At the end of the last blog, I had left us with Ellie brewing some kind of stomach bug in the Varanasi homestay. We had an alarm set for 4am to get us up for the train, and we weren’t sure how likely it was that we’d make it. In this blog, I will cover our journey to Calcutta, and our first three days in the city which has been, frankly, a revelation.

Wednesday –

As soon as the alarm went off at 4am, I was pretty sure that we weren’t making the train. Ellie was looking pretty ropey, and the thought of getting dressed, into a rickshaw, through the station, and on to the 14 hours train seemed unthinkable. After a quick search, we found another train to Calcutta at 1pm the same day that had a couple of 1st class seats available so we booked that and hoped Ellie would be feeling a bit better by then.

I went outside and paid the rickshaw driver that Harish had booked for his time, and we went back to bed. When we awoke at about 9.30am, Ellie was looking tentatively better, so we entertained the possibility that the 1pm train was possible. As such, I set out on an errand to find the necessary equipment required for a train journey with a stomach bug (sick bowl, loperamide, cyclizine, water, apple juice), as well as finding somewhere for breakfast. I returned to find Ellie still looking better than the night before, so we decided to make a go of it.

As usual, Uber couldn’t find us a rickshaw in Varanasi, so we headed out with all the bags and sick bowl tucked underarm to hail one down. Luckily, a rickshaw happened to be passing by our small road and took us the short drive to the station for a semi-reasonable fee. We made our way through the throng to the platform, and before long the train pulled in.

The carriage was relatively easy to find compared to some of our previous experiences, though because we had booked so late our berths were supposed to be in different cabins. However, the cabin I had still had 3 out of 4 free berths, so we took 2 of these and hoped we weren’t going to get kicked out later down the line. In the end, we didn’t but we did have to fend what seemed like at least 10 different conductors in the course of the journey, to each of which we had to explain the situation.

The 4th berth was occupied by an Indian man of probably about 40, who turned out to be one of our least favourite travelling companions so far. Although polite when spoken to directly, on three separate occasions he listened to a full length podcast on at full volume, two of which were Americans talking about “the Devil” and “Christ” as if they’d seen both walking down the street, the other was some bizarre comedic podcast about the Ukraine war in an exaggerated Russian accent which sounded particularly unsavoury. In addition to this, he had some pretty foul habits including frequently belching as well as continually and (somehow) loudly massaging the bottom of his foot for the entire duration of the journey, except from when he was asleep.

This man aside, the journey was relatively smooth. We spent a few hours looking at virtual tour videos from potential rental properties in Oxford for when we get back to the UK (thank you very much again, Andrew and Louckia!), and trying to talk to estate agents on patchy signal as the train passed through remote Bihar. For the final few hours we were joined by another man who kept himself to himself, and we all tried to get some sleep despite the sudden jolts the train made as it accelerated and decelerated.

We reached Howrah Junction, the main train station in Calcutta, right on time at 3.30am. It was immediately noticeable how much more humid it is compared to Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, and it was still in the low 30s despite it being the small hours of the morning. We passed through the station concourse, which was filled with sleeping people waiting for their early morning train, and out into the open air. We were met immediately at the entrance by taxi drivers (taxis are far more common in Calcutta, and rickshaws largely non-existent), and taken to a beat up old white saloon car to drive us to our nearby hotel.

The taxi was straight-forward and relatively inexpensive, and the hotel only about a 10 minute drive away. We had booked to stay at the Calcutta Bungalow, a boutique hotel in the northern neighbourhood of Shyambazar. Calcutta Bungalow was one of our most expensive stays of the trip, which we had booked given the general advice for Calcutta was to splash out a bit more money for something nice otherwise the accommodation can be pretty dire. We were met at the door by one of the members of staff who clearly had been woken up by our knocking, and shown to our beautifully appointed bedroom where we promptly collapsed into bed.

