The East Kolkata Diet

I have a new idea for a diet book. It's called the East Kolkata diet. All you have to do is eat a little bit of whatever it was that I had the other day. You won't even feel like eating! If you do manage to eat, it won't be in your system for more than fifteen minutes anyway. I think that I'll package the book with a free sample of Immodium (it really works!).

Suffice it to say that yesterday was not a good teaching day. I started waking up yesterday morning at about 3am and wasn't able to eat anything substantial until dinner (I got a loaf of fresh bread and water from the bakery in the hotel). It's probably my own fault for telling Joe that I hoped to get "a cracking-good case of explosive diarrhea" while I was here. Be careful what you wish for!

Anyway, things have settled down on that front (knock on wood) as my breakfast isn't making me feel nauseous yet (and it's been a solid ten minutes).

I think that I'm going to try to make it into the city tonight for dinner. It will have to be quick since I have a conference call at 10:30pm tonight. I'm much more comfortable about going out now. I take regular taxis now instead of paying exhorbitant amounts for the private cars. Even when the cabbie rips you off, which happened to me the other night, it's still ridiculously cheap. The fare came to 102 rupies (which I'm told is a ridiculous amount for a cab ride, but fares for foreigners are different), so I gave the driver two 100-rupie notes. He stashed one of them away while I wasn't paying attention and handed me back a ten-rupie note saying, "I'll give you the two rupies". As if I had given him 110! I had never had a 10-rupie note before, so I know I didn't give it to him. I argued for a bit, but it wasn't worth the bother (100 rupies is about three dollars Canadian, which probably means more to him than it does to me). However, I'm a lot more vigilant now.

I usually have the taxi drop me off at the IBM building (which is the "wrong" building I was taken to the first day) and just walk. The weather is warm, but not sweltering hot. From a Canadian's point of view it's wonderful, but the locals find it a bit chilly.

I was really looking forward to the tea here. Darjeeling, which produces some of the most fabulous tea in the world IMHO, is only about five hours north of here on the edge of the Himalayas. The tea at work took my by a bit of a surprise. It's essentially hot Nestea which is better than you'd think, but is definitely not a fine cup of clear Darjeeling. I still haven't had the chai here, which is excellent in Canada and is probably sublime here. Maybe I'll find a street vendor that sells it tonight while I'm out (the water and milk are both boiled). Kolkata and West Bengal are also known for their sweets.

If I make it out tonight, I'll try to take some more pictures since I've taken precious few so far, and post them here and on Flickr.