Kolkata

After arriving from the Nepal border on an 18-hour train at 5:30 in the morning, Annie and I needed some down time (I feel like we’re saying that a lot lately) and we’re pretty sure there’s no better place to do it than Calcutta. Wait, rewind, there are THOUSANDS of better places than Calcutta, we just happened to land there.

The old colonial capital (the new one is Delhi) and home to the birth of Mother Theresa’s order, it is a mix of olds and news. The colonial feel is definitely present as is the strong culture the Indians have held on to. Set in West Bengal, Bengali is the language; different from the Hindi belt we were in before in the state of Rajastan (you know, when we did the Taj Mahal.)

Apparently, West Bengal is also known for its sweets. This was certainly reinforced by all the sweet shops, sometimes three in a row. Among the 30 or so choices, most are spongy balls soaked in sweet syrup coated in a sugary dough, like they decorate cakes with. In any case, they are amazing and guaranteed to rot the teeth right out of your head. The other food was similar to what we’d seen before with a bigger fish influence with lots of delicious oily sauces and roti (grilled flat bread). Our default meal was vegetable thali, which is a huge round tray with rice, roti, butter/peanut sauce with potato, lentils, and three other sauces, usually with cucumber and onions chopped up to cool the spicy burn of the curry. Hungry yet?

We stayed on Sudder Street, the tourist drag but also with the cheapest accommodations. After being told the Salvation Army was “broken” we opted for Hotel Maria with rooms like saunas and cats all over the place. Our neighbor was the toilet and right down the hall some guy was storing a thousand sweaters accompanied by a thousand mothballs. I guess the place had its own charm about it.

The town is full of places to visit, mostly due to the old colonial landmarks. Our first venture out was to the National Museum where things are poorly labeled but displays some great Buddhist architecture pieces as well as the Mecca of taxidermy. Annie enlightened me on the process of animal preservation as she took it in college when she brought her turtle, which died in 1984, out of the freezer and into the limelight. Enough about that… we also felt like exhibits ourselves, as people just couldn’t resist “capturing” us with their camera phones, even though photography is prohibited.

Other outings included seeing a movie at the local Elite theatre, a far cry from the masses we braved back in Jaipur. This was a much more pleasant experience and a great way to stay cool in the afternoon. Even the post office was something to see. Large and domed like the US capitol, it has a mini museum right around the corner. We visited the Calcutta zoo also…not much to say. Small cages, overgrown bush, sad animals; not recommended.

Our shining moment in Calcutta was the US elections. After getting to vote by ballot in the embassy in Nepal, we were even more excited to follow the play by play on Nov 4th. Having never been abroad for a happening such as this and only taking up a recent interest in politics, Annie was captain of this endeavor. Once we got to Calcutta, we went to the embassy just to ask where the best place to watch the vote was as we didn’t have a tv in our hotel room. They mentioned a gathering at the swank Park hotel and printed us an invitation. I was dubious but decided there really wasn’t an alternative and hey, don’t things like this have free food?

Because of the time difference, we woke up at 4:30 on the 5th and walked the 15 minutes to the hotel. We got there by 5:15 and clearly were in the right spot, with arches of red, white, and blue balloons snaking up to the party room. With a grand flourish, we flung open the door not really sure what to expect, only to discover we were by FAR the most enthusiastic Americans present. In fact, the only ones present. Soon after, the head of the American cultural center showed up and other volunteer-like folk we’d talked to started to dribble in. Coffee, doughnuts, and sandwiches came out (yahoo!) and we got to watch everything unravel on two HUGE projection screens. Once Ohio got the vote we all cheered and crossed our fingers a little harder. When the west coast finally closed and Obama was declared president elect of the US, people cheered, clapped, and even some tears of joy were shed. The one guy over in the corner, wearing a McCain/Palin button, deck shoes, and a polo shirt, muttered, “it’s only 4 years”. It was a jovial moment so we held back the tar and feathering.

Our rendezvous with our fellow Americans did us good and we decided to go bowling to celebrate the good ol’ Amerrrrrican spirit. Found out the alley didn’t exist and settled for a classy Indian dinner instead. It was time to leave, we’ve exhausted all our activity resources and still had a couple days to burn, which we spent watching pirated dvds and eating. Life is hard.

Our time there ended with rounds of beers with Kristen – our new Wisconsin playmate, taxi to the edge of civilization where the airport is and caught the 2am plane to Bangkok, which was only a 2 hour flight, ate AMAZING plane food and landed in on of the greatest cities I’ve seen yet.