Blog

We’ve (the boys) arrived in India. Whoa.

Walking out of the Kolcatta (Calcutta) airport into the late afternoon sun, I was greeted with a new and noticeable smell. A different smell than Thailand, and since we’d flown and the change happened suddenly within 2 hours, it was easy to notice. It was the smell of India, and I smell it now as the air wafts over me from the door of this net bar. Soon I will become used to it and I will no longer notice it. Smells are so difficult to explain, but there are food smells, curries, other spices, lassies (yogurt drinks), mixed with plenty of bus and taxi exhaust from the old style “Ambassador Classic” diesel taxi cabs.

While biking the 20 some km from the airport to the center of town I noticed that yes, the traffic here is plentiful and congested. But because we were forewarned for the worst, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Moreover, since we’d just come from biking around Bangkok, which so far is the least pleasant city we’ve biked in due to a confusing road system, narrow streets, super fast traffic, few other bikers, and plenty of fast and loud exhaust-piped motor bikes that seem to view every newly green light as the start of a race, Kolcatta’s slower traffic has actually been a nice change. After Thailand’s surprising absence of car horns, the frequent car horns here are a strange kind of comfort, reminding me of China.

Also reminding me of China, after contrasting Lao’s, Cambodia’s, and Thailand’s sparse populations, I also quickly noticed that there are A LOT of people here in Kolcatta. Known for its crowdedness, I still sense a positive vibe from the people here. When Jim and I stopped to ask for directions to Nakia’s hostel (Drew was on a bus since his bike was most unfortunately stolen in Bangkok due to a less-than adequate lock; he’s planning to buy a new low to mid range bike here - but he can tell you more about that later) a small crowd of people slowly gathered around us with several quite eager to help us find the street we were looking for, also taking me back to our Chinese days, only they spoke great English. It feels good to be back in the thick of humanity. Although I did enjoy the time to think while biking in the middle of no-where Lao and Cambodia, after 3 years of living in China, this is what I have become used to. Only here, there are MORE people and everything is even more intense than in China. I’ll probably tire of the large numbers of people at some point, but for now Kolcatta has a surprisingly huge park area (actually parks) that provides a great get-a-way for some peace and well, not quite quiet but more quiet.

A few other things that I’ve noticed in my first 2 days: taxis and buses are old but well-functioning, and real rickshaws (pulled by a man walking, NOT pedaling) are very common and used by many, unlike China that only uses more and more scarce pedi-cabs (tricycles) now. People’s clothes are distinctly Indian, especially women’s, comprised of colorful cloth wrapped and draped about them. Clothing here seems to be refreshingly the least westernized of any other country I’ve traveled in. Food (and the food is great: nan, curries, samosas, etc) is cheaper than China and most of SE Asia at the cheap stalls. I usually eat for $1.00 a meal, which actually fills me.

We’re planning to stay here for the better part of this week, as there is much to do and plenty of volunteering opportunities, as Nakia has already dove into. After that, we’ll head north 200km or so to visit one of Jim’s friends who lives in a remote village, which should be a great experience right off the bat.

Until then, I’m taking my time and trying to be gentle on myself as I mentally adapt to this huge regional and cultural shift.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 2:32 am and is filed under Pete's Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.