India Mega-Post

I haven't posted in a few days since my internet connectivity has been a little spotty. OK, that's partly an excuse. Since I didn't really get a previous weekend, I decided to mostly take it easy, rest, and recover a bit. Here's a mega-post to make up for it.

I tried to add some pictures, but I can't get the stupid things uploaded. Maybe I'll try again later and just edit them into the post.

Friday

Class finished a little earlier, as it often does on a Friday, and I sat around and chatted for a while. I went to the IBM office there and sat around and chatted some more. The IBM office is not that different from any other office I've been to. Space is at a bit of a premium, so the cubes are small, but big enough to drop your backpack and laptop. Like the client site, there are people who work in the breakroom who make your tea for you. I still can't quite get used to this. I feel so lazy.

That night, I went out with one of the students for some Bengali food. The place wasn't too far from the hotel, so I just walked there (about twenty minutes). He had spent some time in Mumbai and while there, went out to a restaurant called Oh Calcutta to get his fix on Bengali food (apparently Bengalis are very attached to their food). The place we went to was called O Calcutta (see the intentional naming difference?) and was not the same restaurant at all. We ended up going to another place upstairs. Bengali food is a little different than any other Indian food that I've had. First of all, there's a lot of fish, and secondly, there's a lot of mustard. Some of the sauces have an almost wasabi-like burn to them.

Saturday

This was my big day to go out and do some siteseeing, but frankly I was just a little bagged. I took it real easy in the morning. I woke up at around 5:30 (as I have been lately), chatted with the fam a little, and then went back to sleep until about 10:00. Delicious.

I grabbed a couple of things to munch on and walked around the gardens of the hotel. After eating and snapping a few photos, I hopped in a cab, and headed down to the Victoria Memorial. The cabby took the back ways to get in to town (we had settled on a fixed fare already, so he wasn’t trying to run up the meter); it must have been busy taking the main highways on a Saturday morning. We drove through a few markets on the way there. Very interesting.

The memorial has beautiful gardens and a museum containing paintings, exhibits, and artifacts all relating to the British Raj. The building itself is impressive as well. I spent some time wandering through the gardens and the museum.

The Victoria Memorial

Me grinning like an idiot.

From the Memorial, I walked to St. Paul’s cathedral. The church was closed at the time, so I just walked around a bit and took some pictures.

From the cathedral, I wandered up Jawaharlal Rd. back to Park St. Indians have a love affair with Chinese food, so I thought I’d try the Indianised version. I stopped at the Oxford book shop to cool off and pick up a Bengali cookbook and then went on looking for the Chinese place I had seen a couple of days before. While here, I saw an Indian version of Erica.

The street kid who had told me his life story the last time I was there spotted me again. He tried to get me to buy him a shoe-shine kit for 2000 rupees (around $60). Nice try, but I’m not that stupid. I gave him some money and got him to take me to the Chinese restaurant. Indian Chinese food is really good. The vegetables were fresh and the flavours were excellent. Actually, I find that in general, the restaurants seem to be really good here. The service is very good, and the food is always very hot and fresh. It’s reasonably priced too (at least by Western standards).

After loading up on vegetable spring rolls, crispy chicken in a chili-honey sauce (beats the hell out of crispy beef any day; I know this is a bold statement), and mixed vegetables, I was in no real mood to walk much longer. It was already getting to be late in the afternoon, so back to the hotel it was, where I settled into a comfortable food coma for the rest of the evening.

On the way back to the hotel, I saw a truck full o’ nuns. Isn’t that a product? No, I’m thinking of Chock Full O’ Nuts. Ha ha.


Sunday

I woke up early and packed to leave for my morning flight to Bangalore. The cab ride to the airport was very quiet and peaceful compared to the rest of my stay there (it was 8:00 on a Sunday morning). I just sat and watched the billboards go by. Just like here, there are billboards everywhere. The only difference is that the people on them are Bollystars, and most of the products are localised (Pogo Potato Chips! Masti Bhi! Crunchy Bhi!).

The flight was pretty uneventful. When I got into town, I went to my apartment to settle in. Compared to the Hyatt, it’s pretty simple accomodations. I have a room with a little bed, a TV and desk, and a washroom. The people running the place are very friendly.