Thursday –

We had asked for breakfast at 8.30am, and it felt that we’d only put our heads down before the alarm went off again. In the light of day we were able to better appreciate the charm of the hotel, with its rooftop terrace, balconies and many lush plants. Breakfast was served on a long dining table big enough for 12 (the hotel has only 6 rooms), though we were the only ones there. It consisted of eggs, chicken sausage, a plate of fresh fruit, lassi, tea, toast and jam, and chocolate muffins, and went down a treat.

Once we had eaten, we spent the next few hours in the hotel room resting and coming up with a plan for our next few days in Calcutta (including reading the hilarious tagline for Shyambazar in the hotel’s magazine, see photo below). The urban area has a staggering population of 14 million, and it has a section in the India guide all to itself. We worked through the different neighbourhoods, trying to work out what we would like to do in each. Once we had a vague plan, it was getting towards the middle of the afternoon.

We set out from the hotel and towards our local metro station, Shyambazar, only a 10 minute walk away. It was the heat of the day as we set out, and the humidity remained high. Mercifully, the metro was a delight – clean and well air-conditioned – and before we knew it we were in one of Calcutta’s central districts called Park Street. Calcutta has a feeling all to its own, some of which comes across better in the photos. It is cleaner, friendlier, and more diverse than many if not all of the north Indian cities we have been to. During the British Raj, the Park Street area housed most of the British working for the Empire, and the British feel still remains, if in a very Indian way.

Our first port of call was a little cafe just off the main road, which served Spanish tapas as well as a variety of other continental dishes. Ellie’s stomach was still in need of a little TLC, and so she had the pesto pasta and I the vegetable lasagna. The food was remarkably good, as was the coffee and ubiquitous lemon sodas. Once refreshed, we took a stroll through the huge Maidan park as the sun started to approach the horizon. Maidan was made up basically of a huge green space divided into cricket pitches, most of which were in use as we strolled past. At the far end of Maidan was our next stop, the Victoria Memorial.

The Victoria Memorial is a huge marble building surrounded by manicured gardens. We were again taken aback by how friendly the police checking tickets were, and we spent a wonderful hour or so wandering around the Memorial grounds. The Memorial was built by the Raj as a memorial to Queen Victoria (obviously) and now houses several art galleries and museum exhibitions. Strangely, despite its size, it didn’t seem to serve any function in the British era other than looking very impressive.

From there, we crossed the road and took a look around the beautiful white marble St Paul’s Cathedral before heading to the metro and back to the hotel. I had a bit of tutoring to do that evening, after which we headed up to the rooftop terrace for a late dinner and a cold beer. The staff at Calcutta Bungalow were friendly and relaxed, and made us feel at home right from the get go, without standing on ceremony. Feeling like we had made very good decisions in coming to Calcutta and staying the hotel, we headed happily to bed.

Friday –

Calcutta Bungalow was twinned with Calcutta Walks, a company that ran guided tours around the city. We had booked one of these for 7am Friday morning, and so made our bleary way out towards the banks of the Hooghly river where we were to meet our tour guide. Tuhina, our guide, was a woman of probably about 30 who also worked at the hotel and had been running the tours for 8 years. She was remarkably knowledgeable about anything Calcutta, and seemed to have a prepared and interesting answer to even the most off-tangent questions.

We were supposed to be joined by another couple, but they hadn’t shown up by 7.10am, so we started out on our now private tour. Our first stop was the Calcutta flower market which stood in the shadow of the massive Howrah bridge. The flower market runs 24/7, 365 days of the year, selling flowers for weddings, festivals, rituals, and any other conceivable purpose. We walked through the tiny, fragrant alleys, watching the garlands being made, the purchase of kilograms worth of marigolds being bartered, and impossibly large bags of flowers being carried on workers’ heads in the already stifling morning heat.

