Kolkata, India, Part I

Kolkata, India

My first taste of India came almost as soon as I landed. Kolkata is the third most populace metropoletian area in India with about 17.5 million people. There is only one airport in the city's vacinity and it is a small one. Think a tiny regional airport in the States. The airport does not have a payphone...or an ATM. There is one counter to exchange currency at poor rates.

I went to the carasel to collect my luggage. I waited and waited. I double- and triple-checked that I was at the right one, even though it was the only one with luggage on it. After far too long I noticed a bag that resembled mine sitting on the floor with a couple other bags with a guy in a uniform standing over them. I went over and sure enough it was my bag. The guy asked to see my stub to confirm that it was my bag. I asked why it was over here, on the floor. He said the took it off the carasel because nobody claimed it; so it did not get stolen. This sounds good enough except that I did not claim it because it was not on the caracel, where I and everybody else was looking and expecting their luggage to be. I was waiting before the bags from my flight came out. It is possible I missed it a time around or two but not long enought to warrant taking it off. I explained that, that of course I did not claim it, it was over here on the floor, not on the carasel, how could I possibly have claimed it?

Before I found my bag I was approced by a Candian asking if I want to split a pre-paid taxi into town. (Town is 20km, or 14 miles away and pre-paid taxi exist so that tourists do not end up spending ten times what they would otherwise, which is nice.) He had already gotten another person, a Japanese guy, so we would be three. After I got my bag, while we were waiting for the Candian to get his (his flight landed 40 minutes after mine), I got a fourth person, an Israeli, to join us and split the taxi four ways.

The 20km into town took about 2 hours. Traffic is insane and the roads are less than ideal. Garbage, livestock, people, and vehicles are everywhere. Inescapable. I had a smile on my face the whole time and the semi-strangers that I was sharing the taxi with asked, repeatedly, if I was OK. I was amazed. There is a lot of things I already disliked about India but liked those same things.

There was much difficulty finding an ATM to get some local currency. There are amazingly few ATMs in Kolkata and this is not because it is not a hotbed of tourist activity (it is not, Kolkata gets very few foreign tourists relative to New Delhi and Bombay). Locals form lines for the ATMs that extend for 25 feet and sometimes take up to 30 minutes of waiting. There are not banks of ATMs like at home. If you ask somebody where an ATM is they are not likely to know and if they do, the directions are complicated and far-reaching. If you ask another person you will get instructions in a different direction. Neither set of direction may lead to an ATM. It is likely that they lead to a currency exchanage or a bank, but not an ATM. (This is not because they do not know what an ATM is. It is just because it is the best option when there is no ATM around.)

I had arranged to couch surf in Kolkata but there was a mix up and I never obtained my host's address so I spent the night in a famous Sudder Street hostel. Sudder Street is the backpacker area of Kolkata. I ended up splitting the room with the Japanese guy. Hostels in India are notorious for being terrible and this one was not as bad as I was expecting, after a nice one in KL and a few in Australia, this one was a little shocking. The bed was gross, the shower even worse.

After putting my stuff down I went out to explore a little. I was not in a mood to walk around much but I did not want to stay in the room and did not have another option. The one thing I need to do fo sure was to call my host over Skype and ask for his address so that, hopefully, I could go there the following day. Finding a Internet cafe that was open at 7PM was nearly as difficult as finding an ATM. I eventually found one, called him up, and got the address.

I returned to the room, asked the Japanese guy if he wanted to get some food. He declined and I want to the hostel staff asking for a good place. They told me to go to Blue Sky Cafe, which sounded like an overpriced place for tourists so I thanked them and then ignored the advice. I walked around looking for a place that looked OK when I was approached by a young India guy. Right away I knew what this was; a casual friendly conversation during which he would try to get me to buy something. He gave me the usual rundown of questions in India: my name, where I am from, where I live, am I married, my age, my profession, how much my camera costs, how long have I been in Kolkata, how long in India. My answers: Roberto, Canadian, Bombay, yes, 42, clown, unkown as it was a gift, one day, 4 years. Saying I have been in living in Bombay, India for 4 years caught him offguard and I think he did not know that I was lieing but did know that his chances of getting me to do whatever he wanted were diminished. I let him lead me to a restuarant (it looked good, was filled with locals, and had a menu with prices). I ate while he sat there playing with his phone. He asked if I want to go to his gift shop. No thanks, I said, since I live in Bombay I do not need to purchase any suviouners. He pressed again. No thanks, I need to get back to my wife who is waiting in the room. She was not hungry and tired so she had not come with me. After leaving the resturant and tying again he gave up and I went back to my room.

The next morning I woke up early in an effort to beat the traffic in a cab to get to my couch surfing hosts. I tried to check out of the hostel, which is normally, "Here is the key. I am leaving," but doing so here was an ordeal. I was asked what the Japanese guy will be doing. I do not know. He knows I left, he will talk to you. Is he staying another night? Staying in that room? Is he leaving now? When is he leaving? I do not know, I do not know, I do not know, I do not know. He will talk to you about all this; I have no information about it. Not satisfactory. They went to get him, woke him up, made him come to reception, and give them this information. Why all this needs to be done for ME to check out, long before the checkout time of noon I still do not know. I want to mention here that checking into hostels in India is like no other place I know. Viewing and photocopying of a passport is not commonplace but not unusual. Some countries/hostels do it and others do not. In India you have to submit information that includes you home address, your father/husband's name, where you came from, and where you are going. If you do not know you next destination you better be prepared to put something in the field anyway otherwise it is an issue. This hostel even took photos of each person checking in.

