Linda and Mals Asian Adventure: Kolkatta

Kolkata : Not sure what we expected from Kolkata but it exceeded our wildest hopes. Our accommodation was close to some great restaurants and not more than 10 min to the nearest metro station. Kolkata is quite easy to explore, lots of local buses local ferries and the metro only 10 min away . With such a huge area to explore we decided to spend 6 days. We were planning to go to the Sunderbans Tiger reserve but the boat was fully booked for the days we were hoping to go.

The most famous of Kolkata’s landmarks has to be the Victoria memorial just off Maiden Park. A huge building resembling in part St Paul’s and a few other London icons.

Inside ( no photos ) are some spectacular Stained glass windows and many interesting paintings from the times of the Raj. While we were in Kolkata the 2nd test between India and South Africa was taking place, as I type South Africa are 218 -1 on day one.. so they are looking good, SA also won the first test quite convincingly.

Kolkatta has one of Asia busiest main line train stations Howrah, the bridge over the River Hooghly is also known as Howrah Bridge. From the east side of the bridge the amazing Mullik Ghat flower market can be witnessed. Venturing down into the mêlée is a choice of the fool hardy or just plain stupid, so we did just that and got totally crushed hey ho..

Kolkata has many many old colonial buildings and many have not changed in the last 150 years, our guest house was on the 4th floor of the 1865 Solomon Building the original lift is still working but has new electrics… talking of electrics it is often better to turn a blind eye to the way some of these old buildings are wired I have included a sample of the main fuse board for pictorial explanation.

Other sites we visited were the Park Street Cemetery with many old colonial time graves, really interesting as most of these souls died really young. The Kali temple at Kaligat which was pure mayhem and bloody dangerous, the worshipers were almost frenzy like and the pushing and shoving became quite violent, luckily most of the people shoving were not that strong so a reciprocal shove soon stated our intentions, we left quite soon as Linda was getting worried about damaging her wrist again probably a wise move.

By far the best of the temples was the riverside Dakshineeswar Kali temples North of Kolkata, getting there was interesting as we needed metro, bus and local cross river ferry from the Belur Math Ghat ( and temple complex) . It was crowded with pilgrims waiting patiently and quietly to donate their flowers ( a total contrast to the Kaligat Kali temple ) . The late afternoon sun made it all the more spectacular.

It would be easy to ramble on at length about how we enjoyed Kolkata but I am sure by now you have got the gist.