At the time, I wasn’t able to figure out how to call Canada Direct, so I wasn’t able to call home. It also didn’t appear that I had internet access in my apartment, so I wasn’t sure how I was going to communicate with the outside world; especially since I wasn’t expecting to have internet access in the classroom. This was a bit of a low point, since I’d already been away from home for two weeks. I sat around and watched Arnold Schwartzenegger movies.

Later in the evening, I took a walk out to a main road just a couple of blocks away looking for something to eat. There’s not much in the way of restaurants, so I settled on a couple buns from a bakery. I also found a small internet joint and sent an email home.

I think that I was getting ripped off a lot in Kolkata. Most of the shops here weren’t even able to break a 100 rupee note which is what I was paying for cab fares to the office. The two buns cost a total of 6 Rs, and the internet access was 15 Rs per hour.

Monday

I’m only a 5 minute walk from the class, so I had a nice stroll over to the work location. Class went fine. There is a nice open air terrace on the roof of the building where we go for tea and for lunch. Lunch is provided, and although some of the students were complaining that the chatpatis were cold, I thought the meal was generally quite good. I think that most of the people in Bangalore are veg, so the meal was a couple of vegetable dishes. I’m no longer worried about getting food that’s too spicy for me. One of the students commented that he found it a bit spicy, but it was alright to me. I should be fine from here on in.

I went for a walk at lunch with a couple of students. There were about five cows sitting in a no parking zone. I don’t know if they were flaunting their status as cows, or if it was a no parking zone because that’s just where the cows like to sit. I almost tripped over a goat.

After work I took an auto-rickshaw for the first time down to MG road (round of applause if you can guess what MG stands for). The auto-rickshaw is an economical way of getting around mixed in with a heapin’ helpin’ of adrenaline and black lung. Imagine barreling down the highway in a golf cart. Now remove seat belts, the concept of lanes, spacing between vehicles of more than two feet, any modicum of driver courtesy, and brakes. To that, add in random oncoming traffic and farm animals. You now have a pretty good idea of what an auto-rickshaw ride is like. Welcome to India.

I went to a place called Tandoor on MG Rd. which was recommended by one of the students. This was maybe one of the best Indian meals that I’ve ever had; tandoori chicken, mixed vegetable makhani, and garlic naan. Mega-yum!

Dinner in Downtown Kolkata

I left the hotel last night and headed into downtown Kolkata for some dinner. I had originally planned to go to the Victoria Memorial and see St. Paul’s cathedral at night, but it turned out that I didn’t have time. I’ll be there tomorrow anyway, so no big deal.

I took a taxi downtown. I’ve learned not to let them use the meter and insist on them telling me the amount in advance. I’m sure the amount is much higher than it really should be, but for the trip downtown, which is quite a ways, it was still only around five dollars. I had the cab drop me at Park St. and Jawaharlal (Chowringhee) Rd. which is the location of many good restaurants. I walked up the street until I found a place recommended by one of the students, Trincas. I'm told that many of the restaurants on this street, including Trincas, were British restaurants from before Separation.

The first thing I noticed walking into the restaurant was that I was the only westerner there. This is usually a good sign, because it means that the locals think the food is good and it’s not just some slop pushed off on tourists. I had fish tikki, daal makhani, and naan, all awesome.

The restaurant had a live band as well which did a pretty good job of things. There were six members of the band crammed onto a stage so small that the lead guitarist actually had the head of his guitar jammed into the bass player’s nose. It was also the first time I had ever seen a blonde Indian woman. I wonder if it was bleached. I was hoping to hear a bit more Bengali music while I was there, but they mostly kicked out def jams like Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head, and The Police’s Every Breath You Take. Why the hell is there no London Beat in my music collection?!?

I took a walk up and down the street to walk off dinner. There are a few other nice-looking places along there as well as a big book shop (Oxford Books), where I hope to find a good Bengali cookbook tomorrow. I got hit up by a lot of beggars, some of them small children selling gum. Once kid, around fourteen years of age told me his life story about how he’s trying to go to school to learn English to make something of himself. He had a pretty good sell.

