train ticket madness, mother teresa and a blessing from a brahmin

i woke up early yesterday with three objectives. 1) get a train ticket sorted. 2) get some new specs (i lost mine on koh tao in a moment of dawn swimming with cocktails madness...) and 3) go visit mother teresa's motherhouse. i grabbed some breakfast at the blue sky cafe, which is a traveller institution on sudder street (though i can't think why as the food was average and every traveller in there kept themselves to themselves.) the lonely liar said the place was buzzing with travellers exchanging tales

and advice but i guess that marked the end of the blue sky's heyday. something i've noticed is that anything the lonely liar recommends or raves about is invariably crap. once the establishment has a recommendation i guess the effort stops, they are guaranteed custom as for the first day in any new city you always stick to what the guidebook says until you've found your feet. that's the law.

so anyway, after a mediocre brekky i headed onto park street which is the main shopping drag. i don't know if i've mentioned this site before, but indiamike has been a lifesaver on many occasions. they helped me to find a well established british opticians who would be able to whip me up some new specs - some sexy ralph lauren ones, 58 quid including the lenses! the traffic here is just as barmy as everywhere else in india, but with an added twist... pretty much every street here is one way, but at 2pm every day the whole system reverses so cars have to go the other way!! i'd missed the nuts factor of india while i was in thailand and in this kolkata really hasn't let me down! so needless to say being sans-specs was causing me a bit of trouble as i have zero peripheral vision on my left side and the traffic just zooms around here, ignoring pretty much all traffic rules and changing directions at the drop of a hat! so yeah, i'm all kitted out in spiffy new specs and i look incredibly good :D

where was i...? ah yes, after i bought my new specs i headed over to howrah station to try and sort out a ticket to mumbai. over a million people pass through this station every day, and i reckon most of them must have been there when i was. i thought cst in mumbai was busy - there was absolutely no way on this earth i was going to get a ticket before next week so i hung around a while people watching and then jumped on a ferry across the hooghly river to the main side of town. i sneaked a few photos of the howrah bridge (apparently it's illegal to photograph it for some reason) which made me feel all naughty.

my next mission was to get to the motherhouse of mother teresa's order. i knew that all i had to do was go down park street and chuck a left at some point.... but at which point i wasn't entirely sure... i used the metro to get to park street, something i had been looking forward to. i don't know what it is but i love underground systems, the ones in delhi, singapore and bangkok were fab, really clean and well maintained and reliable, who wants to guess what the one in kolkata's like? i'll give 50p to the winner... well, it was old, rusty, dirty, no signs or maps and actually what i expected a metro in india to be like. it was crowded, at each station it was every man for himself and every stop or so the thing would halt suddenly and unexpectedly in the middle of the tunnel. what an experience!!

i got hideously lost trying to find mother teresa's house which i am actually thankful for, as i got to see parts of kolkata i ordinarily wouldn't have. kiddies playing in the street, families going about their hard, impoverished lives on the roadside, people washing under leaking pipes, men sifting through garbage dividing plastics and metals up for re-sale and maybe food for the day. it really saddened me to see my fellow man in such a shit state, so hopeless and with absolutely nothing yet managing to cling on to existence by any means possible. for maybe a mile up to mother teresa's house i saw all kinds of horridness, so so many people in such a bad way. when i got there and looked around the motherhouse, saw her tomb and her simple room i was really humbled, and aware that i was in the presence of someone special. the pope blessed her in a way that means she's one step down from being a saint (forgive me for not knowing the exact terminology) and after seeing the poverty around her and reading about the sacrifices she made in her life to help those in need i could see why. i sat in the main chapel which houses her tomb for maybe 15 minutes as kolkatans filed in silently, pressed their foreheads against her simple white marble tomb and uttered silent prayers. it was altogether an overwhelming afternoon and another experience i will never forget.

i had an interesting time trying to get back to sudder street. the taxi drivers weren't interested as the one way system had switched so it would be a pain in the ass to get me there so i got in a rikshaw and waited for 3 others to join me, apparently they always fill up before they leave unlike the ones elsewhere in india. he dropped me off about a million miles away so i ended up walking the rest. before i turned in i bought a train ticket from one of the travel agents. well, i gave him lots of money and he said come back tomorrow.... so having achieved everything i set out to for the day i flomped in my hot, smelly skank-o-rama(tm) hotel room. i'd felt a little bit left out of conversations with fellow travellers about bedbugs and cockroaches before but now i have some of my very own! i'm not complaining though, the room is as cheap as chips, the shower's one of the best i've had on this trip and there's a swift internet cafe across the road from which i am typing this over-long blog post. last night i was a very lucky little essex boy indeed. as i was channel surfing hoping for some bionic woman or at the very least some bones i heard "du du du duuuuuh the chaaaaampions" and it was the arsenal - v - liverpool game! i of course watched it and finally got to sleep at about 3am.

today has been tip top also. it started with me going to the travel agent and him telling me that my ticket had been cancelled, so i collected my refund and headed off into the kolkata noise grumbling about the fact i should have bloody done it myself. i found a masala dosa man on the street and breathed two in for my breakfast before flagging down a taxi and heading to fort william, site of the black hole of calcutta. i knew that the place was off-limits to civilians as it is now an indian army base but i thought i'd try my luck anyways, even if only to get a glimpse of the place. no dice. as soon as i walked through the main gate i was accosted by two soldiers in funny hats and politely but firmly asked to leave. i asked if there was anywhere i could see the building and they said no, there was nothing to see anyway.

i suspected they were fibbing but i needed to crack on and get to my next destination, the kali temple in the south of the city. the holiest of all hindu temples in kolkata, i was alarmed at my taxi driver's blank gaze when i asked him to take me there. his english was perfect so it can't have been a language thing, and it wasn't until after we had asked about 3 people that he knew where to go. what a cool afternoon! i wandered around with one of the brahmin, a chap called rasbehari who told me all about the history of the place and the ceremonies that take place within. he showed me the inside of the temple, where maybe 2 dozen faithful worshippers were whipping themselves up into all kinds of frenzies, and then took me to a strange, gnarled old tree which has it's own shrine built around it. the tree was covered in small clay stones attached to it by means of thin yellow and red thread. rasbehari explained that hindus believed that the tree would grant them blessings of fertility and long life, and young newlyweds would come here and offer the clay, one hair from each of their heads and a small offering (in the form of cash usually) to be granted such a blessing. i chatted some more with my new priest-friend and i was invited to the sacrifice the next day - each day they sacrifice a goat to appease kali as she is quite the badass, and they then cook the goat with rice and hand out the food to the many needy people who reside around the temple. i don't know whether i will go or not, i don't think i would have any trouble watching the animal die - after all i have killed rabbits and chickens myself back in my roughty-toughty army boy days - i think i would be uncomfortable being present at a very holy ceremony when i am not part of the religion involved. we'll see, i'll think on it some more tonight as i battle with the humidity, bedbugs and cockroaches in my room tonight trying to sleep. as i headed back to sudder street i tried again to get a train ticket, this time from a more reputable looking establishment. i again gave the chap lots of money, again the chap said come back tomorrow... watch this space.....

i've just scrolled up and seen how much i've written... sorry... there's a lot going on here!