Goodbye Kolkata!

As I was walking down the street one morning, I saw a woman approaching me. I nearly jumped when I saw she had a snake in her hand. I ducked under a gap in the fence running between the footpath and the road. I walked on with my heart thumping in my chest. Kolkata is scary. I try not to be too negative when I talk about living here. There are plenty others who have already written about the horrors of living here. I don’t feel the need to add to it. Yes the pollution is terrible and I may have lifelong respiratory problems to look forward to. But I’m still delighted I came here. I think of the alternative, sitting at home, freezing to death while looking for work and listening to everyone else whining. I’ll take the black lung over that any day. As I was walking to one of the projects another morning, I met some of the children I teach on the pavement. They took my hand and walked with me to the coaching center. Normally, I manage to remain pretty inconspicuous when I’m walking through the city. But suddenly everyone was looking at me. One man even uttered my perennial favourite, “where are you going?” I laughed and replied “Tollygunge!” The other night, a truck wobbled slightly on a bump and deposited a large quantity of dusty bricks ten metres from where I was walking. I raised my eyebrows slightly and continued on. I can add almost being buried under a pile of bricks to my ever-expanding list of near-death experiences. Most of which have occurred while riding in an auto-rickshaw. I’m going to miss autos. I get a peculiar thrill out of them. Mary swears off them ever since she thumped one for driving like a lunatic. When I asked her how hard she hit him, she replied, “not hard enough!” I need things to laugh about. It keeps me sane. The last few months have flown by so quickly. Some of my highlights include being doused in purple powder after being dragged into a crowd of dancers. Last week, I met Declan O’Rourke, his girlfriend Eimear and his brother/manager Edward. After feeling slightly star struck, I got on great with him and he’s managed to convince me to go to Australia. So many places to see, so little money. I’ve my bags packed and I’m wondering if I’ll be able to survive out of a thirty-three litre rucksack for the next two months. I fear I’ll forget something important. I’m afraid I’ll lose something I can’t do without, like my camera. Just like before, I’m apprehensive about leaving here. I know that once I get moving it won’t be so bad. I’m going to miss some aspects of the city. People are so friendly and helpful even if they have no idea how to give directions to where I want to go. I’ll miss the craic I had with my fellow volunteers. I’ll miss the smiles I get from the children and their inimitable cries of “Uncle!” I will be back here in April to fly home but for now, I say goodbye to my daily life in Kolkata.

Puri

A few weeks ago, Mary decided she needed a weekend away. She suggested spending a few nights in Goa but it was too expensive for us poor volunteers. So we compromised on Puri, a seaside town in the state of Orissa. I bought an overnight train ticket as a birthday present to myself! We arrived on Friday morning at 7.20am, bang on schedule. I slept reasonably well on the train. We left the station while trying to ignore the persistently annoying auto-wallahs. We wandered down the street and before long, we were lost. We ended up cramming ourselves and our baggage into an auto. It took us to our behemoth of a hotel, imaginatively called the Hotel Holiday Resort. Its redeeming features were a pool and a nice view of Puri Beach on the Bay of Bengal. The family room which Mary booked for us turned out to have two large double beds. Mary and Kate decided to get a separate room. After breakfast in the Honey Bee café (delicious but slow), myself and Ben went for a swim in the sea. Even though it was the middle of January, the water was very pleasant to swim in and the waves were great fun. Afterwards, we went for a jog and were caught on camera by a Japanese couple. I hope it doesn’t end up on YouTube. I saw my first camel on the beach. They’re huge. There’s a ladder on the side just to climb onto their backs. The feet are so big that they make hardly any impression in the sand. After a quick shower, we strolled down the smelly streets to hire a bike. One of the few nice things about living in Kolkata is there are very few cows. The bikes were old, uncomfortable but more importantly, they worked. We had no idea where we were going. I followed Ben who wanted to find the Lord Jagannath’s Temple. I began to worry when our route became a little too rural for a city. Ben came to a stop in front of a rather fearsome looking bull, turned back and then made a run for it. The bull merely sat down, completely indifferent to one terrified teenager. We found a quiet temple set into a hollow in the ground. It wasn’t the temple we were looking for but it did provide some good photos. We swapped bikes to see who had the more comfortable saddle. Mine won easily. We cycled up a street and had to turn around when confronted with a dead-end. We went back the way we came and emerged onto the edge of a large square. We had found the temple. It was an enormous brown edifice with flags fluttering on top. It was surrounded by high walls and guarded by soldiers wielding shotguns. It was more like a fortress than a site of Hindu worship. Signs informed us that the temple was open only to Hindus. Shoes, mobiles, cameras and leather goods were prohibited. That ruled out my chances of getting in. While eating a strange vegetarian lunch, I became convinced there was a partial solar eclipse taking place. Ben didn’t believe me and to prevent further damage to my eyes, I decided to drop the subject. Pictures in the paper the next day proved me right. At 4pm, we walked up a narrow stairs to the Raghanundan Library, which existed to give people like me a view inside the temple. For a donation, we were able to climb through the shambling structure and see what went on behind those high walls. I got a shock when Mary and Kate joined us on the roof not long after we arrived. They had walked a considerable distance from the hotel. There were pilgrims, workers and lots of monkeys. One of the workers waved at us and beckoned us inside. We could only reply with a miserable shrug of our shoulders.We got a panoramic view of the huge marketplace below us. The girls got an auto back to the hotel and we went back to our bicycles. We got lost again but it gave us an opportunity to pose in front of a brilliant sunset. An ambivalent cow nearly ran off me the road. Ben was laughing too hard to take what would’ve been a priceless photo.

