting my pictures in the photo gallery!) =p