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The maps above show you most of the city of Kolkata.
Notice the name of the Airport: Dum Dum Airport....hmmmm.....
On the map to the right, you see the airport at the top, the
rectangle showing you where the Victoria Memorial and 2nd Hoogly
Bridge are located, and the bottom-most rectangle showing the
location of Jadavpur
University. This would be our home for the next few days. |
We
arrived in Kolkata (Calcutta)
a couple of hours late because India Airlines considers departure and arrival
times to be merely suggestions and not something to be takes seriously. Fortunately,
a student from
Jadavpur University picked us up at the baggage claim. It seems he was waiting
there for quite a while since the plane was late. He was a perfectly pleasant
guy and he lead us to the awaiting car. Along the way, we immediately attracted
to beggar children hoping for handouts. *exasperated sigh*
It was about a 45
minute trip to get to the University. When we finally arrived,
we were driven to the University Guest House
to register and check in for our stay. Below, you see Yener in
front of the Guest House, a photo of the room where we stayed
(taken from the entrance), and a photo of the bathroom. |
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Let
me describe this room for you in a bit more detail. The camera
doesn't seem to pick
up some subtle details that are obvious to the naked eye. First,
the mattresses were the same 3 inch things used by American
summer camps to ensure children don't get any restful sleep.
This room was very similar to our room at the hotel, except
this room did not have a TV or mini-fridge. In the bureau,
there were two sets of mosquito netting that you could hang
from hooks placed on the walls. The mosquito netting was
required because the windows weren't sealed. There were fairly
large gaps where insect could easily slip into the room. There
is an A/C unit in the room, but you can't control the temperature
setting
and
it
seems to be set to 23 or 24 deg Celsius.
The
bathroom photo to the left neglect to show the sink located
just to the left of the door. The blue rectangle highlight
the water heater you had to turn on before you tried to bathe.
The red rectangle is the drain where the water from both the
shower and the sink drained. The aqua line is pointing to the
cold water faucet and the buckets used to pour water all over
yourself. That one roll of toilet paper was all we got for
our entire stay. It really was like being back in summer camp...complete
with mosquitoes.
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| Above: This is the view from our window. You can see that there
was construction going on from the piles of materials laying
around and trash EVERYWHERE. If you look closely, you can even
see the layer of dirt coating the leaves of the plants. |
Above: This is a picture of the "University Pond" where students
gather. There are fish here...some very large! It would be a
much more peaceful and serene setting if only it were clean.
Signs by those steps you see in the photo prohibit people from
bathing or doing their laundry in this pool. |
Above: Yener just outside the dining room of the Guest House.
This offers you another shot of the University Pond |
| I should
mention that shortly after we settled into our room, we were
greeted by a giddy and pleasant group of
student volunteers charged with getting us registered, collecting
money
for the
conference and tours, and distributing cans of bug spray to new
arrivals. They handed Yener the black aerosol can of bug spray
and noticed the slightly confused expression on his face. One
of the students asked, "Sir, do you know how to use it?" We
all giggled when Yener demonstrated his knowledge by verifying
the
existence of the spray nozzle and confidently exclaiming, "I
can figure it out." After shutting the door he hands me the can
and I see why he looked so confused. It was a very odd welcome
gift...neurotoxins in a kerosene-based aerosol spray. This was
the one item that our hotel neglected to provide us during our
stay in Bombay! Fortunately, we didn't have any bugs in the room.
I was adamant that we not spray this stuff in the air. I was
already breathing in too much pollution and I didn't want any
more. |
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We
decided to take a short walk from the guest house to explore
the campus a little. We passed by buildings
that looked like these you see to the left. Wondering what
these buildings are used for? Take a look to the right...this
building
is marked with a dilapidated sign. |
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A
bit further down the same path, we saw this sign which pointed
you to another set of buildings. At this
point, we are at the far end of the Pond. We decided to go
back to the Guest House since we would be started our first "Pleasure
Tour" in about an hour or so. We were instructed to meet the
student volunteers in the dining room and we would proceed
from there. |
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| A little
bit after 4:30pm, we met our student tour guides. There were
three of them; two men and a woman. I'll refrain
from trying to spell their names since I'm sure I'll just butcher
them. These students were wonderful. They spoke English very
well, were wonderfully respectful, and very knowledgeable about
what where we were going. If memory serves, there about 7 conference
attendees signed up for today's trip. We piled into two Toyota
SUVs and took off for our first destination: a riverboat ride
on the Hooghly River, an arm of the Ganges that flows through
Calcutta. |
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Top Row, L-R: Live music provided on the
riverboat ride. Started with instrumental music and then vocals
were added as the night wore on. I took a picture of the other
tour boat on the river. Finally, you can see one of our tour
guides from the University singing. She had a very nice voice
and we had a blast!
Left&Right: Pictures of the 2nd Hooghly Bridge (a new bridge).
I thought it looked really cool, so I took a picture as we
approached as well as after we passed it.
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After
the riverboat ride, we were scheduled to view a "sound and
light show" at the Victoria Memorial. This
Memorial is a building set inside of a very lovely park. You
can see where it is situated by the river on the map at the
top of this page. The tour guide describes the Victoria
Memorial:
"...which serves (somewhat ironically) as a postcard image
of
Calcutta and houses a compelling museum of the city's history
as well as some Raj memorabilia."
We spent a little
bit of time just trying to find a bathroom that was open. Eventually,
we found one and the descriptions of the "traditional Indian
toilets" was confronting us. Yes...they were holes in the ground
with hoses available. No toilet paper. Times like this I'm grateful
I'm male. Upon leaving the bathroom, we made gratuitous use of
the Purell Handiwipes we packed. Eventually, we ended up
at the front of the line to get into the sound and light show.
We were seated in a courtyard in front of the Memorial where
we were treated to an hour-long show. |
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Left: The Victoria Memorial-- dynamically illuminated
as part of the sound and light event, the event recounted the
history of the city. Images were displayed on a screen to the
left of the building and lights changed in response to the story
being told over surround-sound speakers. It was an interesting
display, but I noticed that it seemed to be more like an enormous
marketing display put together by the tourism ministry or something
like that. It came complete with a song about, "Calcutta!! CAL-cutta!..."
that is still stuck in my head. Yener and I came up with some
different lyrics. ;-) |
At
this point in the evening, we were getting really cold and
the shorts and t-shirt I had one for the day was proving
inadequate. Fortunately, I'm no stranger to cold and knew how
to keep myself warm, but you could see the other conference
attendees clutching their coats tighter to their bodies and
aching to get
back to the cars.
We drove back to
the University, stopping at a grocery store along the way
to pick up some light snacks. I used the opportunity
to pick up some candy popular with Indian children to take back
to my god-daughter and her brother. We also picked up some
chocolate while were there...a vital necessity for travelers.
I should say that along the way, we saw a bunch of other sights
from the car. Traffic was very crowded, so stopping for a closer
look was basically out of the question. This time of year (New
Year's) is a big deal here, so there were all kinds of festivals
going on throughout the city. Traffic was nuts...crowds were
huge...it made us appreciate the relative quiet of the University
campus. We got back to the Guest house, had dinner there, and
then retired to our room to sleep. The next day was our second
tour, so we figured we should get plenty of rest since we had
to be ready to go by 8:30am. |
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