Arrival in India

(it's been a while!)

Expectations were high I guess, having been away five years and having never stopped wanting to come back to these lands. Many can't understand why I would choose to come back to the same country (and even the same cities in the same country) time and time again. And I can't even really begin to describe it either - it's just... a feeling I get when I'm here.

So, flying into Kolkata, a city I fell in love with in Christmas 2003 when I volunteered in the various Mother Theresa hospices here(a common thing for travellers to do), I had high hopes to say the least. I met some other travellers on the place who had never been here and I was talking it up allright. The friendliness of the Bengali people. The tiny chai shops in the alleyways. My old guest house, 'The Paragon Hotel', where once I wrote an entire song using the graffiti on the wall for the lyrics. How I once met a local named George Michael (it's true - he showed me his I.D card!) and spent Christmas with him, his wife and child in their tiny shack out in the 'burbs and how easy it was to meet nice, genuine people here.

We get to the Paragon afer an arduous hour long taxi ride with a driver who didn't know where Sudder Street (main touristic place) was. I hadn't been here in five years so wasn't much help. Sudder Street was much, much smaller than I remember - it seemed to have only a few restuarants and hotels dotted around the human rickshaw pullers and hordes of gypsy henna scammers. We look for rooms in this guesthouse I've talked up, and they are TERRIBLE. Tiny cells of rooms with nothing but a bare mattress and ceiling fan for 150 rupees (admittedly only $5NZ, but still!). I'm slightly embarrassed to say the least, but we keep looking and eventually find a nice, relatively clean place with reasonably priced rooms.

Sraight away I notice something that I've never cared about too much before - this place is DIRTY. Everyone's talked about it I know, but for some reason I have failed to see it so clearly before. The alleyways reek to high heaven of urine. Gobs of spit lie everywhere between the dog shit and piles of rubbish. Men spit red fountains of paan into gutters. This time around, I am struggling with the lack of cleanliness...

The Blue Sky cafe, however, is still a traveller's haven. Sam still works there, although he makes no sign of remembering me from my last visit. The staff are lovely there, and in my 1 1/2 days here I end up taking all my meals with them as there seems to be no other place that I deem clean enough on the block! I wonder if I've turned into a hygiene snob? I know there are air-conditioned places in the nearby market, but I'm tired and can't summon the energy to go there and fight off all the touts and 'coolies' wanting to carry my bag for me.

I don't do much on that first day besides sleep, eat and email. Whilst in the internet cafe a storm erupts, and I sit for an extra hour trying to find things to do on the internet while thunder and lightning abound outside. I go to an early bed and try to sleep amidst the traffic sounds from below, the callings out, the rickshaw and taxi horns, the dogs barking...

My time here is fairly uneventful so there's not much more I can really say, except that the hearts of the Bengalis have not changed. Whilst taking a local bus to the foreigner train booking office on Fairlie Place, so many of them try to help me find my stop and offer me directions. When I need a taxi to Howrah Station later that night, a man tries to bargain for me but is unable to get below 90 rupees, an exhorbitant fee for a relatively small journey (were talking three dollars here people! But I'm thinking like a local already, for better or worse). I decide that I still like Kolkata, but that one or two days is enough. It's a city after all, and the pollution and traffic do nothing for me. Bring on Varanasi!

First, the train. As usual I take a second class sleeper and end up with a family who are pretty much the first people on the train and have MASSES of luggage. They seem annoyed that I too have luggage to chain beneath the seats and I end sleeping on my backpack and squeezing my guitar between various sacks of food and clothes. Usually I have great train experiences, but these guys don't seem too thrilled to have a foreigner in the mix and unusally ask me mothing about myself. Our neighbours make up for it however, and askme the usual questions - what is your name, are you married or unmarried, why have you come to India, what is your occupation, in that order! ALong with the family there is a lovely old man who speaks not a word of English but communicates with a smile and a head wobble and his two hands pressed together in prayer position. I like him, although he has a hacking cough and I end up having to listen to him empty his lungs out the train window every half hour or so. I've got an extremely sore throat myself and I try to sleep despite people turning the lights on throughout the night and arguing about the number five - my Hindi is coming back to me reasonably quickly and, although the Bengali language is quite prevalent here, I can make out the words "panch number" and wonder if everyone's in the right seats or what the hell is going on. The ticket dude comes and seems satisfied with my seat anyway (he should be - I checked it about five times) so I try to ignore the anxiety around me. One of my train mates is doing deals on his mobile and telling his friend to go no highger than 'ek-so pachees rupia', or 125 rupees... That's about all I can make out at this stage, but I'm only one day into my journey.

We finally get to Varanasi at around 11 a.m the next day and I'm hot, sweaty, slightly sick and tired and just want a bed. Exploring the city will have to wait I decide. My entry to India has not been as idyllic as I'd hoped this time around, but I will be patient, and wait for the magic to happen... I'm sure it will come...