From the flower market, we walked through some of the ghats leading down to the Hooghly river. Many of the buildings on the river’s edge had connections to Farsi or British merchants, but were now lived in by Calcutta’s homeless communities which were well protected from eviction by the country’s laws. We walked across the Howrah bridge and into the Howrah district, near to the station by the same name that we’d arrive at the previous morning. Here, Tuhina bought us a couple of coconuts, and coconuts for a number of poor young people who had come to ask her for them.

We boarded a passenger ferry to take us a couple of kilometers up the Hooghly and to the Kumartuli district. We disembarked, and Tuhina took us a to a chai stall with a few stools under some shade. Here, she bought us some of the best chai we’ve had in India – sweet and flavoured with saffron – which was so good, in fact, we had a second round. Nearly as good as the chai was the freezing cold bottled water that came out of freezer that smoked with cold when opened, and was life-giving in the building heat. Tuhina told us that the woman making the chai for us had been doing so for over 40 years, ever since she moved in with her in-laws who had originally owned the shop when she was a young woman.

After a short ride in a rickshaw, a rarity in Calcutta as they are required by law to stay off of most roads and to specified routes, we came to the potters’ workshops of Kumartuli. The potters originally made clay pots and the like, but over time the neighbourhood had specialised into making stunningly detailed clay idols of Hindu gods and goddesses for the major festivals in Calcutta in October. These festivals celebrate primarily the goddesses Kali and Durga, during which time the idols are bought and displayed by communities then paraded around and ceremonially dunked into the river.

The idols were made from bundles of straw fashioned into human forms, then covered in layer on layer of clay until it is smooth enough to be painted and decorated. Many of these idols were life-sized or larger than life, and seeing them in the various stages of the process in the countless workshops was absolutely fascinating. Unlike some of the places we had visited in the north, these traditions and the tourism it attracts remained booming in Calcutta which was evident in the fact that so many potters had work the entire year round to make idols to order for the autumn festivals.

Before we knew it, the three hours of our tour were over, and we emerged from the alleys onto the main street. Tuhina directed us to the closest metro station, which we took down towards Park Street and to a diner on the main thoroughfare that was famous for its English breakfasts, called Flury’s. I was a little sceptical, but the food was outstanding and could hold its own with any similar restaurant in the UK. I, of course, had the Full English, while Ellie had a magnificently large beans on toast which amusingly was listed as a “heritage meal” on the menu.

From here, we wandered back towards the metro and to the hotel for a restful few hours escaping the heat of the day. It was late afternoon by the time we found ourselves back on the metro and back into the city centre. We spent an hour or so exploring the New Market, a network of maze like alleys lined with shops and stalls selling clothes, antiques, curios and jewellery. It was reminiscent of a giant version of Oxford’s Covered Market, and made for excellent, if very warm, browsing.

The comparisons to the UK didn’t end there, with the entire area having something of the feel of a West Bengali Leicester Square (if you can imagine such a thing). We walked a little way through the buzz of the city to a recommended restaurant called Peter Cat, which specialised in curries and meat kebabs. The food was again top-notch, and served by a vast number of waiters wearing quite extraordinarily silly hats. In addition, they served ice-cold beer in refrigerated metal tankards which was just right for such humid weather. We had arrived quite early, but even so the large restaurant filled up around us until there was barely an empty table remaining.

Once we had eaten, we made our leisurely way back towards the hotel. The metro had, by this point, proven to be a lifeline to get between the city and the hotel, and was far cheaper and easier than flagging rickshaws to get around. Before long, we were back in the air-conditioned room after another very successful day.

Saturday –

We’d requested breakfast at 8:30 thinking this would be a luxurious lie-in, but it still took several knocks and the promise of real twinings English breakfast tea to get us back out to the breakfast table. As before though, Calcutta Bungalow’s fried eggs etc went down an absolute treat, and we slowly made our way back to the metro to head down to Southern Calcutta. We still loved the 15p air-conned metro, and I took a seat in one of the relatively quieter women-only carriages while Rob chatted away to a very excitable young Calcuttan man who was extremely knowledgable on English football teams.

