Kolkata

Date arrived: 15th February 2024

Date Departed: 20th February 2024

Favourite sight: Victoria Memorial

Average Cost: £37.65 PPPD (excluding two nice dinners which were from treats budget)

Calcutta! Renamed to Kolkata in 2001 to match the Bengali pronounciation, this huge metropolis is the centre of foody intellectualism in India. As it's right up in the North East of the country, we needed to take a flight to be able to fit the visit into our itinererary, but we're really glad we did.

15th February 2024

I'd like to say the short flight from Chennai to Kolkata was uneventful, and for the most part could, however as we came in on final approach we all got quite a shock as, what felt like mere feet from touchdown, the plane suddenly pulled up and accellerated hard, aborting the landing at the last second!

Now I've since read that these happen quite frequently (up to 0.5% of flights) but neither Julie nor I have experienced it before and it was quite a shock. In Julie's case especially, it seemed to trigger a travel sickness response that she's not had on a plane for ages. She unfortunately spent the remainder of the flight ,and the rest of the evening, familiarising herself with a sickbag.

Several hours later we eventually made it to the Samilton Hotel in central Kolkata, our home for the next few days. I can recommend the airport's pre-paid taxi service heartily. Julie went straight to sleep, and I faffed about a little bit sorting stuff, but was not far behind her. An eventful first few hours in Kolkata!

16th February

First day in Kolkata! Breakfast provided by the hotel's Pepper Chino restaurant was good, and a check of the maps showed us that we should be able to walk the 2KM or so up to the Victoria Memorial. We did, and it was relatively uneventful, although traffic was pretty intense in places. 

The Memorial was built by the British Raj between 1906 and 1921, and sits at the centre of 64 acres of lush parkland. It is a spectacular building, and very beautiful to see both inside and out.

We spent several hours here exploring both the park and views of the lovely white marble palace, as well as the interior of the palace itself. Whilst several areas of the building were not open, there was a thorough display of photographs from the construction in the early 20th century, as well as some magnificent paintings which caught our eye - including the largest oil painting in the world!

The most interesting part of the building was the exhibition about the fight for Indian independance, and in particular the violent side of that protest. This was an interesting counterpoint to Ghandi's passive resistance appproach, which was so well known, and I was surprised by how much violence was being recalled here. It is not difficut to think of this as some early examples of terrorism, given the assassinations of public figures and bombs planted in public buildings, and very much causes you to consider when does one man's freedom fighter become another man's terrorist?

Leaving the Victoria Memorial we headed towards the Maidan, Kolkata's largest open area of public space. This it to Kolkata what Central Park is to Manhattan. We skirted the fields themselves, and set our sights on a small coffee shop in the nearby streets, Hugo & Finn. This place was lovely and, it turned out, named for the owner's dogs who were celebrated in a large oil painting! We had a lovely snack lunch and latte here, before walking back to our accommodation, picking up a few supplies on the way.

We visited a local Italian restaurant for dinner, which did pretty good pizza and pasta, This was about 15 minutes walk away, so once again we got to see some of the streets in Kolkata in a slightly different light.

17th February

Our priority this morning was to deposit some washing, in the hope that it would be clean before we had to move on. Julie had found a couple of options, so we set out using Google Maps to find the first of these. To cut a long story short, it wasn't where Google thought it was, but we did find it eventually, only to have them refuse to wash small things like underwear. We were confused by this, but as most of our washing comprised 'smalls', we set out to find Julie's second choice. I can heartily recommend Laundry Wallah if you find yourself in central Kolkata and in need of laundry.

As with much of our time in Kolkata, just walking the streets was an experience, with all aspects of life unfurled on the roads and pavements around us. From myriad stalls selling Chai and various lunch and breakfast bits, through to fruit and veg stalls laid out on newspapers on the streets, we even found ourselves in the midst of a tiny fish mart, blood guts and fish scales covering a 10' long section of pavement.

From here we found the excellent Biker Cafe where we enjoyed coffee, and may have stayed longer but for an 11th birthday party group that joined the table next to us as we finished our lattes.

With our thoughts set on a bit of retail therapy, we headed for the Dakshinapan Shopping Centre, which contains a number of government licensed shops trading in all sorts of souvenirs, fabrics, furniture, etc. To get here we had to traverse the Kolkata Metrorail system - which was very straightforward. We each bought a smart card from a machine in the concourse of the nearest station, costing 200 Rupees, and giving us 132 Rupees of credit. The balance is a deposit, and I understand the cards can be returnd to reclaim that - although we didn't get the chance to do that.

