This too was one of the dark places of the earth

Calcutta and the Northeast

There are many cities which I've never visited but where I would feel perfectly comfortable beginning my explorations in the middle of the night; Calcutta is not one of these - the mere mention of the name conjures up images of a great, uncontrolled, writhing mass of humanity. The first comfort that came to me upon leaving the airport was that there were no motorbike taxis; no longer did I have to worry about being hassled at every corner - the poisons of choice in this city are cabs and rickshaws - the former can be easily evaded and the latter (a man running or walking while pulling a cart) is simple to outrun.

I walked to the bus stop and grabbed the first thing that came along; Indian buses are vibrantly colored monsters built almost entirely from wood; the seats seem to be divided by sex and thus there can be a whole row empty while 5 men are squished into a space meant for 2. When I reached the end of the line, I found there was no bus to take me further at that time so I would need to get a cab; while I was inquiring into this at a restaurant, some guy who was picking up takeaway offered to let me stay at his house. As seems to be the norm with Indians, he was very pessimistic about the safety of his country and my chances of survival in the big city, particularly at that time of night; he posed the hypothetical question "What if I steal all your belongings and leave you naked on the street? What are you going to do then?" - I had to admit that I wasn't entirely sure.

I went on the back of his bicycle to a delapidated residential section of town; he had a nice enough place with cable TV and a computer keyboard (he assured me he'd be getting the mouse soon); he was in the process of a divorce (his wife didn't care for his current job at the movie theatre) and so it was just him and his mom - she didn't speak any English and just stared at me for minutes at a time. He gave me a rundown of all the things to see and do in India, from which I can recall approximately nothing; just as I was nodding off, he pointed to a large lizard sitting just above the bedframe and explained that it was extremely poisonous and I would likely not survive a bite - he did assure me however, that though it might crawl around on me a bit during the night, it wouldn't strike unless provoked; so I stared at the gecko for a few hours, then passed out for an hour or two, and then it was time to hit the town.

You would probably not label Calcutta as a particularly clean place - garbage, and human and animal waste cover many of the streets and parklands, and you constantly come across people sleeping and bathing on the sidewalks, frequently accompanied by their livestock. There is a campaign to improve this however, and as evidence of this, I came across a "small carcass van" which was charged with beautifying the city by picking up roadkill and deceased midgets; also, many free-standing urinals have been built, so it's easy to relieve yourself in view of the whole world without having to worry about that nasty residual odor. There is certainly no lack of beauty; with a rainbow of colors spread across the buildings, transport and people, monolithic mosques, temples and palaces sticking up out of otherwise ordinary city streets, and a plethora of delicious foods strewn along every sidewalk, you don't have to go far to be overwhelmed by the influx of sights, sounds, and smells. It's all reminiscent of a time long past; the taxis are built using 1950s chassis and the policeman wear glistening white safari uniforms; this seems to be one of the last places on earth that western civilization has yet to fully conquer.

Language is a tricky subject in India; all the signs and official documents are in English, and most of the population seems to have studied it, but Indian English bares only a loose resemblance to its western equivalents, and frequently in conversations the locals have questioned whether English is in fact my native tongue. In addition to the lingue franca, there's also a slew of traditional languages and dialects that vary by state; in Calcutta, Hindi and Bengali are widely known, but a few hundred kilometers down the road, there's a completely different set.

The people seem phenomenally helpful and if ever you look indecisive or confused for a moment's time, a dozen passerbys will jump to your aid. It's no land of smiles, however, and they always seem very frustrated that they have to help you; I left the tourist office feeling downright repentant for my impudence in waltzing into such a place and requesting info about the city.

The Indian Rupee is 45 to the dollar and is thus pretty close to the Baht; with that said, I haven't managed to gauge the true value yet; a meal of curry, rice (or roti) and dahl will set you back about 7 rupies, but a tiny ball of packed sugar is 3 and a liter of water can be as much as 10. My first purchase was a delicious breakfast of potato-stuffed pancakes that ran just under a nickel.

I went to the tourist district and grabbed a windowless box for $2.50. I then ran down to the main cathedral where a festival had ensued which included a live band performing classic American tunes and a ton of carnival games with silly British names that I couldn't decode. Next door, India's only non-competitive international film festival was in full swing; the queue was as about as long as a Bollywood epic, so I didn't stick around. I breezed by the zoo where they had the usual assortment of animals as well as a few oddities unique to India; despite countless signs forbidding it and an elevated police presence, the tourists seemed determined to feed the animals - there were even vendors moving around, selling peanuts exclusively for this purpose.