I got a taxi, which I knew would cost about 50INR (US$1-1.25 depending on the exchange rate) from speaking with my host. I knew it was a start shot south so when the driver started driving north I told him, "No. South. Direct." He made a couple quick turns and was soon headed in the right direction. Though he did not know where the address as and had to ask numorous people where to go we arrived with the meter reading, "48.00." Perfect, I though. I handed him a 100 note and expected 50 change. He glanced at me wondering why I was not getting out. I indicated that I needed 50 change. He said, "No, times two plus two" and pulled out a chart that had the meter fare, x, in one column with the actual fare, y, next to it according to the function y = 2x + 2. No, I said, the meter says 48, I am paying 48, thinking this was just some scam. Anybody could easily make some chart to show foreigners in an effort to get more than double the real fare. I put put a big fight because I had been told what the fare should be (50INR) and the meter had a fare (48) that was pretty dead on. I small circle of people accumulated entertained that I was giving so much resistance. In broken English people were saying, "Yes, times two plus two." I ignored them. They could easily just known this scam and been helping out. Eventually I gave up and went up to my couch surfing host's place. The driver and another guy follow me. I tried to stop them but they would not stop. I got to a gate and a guy behind the gate spoke to them in Bengali and then to me in English, "The fare they are saying is right. It is the meter amount, times two, plus two." I replied, "Thanks, but I do not believe you. But it does not matter, I already paid them the amount they claim to be right. It is over."

"I do not believe you." Not the best first impression to make with me host, Anubhav. As soon as I learned he was my host, I explained my logic, because I knew the expected fare from him, it I figured the "times two plus two" was scam. It was not a scam, it is real, but I did get scammed because the fare was double what it should have been. He was not offended and kind of laughed at the situation.

After a brief downtime, me and his other CSer, Joyce, went to explore and would end up spending my entire time in Kolakata with each other. This first day day we went to Park Street, BDB Bagh, Raj Bhavan, Town Hall (which is a "high tech" mesuem of Kolkata's history was entertaining but not in the intended manner. The 360 degree feature was just a series of projector screen, only three of which worked, covering about 90 degrees, and ran off Windows 98), the High Court, Assembly, Victoria Memorial, Academy of Fine Arts, and the planetarium. In other words, we did a lot of walking around in the punishing Kolkata heat. At the end of the day we also half accidentally walked through a rally of some kind, we think political. It was tame and interesting.

The following day was a strike in Kolkata. This is not like a strike in the States. If the baggage handles of American Airlines, for example, strike than AA and its passengers and other employees are affected. For this strike in Kolkata the entire city shuts down. There is no transport, almost no businesses are open, nobody works (unless you are really white collar and have work no matter what). This probably reads like a powerful political, social, or other statement but this could not be less true. These strikes happen so that people have a day off work (not that anybody really works anyway). Protesters are brought in from other towns and compensated. These same protesters will shift to another side if the pay (often a meal) is better. In the morning Joyce and I walked to Kali Temple, which is near our host's home. Finding food was near impossible as everything was closed. In the evening, when looking for food, we saw people, not kids, playing cricket in the street despite the cars, autorickshaws, and motorbikes zipping by. We termed it Extreme Cricket and I am going to petition for it to be part of the X-Games and for it to replace standard cricket all together as it is much more interesting.

The following day Joyce and I attempted to wake up early in order to go to a couple of temples that would require some time to get to but over slept. Instead we went to a flower market and tried to got to the Marble Palace not knowing that we need to obtain (free) permission from a tourist office in advance. The guard kindly said he would let us in any way, if we paid him money. We refused on principle and just continued walking around.

Again the next day we over slept but went to the temples anyway. The first, Dakhshinewar Temple, was old and interesting. After exploring it we took a boat ride to the other side of the river to visit the second temple of the day, Belurmath Temple, which is much newer and more aesthetically pleasing. By this time it was raining but we pressed on any way. It did not matter much as we only had about 15 minutes there before the temple closed for the India standard 3 hour lunch. On that note, we got some lunch of our own followed by some terrible pastries. Then we returned to Kolkata proper and took a look at Tipo Mosque.

The next day we entered the main intellectual area Kolkata, College Street. This is lined with bookshop after bookshop selling more textbooks than you have ever seen. India has an enormous number of competitive exams similar to the ACT, SAT, GMAT, LSAT, etc. except that they are required for everything. Any decent student takes dozens of these over the course of their academic careers, even if they do not seek a post-graduate degree. We also visited the semi-famous Indian Coffee House, which is known as a meeting place for intellectuals, terrible coffee, and for its customers blatantly smoking even though it is illegal (this is one Indian law that is usually followed). For example, when Bill Clinton visited Kolkata he went out of his way to meet with a few famous Kolkata intellectuals there. Well, I do not know about the intellectual side of it in my experience, but I do not doubt it is true considering the number of top notch universities in the area but the coffee is indeed terrible and people smoke recklessly.

The day before I left to Kolkata was a quiet one. Joyce and I walked to a nearby lake, walked around, and watch some cricket. Later in the evening I was not feeling great and decided I should have some soup. Easy, right? No. We walked around for about an hour, mostly in the rain, seeking soup. That is pretty much it. Like I said, a quiet day.

I have heard from many people along the way that Kolkata is their favorite Indian city and, though it is my first, I expect that to hold true for me too. Kolkata is probably the place in India where I will live for a month, as I did in in Yangshuo, China, but that is still to be determined. It is the so-called cultural capital of India and is always has something to offer.