So long, Kolkata

We're hopping on an overnight train to Darjeeling today, leaving Kolkata after an unexpectedly long two-week stay (as opposed to our initial plan of 3 or 4 days). First, it was Russian bureaucracy keeping us here while we waited for documents. Then we found out that a few million Kolkatans go on vacation at exactly the same time that we were planning to leave, and they all planned on taking the same train. We eventually found a ticket though, so we're off to the hills.

In retrospect, it was kind of neat to spend so much time in a place we really hadn't planned on seeing in any depth. I think we eventually got a feel for Kolkata city life beyond the touristy sights and restaurants. That being said, we also made friends with the owner of the tourist cafe around the corner from our hotel, where Mal ate about forty or so omelettes over the course of our stay.

The food here has been pretty great (omelettes included). Here are the highlights, in case you happen to find yourself in Kolkata looking for some tasty eats.

- Teej: an "upscale" ($8 meals) Rajasthani restaurant, serves intensely delicious vegetarian food.
-Blue Sky Cafe: the tourist cafe mentioned above. Good, cheap Indian and non-Indian food, super friendly service, air conditioning.
-Jalebis: deep-fried crispy dough swirl things, soaked in sugary syrup. Even more delicious than they sound.
-Kati rolls: the signature Kolkatan greasy street food. It's basically a roti (thin flatbread) coated on one side with an egg, grilled on a super-hot skillet, then filled with onions, spices and lime juice, rolled up and served. We don't have the camera with us right now, but here's a suitably delicious looking picture courtesy of Google image search.

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!

Bhutan Pictures!

As promised, here are some pictures of our trip through Bhutan!

Arriving at the lovely Paro airport was a pleasant break after overnighting in Kolkata's hectic international terminal. We went directly to the hotel for a day of sleeping. The next day we took in some of Paro's monasteries and the city fortress.

This is the Paro fortress, protecting the city from Tibetan attacks.

We also got to eat dinner at a farmhouse with a Bhutanese family. They were super nice and accommodating. A typical dinner includes: chillies with cheese (their national dish), dried meat curry, buttered veggies (in the summer), maybe an egg dish, mushroom soup or curry and rice wine! They make the rice wine in their houses. Here is the family we ate with:


We also hiked up to see the Tiger's Nest Monastery, which was pretty amazing. It's about 3000m high and perched on a cliff!

The Tiger's Nest Monastery.

Our trek was awesome (as we discussed below), here are just a few of the pictures:

Wet boots after a day of torrential rain storms. Not ideal for preventing blisters.

Our donkey team! The one with the red hat is the leader!

AND as discussed earlier: pictures of the famous Thimphu traffic director! He is what the Bhutanese people preferred to a traffic light and for good reason! He's awesome and makes dramatic swooping motions with his hands to guide us through the country's capital safely. Thank you traffic man!


A couple pictures of Kolkata coming soon!

Kolkata: Week 1

Mal's taking care of our picture uploading responsibilities today, so I thought I'd post a few of my impressions of India after a week here in Kolkata.

1. Arriving in India for the first time is not something the Canadian brain is equipped to handle well. Lots of people call India chaotic, but that's not a great characterization. It's more like three or four separate chaotic systems, stacked on top of each other and then shaken up. There is so much going on everywhere - streets, stores, gutters, alleys, sidewalks - that it's hard to process it all at once. The whole place is just wall-to-wall people doing stuff.

2. The traffic system here doesn't appear to have rules. There are no lanes, crossing the street is a lot like playing Frogger, and most car horns seem to have been purchased with the "always on" option engaged. You really need to re-calibrate your sense of personal space to walk down the street. In Canada, if a car passed you with 6 inches to spare, you'd say you almost got hit by a car. Here, if one passed you with 6 inches to spare, you'd wonder why the guy left you so much room. We are basically in a constant state of almost getting hit by a car.