Here's a few pictures of Park St. at night. The third picture is the restaurant where I ate.

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.

First Day of Work

I had my first day of work yesterday. The night before, I was too tired to be bothered to arrange a ride into work, so I left it to the morning. It was a bit of an ordeal getting to the IBM location. First of all, it was a little farther than I thought. I had looked at a map online and didn’t really pay any attention to the scale of it. Second, there are two IBM building and I was brought to the main one, which wasn’t actually where I needed to be (this wasn’t the driver’s fault; it was the address I was given). There was no phone and the only way that they could direct me there was by pointing. An IBMer who worked there flagged down a bicycle rickshaw, gave the driver ten rupees and told him where I needed to go. That was an experience and a half. The drivers here are absolutely mad. There is no concept of lanes. Cars squeeze in wherever there is a spot and constantly honk. It’s a little unnerving in a car, but a lot unnerving in a rickshaw.

Everybody honks. They should invent a car here that just honks at random intervals. Cars could then be sold with standard and automatic horns as an extra option. A guy could make a lot of money with an idea like that.

I saw my first cow yesterday. I was looking out the window while teaching and three of them just walked down the street. There was also a goat sitting under a tree.

The hotel that I’m staying at, the Hyatt Regency is probably one of the swishest places that I’ve ever stayed (all for the bargain price of $53 US per night). The area of Kolkata that I’m in is Salt Lake which is where a lot of the high tech businesses are. On the way in, it didn’t seem like any business park I had ever seen, though. In the taxi from the airport, it seemed like the entire area was the “bad end of town”. After a few minutes, though, I noticed that everyone was fairly well dressed in button-up shirts and slacks. It’s not the bad end at all; it just is what it is. Pulling into the hotel was a shock after seeing the surrounding area. The brightly illuminted building towers above the rest of the area and is surrounding with beautiful gardens and an iron fence. The guards at the front gate check under the car with a mirror (terrorism is a big problem in India).

Initially, I was a little concerned about leaving the hotel in anything but a hired car. This was partly reinforced in talking other westerners around the hotel. However, after being out walking around a bit yesterday, I’ve realised that it’s not that much of a concern. This morning, I deliberately had the driver take my to the IBM location which is a couple blocks from the actual classroom and just walked it. Tonight, I’ll just take a regular cab home and will probably do so in the morning as well to come back to work. It sounds kind of silly, but it’s pretty intimidating at first; especially when you are here by yourself.

I went out for a walk today at lunch time. Here's a couple of pictures of the area by the office. The first is a side street just behind the class, and the second is one of the IBM buildings (the lean-tos in front are street food vendors).

Welcome to Kolkata, India

Finally made it! After missing my flight, I spent hours on the phone trying to work out a way to get to Kolkata by Sunday night. Unfortunately, at this late time, many of the options involved flying into India and then buying a paper ticket to get here (most airlines within India don’t do e-tickets, so paper tickets are required). I really wanted to avoid that since I was uncomfortable about flying into Mumbai and facing the possibility of not being able to get a ticket out. Although assured by the travel agent that this would not happen, it did. Fortunately is didn’t turn out to be a problem. And I made it here with only a slight (further) delay.

I had a long layover in Mumbai, but unfortunately didn’t see anything but the airport, and the shanty towns that have grown up around it. I spent half the time waiting for a shuttle to the other airport (oh yeah; something else the travel agent didn’t tell me about), but it was a short ride once the shuttle came. It was my first glimpse into the service industry here. People who work in services seem to get abused verbally quite a bit. For example, there was a man who had been waiting some time for the shuttle. He had missed his breakfast because of the timing of his flights so he was getting pretty hungry. It turned into a big hullabaloo involving a poor baggage attendant, his superior, his superior, and numerous phone calls. Fortunately, the shuttle arrived before it got violent.

It seems like everywhere you go, there are people there to do everything for you. Maybe it’s just because I’m a westerner. People will carry your tray for you, bring you your bag, and pour tea for you in the corporate breakroom. I’m a little afraid to go to the washroom (I think I’ll sneak in).