Up the road was a massive commercial district with thousands of people shopping frenetically for all manner of things; somewhere in this maze, I managed to step on a nail that someone had conveniently left sticking out of the sidewalk; I didn't want to chance an infection from whatever bugs may reside here so I quickly chewed my foot off at the ankle before the bloodstream had a chance to carry the bacteria out (I anticipate it will grow back before I return to America or take any pictures that include my lower half).

In the morning I stopped by the cathedral for my first English Mass in months, then I wandered through the city's main park, which was just one huge grassy expanse where several hundred people played cricket or picknicked along with their horses and goats. I headed towards the train station where I was intercepted by a guy I perceived to be a tout, but may have, in fact, just had a whole lot of good will and free time on his hands; he led me to the bus station and subsequently to the train booking office. India appears to be the only eastern nation I've visited thus far where the train is actually a sensible option; for my first trip, the train's time is 50% faster than that of the bus, and a sleeper car for the 7-hour, 400km stretch is only 5 bucks.

I spent the next few hours walking towards a pair of Jain temples that appeared on my map. Along the way I ran across the Marble Palace which, as it turns out, requires a permit from the tourist office 10km away; the guard at the gate just told me to bribe the man at the door, but this second guy had apparently never been informed of this system.

Further up the road was a massive parade of people in colorful dress marching or riding in truck beds in a circuit around the main arteries of the area; someone told me that this was a Punjabi celebration that happened every Sunday but he couldn't elaborate on what it was for or what a Punjabi was.

The first temple was fairly amazing as it was assembled from thousands of pieces of cut glass; the second was very large and red and equally attractive in its own way. I took the metro back to town; this is a phenomenal deal as it's around 6 rupees for a trip of up to 25km; as with most things in India, there's a long list of rules that all passengers must obey - for one, they explicitly forbid you from carrying a dead body on to a train - I think this is a very reasonable constraint that should be adapted in more forms of public transport.

I visited "one of the world's largest" planetariums for the nightly English show; I wasn't actually awake for any portion of the presentation but I will commend them for their extremely comfortable chairs. I wandered through a number of back alleys, including one completely packed with piles of cheap sweets where I had a delicious dinner comprised of a solid kilo of sugar, and eventually arrived at the train station. Indian trains are divided into 6-8 different classes ranging from an air-conditioned room with a single bed to a car with no seats where everyone just huddles on the floor with their goats. I was in 4th class which is a non-partitioned sleeper car with 9 undressed beds per 1.5mX2.5m block; this was actually quite comfortable, though my bunk had no window and the only way I could see anything was to hang out the door (which was always wide open).

Orissa

I arrived in Bhubaneswar around 7 and started a circuit of the temples. The first one piped the Hare Krishna song over loudspeakers while devotees strolled through the gardens and beggars lined the sidewalks. I haven't figured out the protocols for these temples yet, and I'm not at all sure whether I'm actually allowed in; it seems to vary from place to place - sometimes you must remove your shoes and other times you must take off your socks as well, and at still other places you must leave your bags and water outside and hop on foot, backwards when approaching the altar.

At another temple, large monkeys climbed up the framework; I made the mistake of looking one of these in the eye and he promptly jumped down and chased me off the premises. Cows roam the streets throughout town; they seem a tad bewildered by their lot in life - they just stand around, eat garbage, and occasionally get smacked by angry shopkeepers and motorists - they seem to like markets the best as there are plenty of fruits and vegetables just lying around on the street. Old women go around collecting cow pies (with their bare hands); they mold them into discs and leave them to drive in the sun - I'm not really clear on what happens to them after this - probably sold as some sort of souvenir or snackfood to unsuspecting westerners (update: I'm told these are used to fuel biodiesel-powered rickshaws).

