KOLKATA Slight Return

Back in Kolkata via a shared jeep from Gangtok to dusty, dirty Siliguri.

Then an overnight bus driven by a maniac with a death wish (ours!), incessantly on the horn to anything in his vision, weaving in and out of traffic at full tilt, in the dark.  Emergency stops were the norm.

Sanctuary

 

At 6.30am I staggered off, travel sick and ready to honk myself, into the strangely quiet Koltata Esplanade bus station. Two minutes in a thankfully slow cab took us to the wonders of the YMCA Seacomm Inn.

On the main drag of Chowringee Road, it was just round the corner from Sudder Street, almost boho, almost cosmopolitan, a bit of a Westerners' retreat, but still with the bustling New Market, the beggars, the street life. Pasta and pizza at places like Beer & Shots and The Blue Sky Cafe got us back in the land of the living after all those dizzy heights.

We went for a laid-back street walk down posh Park Street, visiting the early 19th century, largely British, South Park Cemetery*.

Slowly being restored, the site also boasted a large collection of plants and trees, perfectly in tune with the huge obelisks and intriguing mausoleums they were slowly supplanting.

Stopping for an ill-advised beer at Baron & Earls, we found that young Indian professionals also like sitting in expensive lounge bars after work, listening to terrible club music with an unwatched sports channel blaring away. Who knew?

And now we travel onward, way, way out of town.

*No, I didn't find Kenny's grave.