We had been hoping to see the famous temple dedicated to the Goddess Kali, but classically had forgotten it was already lunchtime and most temples close for several hours in the middle of the day. Instead we headed to a recommended cafe for very European-style coffee and light lunch. From there we went on to a beautiful park surrounding a huge lake with several islands covered with lush greenery and plentiful birds, almost like little nature reserves in and of themselves. The bigger trees all had labels with their names and QR codes for more info, and the park was scattered with Calcuttans on dates or having a siesta on benches. We have been consistently struck by how much more similar culturally it is here to the West than other Indian cities, far more pleases, thank yous and sorrys, far more shoulders and knees out from the women and public hugs from young couples.

We took the metro home for Rob to tutor, me to briefly hop on to facetime with some friends from home who inform me they are all reading this! And then for me to head out in an Uber to another dance class. I had somewhat bravely booked a group class which I thought was Bollywood, and the women via whatapp informed me as ‘completely’ suitable for beginners. The class started slightly late as is Indian (and to be honest my) preference and there was lots of milling and chatting with very friendly women and a couple of guys too who all looked around my age. The instructor didn’t speak perfect English, but with the help of some of these women informed me this was in fact ‘Bollyhop’ – Bollywood and hip hop fusion – and asked me a few too many questions about my dance background.

As soon as the class got going I realised they must have been working on this same routine for weeks – the choreography was taught at an incredible pace, other attendees often went on to do the next few moves in the routine after he taught a few, and it involved seriously complex arm movements. They were, in his own words, akin to Waacking – a style of dance originating in gay clubs involving throwing both arms around your head in a choreographed, fast and asymmetrical form. I probably hit about 1 in 10 of the moves and at several points he asked one of the other women to translate to me ‘try to follow the beat’ but it was all done in a very lighthearted manner and everyone (including me) as clearly having a lot of fun.

At the end of the hour the whole class formed a circle around me and the teacher asked me to ‘share my dance journey’ with them to which I replied with a bit of basic background which was awkward enough. To my despair though he had meant please show us some dance moves from the style you do at home, which I had already explained was largely Heels dance, a pretty sensual form based around the fact its done in a stiletto heel. I refused about 6 times citing several reasons that I couldn’t, including the fact its really quite sexy and the back of the room was now filling up with 5 year olds coming in for the following class. The group however would not take no for an answer and I literally couldn’t see another way out, so feeling like something out of Bridget Jones I let them put on some music and had some kind of blackout while I did some probably wildly inappropriate things. Needless to say the adults at least enjoyed it and I scuttled out to half-joke with Rob in nearby cafe about whether one of the 5-year-old’s grandmas might get me arrested.

After a customary debrief, we walked around the largely residential neighbourhood to a momo/ramen chain restaurant which was packed and looked like it would have fitted right in in a UK city, apart from the fact the huge portions of noodles cost between 2 and 4 pounds. We kept it pretty bland for both of our slighty iffy tummies and reflected on the fact being here has felt in some ways like some necessary home comforts. We headed home, via an Uber the waitress offered me the hotspot on her phone to book in, by this point, staple Calcuttan generosity.

We have actually elected to stay in Calcutta a little longer than we had planned, and so will be here until next Sunday. We had planned originally to go to a Tiger Camp in the Suburbans mangrove forests next, but I had messed up the booking and booked for early April instead of early May (I received a number of whatsapp messages a month earlier whilst on Mt Abu asking “where are you?”, and telling me to “be at the Calcutta pick up at 7am” even though I tried to explain I was at least 1000km away). This plan having fallen through, we had instead decided to go to the state of Odisha to the south of Calcutta but, now we had arrived, we wanted to stay in the city longer. Luckly, when I messaged the Odisha homestay owner telling him we wouldn’t make it, he replied “Good. It’s too hot. Come in September instead.” which I thought was a pretty good outcome. And so, we have another 7 days which we will cover in the next 2 blogs.

Until then,

Rob & Ellie xxx