Category Archives: travel

As my niece laura said, you can’t take pictures to show anyone what it is like here because every second you think, “what the heck?”  I love early mornings when I travel. I always try to catch at least one sunrise on any trip.  This morning I get up early and headed to the Newmarket area. It is an old building from 1874 that you can’t get far enough back from to fit in one frame.

I was on a corner just down the road when I heard birds cheeping beside me.  I looked down and saw a bicycle with at least 50 chickens strung up in four bundles by their feet.  Then I noticed a bunch of enclosures the size of kiddie pools full of chickens. They have to be transported live or they would go bad before they could be used. I watched the guy wrangling chickens for a while until his partner noticed me and gave me the hairy eyeball.

Once I met up with the family we went to the Victoria Memorial. It is a beautiful marble building built just after the turn of the 20th century.  We toured the building during daylight, then had a bite to eat and returned for a much vaunted sound and light show. All I have to say is you can’t always believe the hype…

Hang on to the small stuff..

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At the hotel counter I saw some Germans desperately asking for small bills. Rookie mistake.  You have to figure out how to build a stock of small bills and coins yourself in any third world country.   Unlike life in general, one has to hang on to the small stuff when it comes to money.  It is a game…bottle of water 20 rupees..give a one hundred, this will net you at least 3 tens and the vendor will rarely blink an eye.   Never pay for anything that costs more than one hundred with a bill that is less than a five hundred.  This means hotel and restaurant bills.   And when the bank machine asks you about denominations…pick the smallest possible to keep your options open.  Within a day I was up to 12 tens and counting.  You can always gets rid of them on the last day.

Yesterday, I did a bit of tourist stuff.  I went to the Indian museum which was great in an old world way.  Beautiful building and displays like the ROM used to have before the renovations.

I then took a taxi to the Kalighat temple which cost me a whole dollar.  It was very busy because apparently it was a Kali holiday.  I seem to be able to hit the busy days for these things, on our trip with the kids we hit the Taj Mahal on the busiest day of the year.  They were sacrificing goats at the temple, which they apparently do daily.    They also sacrifice a buffalo once a year.  The return taxi cost $1.50 because he went a different way…break the bank.

i am now at the guest house awaiting the arrival of my family members.  This place costs three times what the place I stayed in the last two nights did (it was $14 per night).  This place has a couch in the lobby and strong wifi. The other place had a wooden box.

asthma or apnea…the choice is yours…

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My first night is over.  It turned out ok after a while.  I had had a nap in the afternoon and the brand new filter on my apnea machine looked black instead of the pristine white it had been mere hours before.  I went to bed early and all started fine, then I felt an asthma attack starting.  I was in a dilemma, being sure the trigger was coming through the cpap machine.  If I take the puffer, it keeps me awake, so I decided to go without the breathing machine… I woke each hour for a while and finally decided to chance the machine again…luckily whatever it was had dissipated and I slept ok for the rest of the night until about 4 am when I was awakened by a very musical call to prayer.

India is a real assault on the senses.  The street noise is deafening.  Luckily my trusty lap pack still had a lot of goodies in it, including a pair of earplugs..hurrah.  Just waiting for the museum to open.  Will post again later.

In the departure lounge…

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good news…I got my knitting with me at least to London…it came all the way to Kolkata through three airport screenings…yeah! Good to know.

a couple of interesting things happened…here is my second plane on the Tarmac:imageI had a kharmic experience on this plane.  For those that know me well, you know that claustrophobia can be an issue for me which is why I need an aisle seat unless I know my seatmates.  Someone asked me to switch seats with him but it meant being in the window seat of a 3 people row for an 8 hour flight, so I said no.  I need to walk around at least once an hour and I never would have had the guts to ask.  Anyway, the seat I clung onto had a busted touchscreen so I had to do without the movies for the whole time…bummer…this is what I saw the whole time:image

We left London at 1 pm and the flight lasted until 9 pm London time.  The flight crew decided to turn off all the lights in what would be mid afternoon for the lions share of the passengers and go on a couple of hour break leaving a serve yourself galley which I have never seen before.  It was hard to get a good picture because so many people were helping themselves…image

Arriving in Delhi reminded me what India was about.  I had a run in with a green form which sent me all over the place trying to find one only to learn I didn’t need one anyway.  The airport also smelled like a campfire and had a visible haze inside near the departure gates.  This would have been alarming to me in any other country, but I took it in stride here.

Kolkata has visible ground smog and it will be a miracle if I don’t have to fire up the puffers very soon.

Also,.. note to self,… Indians don’t make very good hot and sour soup.  I know this because I had a restaurant recommended by the hotel staff which turned out to only have western food (I include chinese food in this because it had the standard chinese fare).  I couldn’t find anything to order so I tried it, to my cost.