The main temple in town is offlimits to foreigners but thousands of Indian pilgrims regularly file into the structure. For non-Hindis, there's a viewing platform a little ways off where you are required to pay a donation to some guy who may or may not have any claim to the thing; he has a guestbook where you are required to write the amount of your donation - he subsequently adds a zero or two in your script so future tourists will come to believe that a $20 donation is the norm for taking a photo (I have my doubts as to whether he has ever once been successful with this ploy). Nearby, I noted a line of three sweetshops whose names were preceded by "World-famous", "India-famous", and "Bhudaneswar-famous" respectively - I'd really be interested to see the figures for the relative patronage levels of these establishments.

I took a bus to Puri which held at least double its intended maximum capacity. The aisle held two lines of densely-packed passengers, and there was a second group that sat between the legs of the standers (I first discovered this latter group when a woman and child appeared out of nowhere and cooperatively puked all over my shoes). After two exceedingly pleasant hours, we arrived in Puri; here there was another temple with an even greater patronage than the one I'd come across that morning. Besides its status as one of the holiest places in India, it draws plenty of tourists with its beaches and legalized marijuana. I got a room on the beach which happened to be home to one-third of the city's total mosquito population.

The next day was some sort of holiday (Puja Day I believe) and I awoke to the sounds of explosives ringing through the air from every direction. Down at the beach, a few hundred Indians played in the surf and set off fireworks, stretching for a few miles to the west; in the east, there was a fisherman's village where the crowds were considerably diminished due to the villagers' use of the beach as a public toilet.

I took an overflowing bus to Konark which is home to the incredible Sun Temple. Like many attractions in India, the prices for foreigners and citizens were slightly disparate - 250 rupees for me and 2 rupees for everyone else. Due to an accounting error, I didn't have enough money to pay this absurdly inflated fee and make it to the next town with an ATM, so I attempted to impersonate a local; I think I nailed the accent (even I couldn't understand what I was saying) but I couldn't pull off the indignant head wobble (a trademark Indian mannerism similar to what a woman named Loquisha does when she knows you didn't just say that) and they saw right through my disguise. I had to be content with walking the perimeter and taking pictures from every possible angle.

Walking back to the station, I mistakeningly hailed a tourist bus which was midway through its trip from Puri; this worked out much better than a local bus as they had only sold as many tickets as there were seats and I got a spot right up front on the gear box. On the way to Bubaneswar, we stopped by a large hilltop temple with inspiring views of the surrounding countryside and a continuous line of vendors that would attempt to sell you cashew nuts as you hiked up and down the stairs. Heading into town, the bus stopped at the big temple (since the tourists were predominantly Hindus who could get in) and I hiked the rest of the way to the railway station.

Although I'm told this is peak tourist season in India, there don't seem to actually be any foreign tourists. I suppose it's possible that they're here in great numbers, but the ever-present, ultra-dense cloud of Indians makes them invisible as they waltz around in their shorts and t-shirts eating their hamburgers and banana pancakes. Perhaps they're all just hanging out at that big palace up in Agra.

Getting a train ticket is no simple matter; all sleepers are typically sold out two or three days in advance, and often the best you can do is a "general ticket" which gives you permission to stand, curl up on a free piece of floor, or lock yourself in the toilet for 12 hours. There's about 30 different queues in each station and each one has a specific purpose that's impossible to know in advance, so you end up waiting for 20 minutes in one line where you are inevitably deferred to a different one (which subsequently sends you somewhere else); furthermore, the rules for queueing are markedly different as there's no obligation to actually wait in the queue given that you can succesfully wedge your body in front of everyone else.

I got on the waiting list for the overnight train to Vijawaddy; this is a full-price ticket which states that there's a remote chance that you could get a seat given that 300 people fall over dead in the 4 hours before your train departs. In the interval, I went around to various restaurants and stands to carbo-load for the upcoming half-day I would spend on my feet.

I have not, as of yet, found food here to compare with the Indian buffets back home. All street vendors seem to sell exactly the same thing - a yellow curry with chickpeas accompanied by fried bread and donuts. Nearly all restaurant menus are in roman script but very few make any attempt to explain what the names of local dishes mean; I typically order a "thali" which results in them bringing out a big tray with anything they happen to have extras of. Most places tend to be all-you-can-eat and it's a real challenge to clear your plate as a waiter is always standing by to make sure your curries, starches and spices are all in equilibrium at all times; whenever it seems you might not have sufficient rice to adequately soak up the curry, more is instantly piled on, and if your curries then appear too meager to flavour the newly allotted rice, a new round is immediately dished out.

Goodbye Vietnam!