Happy Durga Puja!

Hello all! Today we realized we have spent almost two weeks in India and have only 24 pictures to show for it. And most of them are repeats of each other while we play with camera settings. In any case, here are a couple pictures and stories to keep you up to date!

This week is Durga Puja! It's pretty much the Christmas of West Bengal, meaning everything is closed and people are all on holidays visiting their family. It also means lots of cool sculptures which will soon get thrown in the river! Durga Puja!

The area we're staying in in Kolkata is quite central and the main place for tourists (young tourists especially) to stay while in the city. Sidewalks are lined with street vendors selling all sorts of foods, many of which I have not had the guts to try. The street vendors also sell random things, like the guy who sells flutes and follows us around playing the same riff over and over. Or the guy who sells collapseable laundry bags. Or the guy who sells old-fashioned lamp-posts.

We've also come across many many beggars with all different tactics, including one guy who held up a snake and said 'SNAKE! MONEY!'.

For a visual of our street, here is a picture Bryce took after we finished lunch one day near our hotel:

This guy is herding goats right on the main street. Mayhem!

We have been taking it pretty easy so far since the heat/humidity can be pretty daunting, but we have put the effort in to try to find interesting places to eat and drink. Prices range from cheap (1$ for a vegetarian thali) to "expensive" (10$ for fancy dinner and beer). The other day we went to a Rajasthani restaurant and Bryce got their thali for dinner. We were expecting maybe 3-4 dishes and some bread, but instead he ended up getting:

(and some bread). The best part was the bowl with the sweetened bread crumbs. I could eat TEN THOUSAND bowls of those bread crumbs.

We also took a bengali cooking lesson at a woman's house (done through a tour company) and it was by far the best food we've had yet. She taught us how to cook many dishes, including these awesome deep-fried bread things which we are definitely making when we get back to Canada. Here's the dinner we helped make:


We'll leave you with one last picture before heading off to buy some cookies for me (Bryce doesn't know this is the plan, but he'll find out when he looks here). This picture was taken at one of the few "sights" we have seen while here. If you look past the super cute tourists, you will see the Victoria Memorial in the background. It is a MASSIVE museum/gallery built in honour of Queen Victoria. I could have chosen a picture of JUST the memorial, but you can find those on the internet.


On Oct 10 we head to Darjeeling to beat the heat and drink fancy teas in the mountains. We'll try to take more pictures!