Paramount Hotel Kolkata (Calcutta)

My high school was about a 1/3 Jewish, 1/4 WASP, and 1/4 Asian, everyone else falling in the remaining 1/6. And just to be clear, in California, "Asian" basically meant Korean, Japanese, or Chinese (and that usually Taiwanese). Occasionally we would let South East Asians (usually Philippino) through the door, but Indians were definitely somethin...

Unique Biosphere of Home of the Royal Bengal Tiger

When we were traveling to the largest mangrove forest on the earth, we were told by naturalists that at Sundarban, we would always feel the presence of the Royal Bengal Tiger but sighting one is rare. Tigers unlike lions are very elusive big cat, far more dangerous, more so the tigers o...

So, we'd heard in the beginning of the program that Kolkata's 5-star offerings would be the best- it's all true! We arrived at the hotel this morning to the smell of jasmine everywhere- if I open my mouth when I breathe I can actually taste the fragrance. We're staying in the very wealthy and well-kept part of Kolkata (this city was created by t...

Lucky us, our lovely friend Rumi said we could stay in her family's flat in Calcutta. Arriving 4 hours late on our train, instead of the usual hassle of finding taxis and hotels, we were met by Robin, who works for Rumi's family and navigated into a correctly metred taxi, and whisked throught the madness of Calcutta to the calmness of the Bose f...

January 14, 2009 Each afternoon at around 4 pm when we are at the Temple, Baba makes ginger tea for himself and for me. It is an extraordinary wonder to me - if you have any personal experience with Indian masters, it would be to you as well - that he makes tea for me, and has me come into his room just outside of the main temple area to have te...

Kolkata - The Bakshi family - Part 2 The 2nd wedding is upon us and we arrived in Kolkata to a very warm welcome by Uncle Padam and driver. After loading our rucksacks into the car we soon headed off to the family Dutt household where we had a fun packed 4 days planned in. Kolkata had a very different feel to it than other cities that we visited...

I touched down in Kolkata Sunday evening, Oct 5th and after waiting in an hour line for the prepaid taxi made my way into town to meet up with Ankit at the hostel. Being night time, the entire city was lit up brilliantly with loud music playing everywhere. Like all large Indian cities, there were cars/rickshaws everywhere and every bazaar/store/...

Bang! Welcome to India... As introductions to countries go, arriving into India via Calcutta is a bit of a slap in the face, but at least it opened our eyes. Immediately after getting off the plane we were greeted with the functioning anarchy that makes India incredible - the sacred cows drinking from the airport fountain were as clear an indica...

Quand un orage eclate a Calcutta, c'est l'eau qui se mele a la ***** et la repand partout, nappe le sol, souille mes orteils. Une boue compacte teint les rues d'ocres et les murs suintent leur crasse. Des heures durant j'ai parcouru les ruelles a l'improviste, toute tentative de reperage s'averant vaine dans le vieux centre. Pour amoindrire la p...