Koolkata. Rawr.

Kolkata. Finally a city that knows how to be one. The difference between village and, well, anything bigger is pretty obvious in the west. The lovely part about India is, however, that cities are villages that have had everything multiplied on photoshop. People x10. Rickshaws x10. Cows x10....select all x10.

The old Raj capital, however, looks over its clean (ish) and organized shoulder at the chaos of Rajasthan and Uttra Pradesh and frolics. Street food was more than paletable, foreigner prices weren't the usal 25x the Indian price and the Victoria Monument looks dazzling from the northeast corner!! For once Lonely Planet was right!!

Marc and I were surrounded by some uniformed and very curious school kids while in line for the old Vic and we made the mistake of asking if they liked a good drink.

Blank stares.

Max notices name of school on sweater- Mohammed College Preparation Institute.

Cover up mistake with smiles and group picture, works every time.

Since being at the end of the tour we manned up and tried some sugar cane juice, pinneaple juice and orange juice. All literally freshly squeezed by the side of the road. Took the subway to the main shopping area and came out a communist rally entirely lost and surrounded by chanting Kolkatans. The only other people whose mouth's were wide open and maps dangling at their sides were two lovely girls from Delhi.

Tina and Priyam turned out to be regular teenagers that seemed to be confused and living in India as if it were California. Or so we guessed. Our first intro to the hip, modern and rich of India was nearly as confusing as seeing Mao's face waved around the streets in the world's largest democracy. They turned out to be Wiccans and were meeting Rahul who was auditioning for MTV India's new VJ position. Talk about cultural confusion. I even spilt hot choc all down my front in the starbucks after he practiced his speech for us. Left with a burnt belly and even more confused with this country within a country within a country.


Visited Mother Theresa's house, guided by a sweet little street girl who (looking so prim and chatting so well) conned me into buying her milk. Won't be surprised if she hacks my bank account one day, the cheeky buggar.
Last dinner with the group chez local chinese restaurant.

Eva: " I just like to thank you Anant for such a great trip, you've taken such good care of us and I think I can manage India a lot better now that...that....wait...where the hell is my purse?"

Drinks and clubbing cancelled on account of thorough investigation to find 1000 rupees (20$). Gotta put your foot down sometime!