On Saturday, I was dragged out of bed by Ben so we could hire mopeds for the day. Our destination was a small village called Satapada, about 55km south of Puri. We went to the same place where we hired the bicycles the day before. They told us they would be ready in ten minutes. We went for breakfast. We were still waiting for the bikes over an hour later. At last, they arrived and I was given a 70cc moped while Ben was given a 120cc scooter. Mine looked cooler. There were no gears to complicate driving, just the throttle and a rear brake. I was warned not to touch the front brake and keep within the speed limit of 40km/h. The bike was surprisingly easy to ride once I got moving. The horn was useless even when it worked. It sounded like a duck in its last moments of life. Ben was given directions, which weren’t very good. After a few wrong turns, we made it out of Puri intact.The roads were mercifully quiet and I stopped to take a picture of a pond covered in lotus flowers. The scenery was a mixture of paddy fields and palm trees, stretching into the distant haze. It was beautiful and serene.Children waved at us as we went by. At one point, I rode alongside Ben and he said to try flooring the throttle.He wailed with despair when my smaller-capacity moped left him behind. I laughed with glee. We saw a sign for dolphins on Chilika Lake and decided to take a detour. After a series of bends, dips and bumps, we arrived at the edge of the lake. We had barely locked our bikes when the wallahs came up to our faces with offers of boat rides on the lagoon. The prices were far too expensive so we declined. We had lunch in a dingy restaurant.Within a minute of placing of placing my order, my rice and dal were plonked down in front of me. I returned my dal because it was stone cold. It came back reasonably hot. We continued onto Satapada. There wasn’t much there except ferries and small boats. We had to refuse another offer of a trip to see rare Irrawaddy dolphins as we wanted to get back to Puri before dark. We did pause for some photos on the edge of a car ferry and Ben even got to climb up onto the bridge. On the journey home, we saw egrets and bright blue kingfishers. I saw an ox wading through knee deep water with a bird on its back. We made it back safely around 5.30pm. I didn’t want to give back my ride for the day as I enjoyed it so much. But I figured it was best to leave it before I became involved in a snarl-up with Indian drivers.

Mary, Kate and myself in the Sun Temple in Konark.

I spent Sunday morning by the pool with Mary and Kate. Although the hotel was expensive, we were only charged Rs.200 for the use of the pool and a towel. The water was refreshingly cool and clean. We left there at 1.30pm to meet a Swiss couple that we met on the train on Thursday night. After tea in a glass, Mary went to look for an auto-rickshaw and came back with a Tata mini-van that fitted the five of us far more comfortably than an auto would. We set off for Konark, where the Sun Temple was located. After a terrifying forty-five minute drive, we arrived. We walked through the tourist market and found the temple with little difficulty. We simply followed the brightly dressed locals. I arrived and found myself being crushed by Indians desperate to get their hands on a ten rupee ticket. I, being the white tourist that I am, had to fork out Rs.250. The temple is an intricately-carved monolith surrounded by lush gardens. We wandered around the site, taking photos and avoiding the edge of the dais on which the temple is mounted. As the afternoon drifted into evening, the setting sun bathed the stone in an orange glow. I grinned at the figures representing Kama Sutra. There were people everywhere yet the surroundings were very relaxing. After we had seen everything, we made our way back to the van. We arrived back in Puri before 6pm and said goodbye to the Swiss couple. We met Ben who had spent the day on a rusty bicycle doing his own thing. We had a veg thali in a simple restaurant. It was delicious despite my reservations about vegetarianism. We returned to the hotel to pick up our bags before racing to the station. We needn’t have rushed as the train was delayed. After the warmth of Puri, arriving back to a foggy, freezing Kolkata was a bit of a shock. It was an epic weekend, made all the better by my travel companions; Ben, Mary and Kate.