From the metro we had to walk around 2KM through the impressive Rabindra Sarovar park, which conains a pair of lakes and is clearly used by Kolkata locals for the odd aftenoon stroll! We crossed over the railway bidge to reach the Dakshinapan centre, where we immediately sought out liquid refreshment (tea, for clarity) and a light lunch from Dolly's tea shop. Whilst they served an excellent cup of tea (first flush Darjeeling I'll have you know) we learned that the small shop is also one of Kolkata's premier tea dealers, selling some leaves at up to £100/KG! The eponymous Dolly is an ex-Darjeeling tea worker, who set up this business 30 yeas ago.

We spent several hours at the centre examining mainy textiles, but also various handcrafts, ultimately not finding anything that we loved suifficiently lo lug it round for another month. We then caught an Uber back to our hotel.

In celebration of our 7th wedding anniversary, we'd booked a table at the Bombay Brasserie, in Quest Mall. We booked an Uber to take us there, had a lovely dinner, and then enjoyed a (relatively) leisurely walk back to the hotel, through some of the trade districts of Kolkata.

18th February

We ended up having a bit of a lie-in today, accidentally missing breakfast. This meant that we had to go somewhere else, and we ended up at the Waypoint Cafe, just across the road. This was a very cool international themed cafe, with various different dishes availabel from specific countries, as well as good coffee. We were just finishing our breakfast when we got a message to say our laundry was ready, so we retraced our steps from yesterday to go and pick that up. It was a little easier this morning, knowing where we were going!

From here we set out to explore the Hooghly Riverside, and the area around the Howrah Bridge. We took the Metro north to get to the right latitude, but still had a 2KM walk through busy streets to reach the river. This was eye opning, as we clearly passed through the remains of some kind of livestock market from the morning, with all it's associated sights, sounds and smells.

Reaching the river was interesting, and we managed to get down to the Choletal Ghats south of the Howrah Bridge and the famous Mallick Ghat flower market. As well as people going about their usual day-to-day lives, there were numerous couples in their sunday bests, apparently filming videos. Bunches of roses, sharp suits, and fabulous sarees were in evidence everywhere, and a serious level of production being applied to these videos, which we could only imagine were pre-wedding shoots, to be used during wedding ceremonies, or at engagement events.

From the ghats we walked southward, parallel with the river, to see a number of the classic buildings at Dalhousie Square. It's intriguing to see all the massive colonial era buildings, in various states of repair. We also walked past the old Governor's residence - no small building - before stopping for a coffee and light lunch up by the Maidan.

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After returning to the accommodation for a brief rest, we had dinner in the Samilton's rooftop restaurant, which was actually very good, before calling it a night.

19th February

After enjoying another breakfast in the hotel, we went back up to the riverside, via the metro, to visit the Kolkata Port Maritime Archives and Heritage Centre. Due to some family history with the city during World War 2, we were keen to learn a little more about where British war ships might have docked, and possibly visit some of these area.

The museum was open, but there wer no lights on, and nobody there in the display area, once we found it. There was an eclectic selection of exhibits, and quite a lot of information about Kolkata as a Port since about 1970, but nothing at all pre-Independance. We did manage to find somebody who could tell us a bit more, and were told we were welcome to browse the archives - but one look at those told us we weren't going to make much progress in the time we had available!

After a cup of coffee and lunch at the local Cafe Coffee Day, we briefly explored the nearby St John's Church. The grounds  contain the tomb of Job Charnok, the East Inda Company administrator considered to be responsible for the founding of the city of Calcutta, as well as a memorial to those who died in the Black Hole of Calcutta prison. The church itself is simple and relatively plain, with many plaques and dedications to assorted Europeans - mostly British - who lived and / or died in Calcutta in the time of the Raj.

Back at our hotel we attempted to have a brief nap (it's seriously hard work walking round parts of India - even more cosmopolitan places like Kolkata) - only to hear the arrival of a Brass Band, which, I kid you not, proceeded to play outside our bedroom window for about an hour and a half!

Eventually we decided to go out for dinner, and visited a Kolkata institution called Mocambo, on Park Street. This place has apparently had the same menu since 1958 - and to be honest I would not suggest any changes! We enjoyed three delicious courses - possibly a first for us on this trip - and returned to our hotel well satisfied.

20th February

With a long day on a train ahead of us, we had a relaxed morning, packing up our bags before going back to Waypoint Cafe to enjoy some nice lattes. You've probably realised from reading this that Kolkata is good for coffee and other more typically western snacks, so we were taking advantage while we were still here! 

We raised an Uber to the railway station in planty time to get there for our 13:10 train, and then sat back for the next 7 hours (or 8 hours as it turned out) as we headed to Bodh Gaya!