Thursday 10th March - Oh Kolkata

We start today with a chartered tram ride around Kolkata. The heat is already building up at 8.45 as we walk a couple of blocks to the tram terminal. The traffic here doesn't seem quite as manic as Delhi but these things are relative. Anywhere else this tram would be awaiting restoration but here it is just run of the mill. There are two cars coupled together. The front one is first class and has fans. Both have wooden seats and there is no glass in the windows. Our route takes us from colonial Calcutta into the old town, along colourful and crowded market streets. The best bit was that the driver let us press the floor button to ring the warning bell.
The tram tour ended at the tram sheds where we took a coach for a tour of some of the city highlights including the area where the statue makers work, creating statues of Hindu gods from straw and clay. We also stopped off at St John's church, site of the Black Hole memorial. For lunch we were deposited at a restaurant on Chowringee that must qualify as the most disorganised in India. We had almost given up on ordering food when a waiter handed us a pen and pad of paper. Incredibly he was able to read everybody's writing except the doctor's. The food was very tasty and in huge portions when it finally arrived. We finally got out half an hour after our tour was due to resume but they didn't go without us.
Our afternoon visit was to the Victoria Memorial, a gallery cum museum built in the early 1900's and set in a park. By this time most of us were starting to wilt in the heat. Outside ther were some elaborate horse drawn chariots for hire which seemed to be a real hit with the local ladies.

In the evening we all walked about half a mile to the Bar-B-Que restaurant for yet another meal.It was still very warm and the pavements were crowded making it difficult to keep up in our crocodile. The food was excellent but we were totally outfaced by the huge portions and everybody left with doggy bags to hand out to the idle poor. There weren't that many of these despite the bad press that Kolkata gets - it doesn't seem that different to Delhi or Jaipur.