3. Indian food is amazing. We got a cooking lesson from a Bengali woman who runs classes out of her apartment kitchen, and it was hands-down the most delicious meal we've had on the trip so far. That being said, there's also a street vendor around the corner from our hotel selling deep fried chicken, uh, parts, with a pile of beaks sitting next to the pot. So caveat emptor, I guess. Side note: you can eat very well in India for like $4 a day, beak-free.

That's it for now. We put some pictures up on the Facebook group, and a few should be posted here shortly.

Back to India (plus Japan closure)

We wrapped up our 10 day trip in Bhutan this morning. It was a great travel experience, and it really is one of the least westernized places I've ever been, which was very cool. That being said, two of the biggest musical artists in the country are Bryan Adams and Akon, so it's not likely to stay that way for long. Check it out as soon as you can if you're interested.

One other thing we noticed was the incredibly quick turnaround from "off-season" to "peak season". When we arrived last week, we were literally the only people in any of the restaurants we ate at for the first few days. After we got back from our trek, the restaurants were all packed. I'd say it's definitely better to go towards the end of the off-season but before peak season officially starts, unless you plan on trekking. As we found out, the off-season is off for a reason, and that reason is daily rain.

Again, we're not living up to our picture-posting duties, since we just got into Calcutta/Kolkata a few hours ago, and we're hungry. But they're coming, I promise.

Side note: we realized in Bhutan that we never wrapped up our stint in Japan, so here it is in 15 words: went to sumo tournament, were very entertained and perplexed, drank some Sapporo, left for Bhutan.

Tiger Nests, Dragon Paths, and Donkey Porters

We're 7/10ths of the way through our Bhutan trip. Since we last had internet access, we've hiked a few hours up a mountain to see the Taktsang Monastery (also known as the Tiger's Nest), eaten a TON of food, and trekked from Paro to Thimphu along the Druk Path (Druk being Bhutanese for Dragon).

The trek was a great experience overall. We started in Paro with our guide Tinleh, a cook, a helper, a horseman and six donkeys carrying all our stuff. The trek itself wasn't TOO challenging, though we did finish each day huffing and puffing for air (most of the trek was above 3500m). The one downside was on day two when, after a morning of amazing views and perfect weather, it started to rain.

And rain.

And rain.

And I'm not talking a long drizzle here. I'm talking rains of biblical magnitude. Angry torrents from the heavens. For about two hours, we were hammered by rain (and a bit of hail) that soaked through all of our clothes and sleeping bags. That, combined with the cold weather, meant our night's activities (which usually consisted of socializing, tea drinking, reading, and wandering around the mountains) consisted of huddling in a ball and trying not to die.

The rain also transformed the final few kilometres of trail descending directly into our camp into a few kilometres of waterfall - descending directly into our camp. At one point, the trail was totally washed out and we had to spend 15 minutes figuring out how best to ford the river that had taken its place (we eventually found a part narrow enough to jump). We didn't finish that day in the best of spirits.

Fortunately, the rest of the trek made up for it with incredible scenery and a degree of remoteness I've never experienced before. The Druk Path is the most popular trek in the country, and we ran into a grand total of seven other foreigners the entire time (for perspective, we ran into about twice that many monks, a few horsemen, and some villagers camped out in the hills to harvest aromatic plants for incense).

We took tons of pictures, but our present internet situation doesn't allow us to upload them very easily. We'll post them, and some more reflections on Bhutan that don't involve rain (seriously, it's an incredible place, I could write about it for hours), as soon as we get back to India in a few days.

Bhutan

After an 8 hour layover in Bangkok, and a 6 hour layover in Calcutta, and a very close brush with some mountains on the flight here, we made it to Bhutan! After a day and a half, I think our verdict on the country is "totally awesome". We'll put up a slightly more detailed summary of the trip once we're back in India with more reliable internet access (though I am pleased that the country without traffic lights does have internet cafes). For now, we're off to go look at some forts and monasteries!