Quality Inn Golden Park Kolkata (Calcutta)

... But the rare beauty of the mangrove delta, the glow of perpetual green when the sun falls on them and tranquility of the Sundarban was unforgettable.

The Sundarban archipelago of 108 islands interspersed with tidal rivers and narrow creeks hold all visitors spell bound. You are reminded time and again that life, being tough on mudflats and food being scares tiger ventures into the villages for livestock. Walking was dangerous as we saw tiger mauled fishermen and ...

... of a personal

CLASSIC MARKHA

MARKHA valley, the classic trekking route takes you through some of

the most beautiful villages, were you can explore the traditional life

style of LADAKH, the crumbling forts and the Buddhist Gompas

scattered throughout.

The meandering Markha River is our guide; we follow it through

groves of apricot, willow, popular & Himalayan oak trees and gaze up

at the cathedral-like ...

... on the street. The divide is huge here between the haves and have nots. It'll take a few more people like Mother Theresa to give some of these people a proper shot at life.

We soon had another place to be, up country, so we got in another taxi and headed off to Kolkata's Seadah station. It was here that we encountered the first of our fellow travellers who had a date with Darjeeling. Sam and Micha, from the US and Canada respectively ...

... or two ... ... and, joy of joys, beer in Calcutta was the cheapest we had found in India! After the horror stories one gets about Cacutta, we were pleasantly surprised by the place - it seems to have a more southern feel and the people seemed pretty friendly and relaxed (by India standards!). I suppose the business district and the colonial downtown are not the places to find the worst of the deprivation in Calcutta! One day, we did head away to the river and jumped on a ferry ... which ...

... chairs for me, Amalendu and Babai. The banks of the river are slick grey beige, almost clay-like earth. The banks to the East are falling away from erosion, while those to the west are building up with freshly deposited soil. The thatched roofs of mud houses and of rice hay stacks peak over the earthen levee walkways that are set back from the riverbank. Fisherman are casting their nets from the shore, or working on their boats, women and children walking the levees. A ...

... and very wrapped up in himself, but he's very good-looking and he's English speaking company so I have a very nice dinner and send up a little prayer of thanks to any Goddess that is listening. The next night my new Irish friend Maeve (sister of Catriona, another ex-volunteer who is also visiting Sucharita) and I go out to I Bar, the club in Big Bazaar - the local shopping centre. It's a nice restaurant that has a small dancefloor and ...

... hung out with them for a while. He was drinking beer hidden in his pack and the chai-wallahs were also covertly adding alcohol to their own chais! (we could see since we were sitting in the booth behind them!) Dennis met some other people from that chai booth just like he met me. I met Richard from Syndey and Nick from London through Dennis. They were both great guys. Nick and I went out to see some sights the next day. Nick and I went to Kalighat temple (for real this ...

Kolkata is a strange place in the sense that it looks much more like the capital than Delhi ever did to us. Maybe since it used to be the capital under British rule it appeared to our western eyes more like a capital than Delhi. The reason for this is not only the infrastructure, the smooth tarmac roads, the thousands of yellow ambassador taxis and the large advertising but also because the people act more like city people here. They`ve got a purpose and ...

... scuzzy options available in the area. And the area was hard to take at times: people telling us that they have malaria and need help, or that they are living on the streets with there older parents, or that they just got layed off of work because of strikes that go on, well, the list is endless, then you see the children begging for water or people without any limbs (most often from polio). Its heartwrenching. At the ...

... is too traditionally Vedic. It's good that they taught Sanskrit though. Sanskrit is such a language of the heart. I wanted him to open up his heart space. English isn't a warm language." I remembered my German friend calling down from a climbing rope, "I have no more power!!" Language is so closely related to a way of being. Hearing how different people from different countries used English gave much perspective into their culture. French élan, Israeli common sense, or ...