Hotel Heera International Kolkata (Calcutta)

... he tripped and the rickshaw rolled right over him.... <br><br>This of course&#8230; is a Joke!<br><br> What our rickshaw race entailed was us pulling our drivers and paying them like they were working. Even with my bad knee I quickly out distanced Skinny Mcpotbelly (Dave) and victory was mine! Running through the streets of Calcutta at midnight pulling a rickshaw for some reason drew a lot of ...

... 200 (Annina, the Swiss girl had purchased hers for RS$400). I checked to make sure that it was in English and that the pages were all in order (hey, this IS India we're talking about here. The land of foreigner rip-offs). I made it back to the guesthouse and began to read. Some 4 hours later I was finally driven by hunger to put the book down and go find some food. I stopped at a bakery called Kathleen's Creations and popped in to have a look ...

... cheap, and oh so fun to eat with your hands (just don't use the left)! Final business was experimenting with Beetle Nut, the substance that everyone in India chews and spits all over the country. On walls, in toilets, on bus floors, through train windows, there is red spit everywhere. Opening the package we realized that Paan (beetle nut) is also the smell of India. Charis lasted all of 1 second before spitting it out and claiming it tastes like ...

... We have been trying to test ourselves and find that we are more often wrong than right, but are getting better as we dive deeper and travel further into the depths of this ancient music. Every day is a new learning experience for all of us and we've learn to take everything in at all times and also anticipate unexpected detours and new plans. We've been here for a month and a half now and know that our time studying and learning under our Guru is coming to an end. We are ...

... impoverished. Every one of us will remain robots. We have to still our mind. We have to open our heart. Our institutions of learning need to shift, to begin including the study of the inner dimension, but not an academic study. It will be a challenge. The inner cannot be studied as an external reality, it cannot be graded or quantified, but it must be studied, and seriously, nonetheless. Even science is reaching its outer limits, because it focuses on ...

... pulled rickshaws...basically a taxi pulled by a man....kind of like a fancy wheel barrel. Later we toured the Indian museum which had interesting collections of Hindu and Buddist artifacts dating back 2000 years. All in all, we rested and relaxed for most of the 2 days spent here looking forward to our trip southeast Asia... We are currently in Chang Mai...we'll update tomorrow after we check the election results!!!!!

... decided to head back to the hotel to rest and visit the local pharmacy. So for the rest of the afternoon I played some more, danced some more and was dragged around by dozens of little girls yelling "Uncle! Uncle! Come with me! Push me on swing! Take photo of me! Uncle! Uncle!". By the way....little kids call adults either Uncle or Aunty as a sign of respect...not because they think I'm their actual Uncle. After ...

... brought himself to tears explaining that it was too far, too hot, and too difficult for our delicate foreign bodies. It's a good thing Tim was such an optimist, the hotel man also explained that there was a hundred percent chance of us having a road accident, and that was in fact a genuine concern. The entire way through Bangladesh, right up to the Indian border, as crowds of hundreds gathered around us, the educated man or two pushed his way to ...

... nd i l*ughed too, not too nervously); * third temple w*s next, *lthough we didn't go inside *s i got h*cked off with the police *t the front who were m*nh*ndling my c*mer* like it w*s * toy. i gr*bbed it b*ck off them *nd w*lked off. done * bit of w*lking off recently *s people *s h*cked me off, but th*t's indi* i guess. the gh*ts by the river g*nges *t v*r*n*si go on for miles. gh*ts, qu*ys in english, run *re m*ssive sets of steps le*ding from the b*nk down the the ...

... from Indian families wanting to take pictures of us. Eventually we were forced to beat a retreat as others became emboldened and demanded pictures. It is beyond me why anyone would want to take pictures of us (although some of the men clearly want to only take a picture of Michelle) but we have seen this happen elsewhere and other westerners assure us it happens to them as well.<br><br>Apart from its interesting history, perhaps one of the best thing about Calcutta for us was the Blue ...