KOLKATA-MUMBAI. November 17th - 25th.

Monday. First, the daily search for another hotel. I try the Maria Hotel, in Sudder Street itself, and this works out well, and I stay there for the remainder of my time in Calcutta. 230 rupees, own bathroom etc, no TV (so you don't have to listen to other people's), and predominantly western backpackers, who tend to be reasonably considerate late at night, as opposed to the locals (whom I've cynically come to think of as the Bellowing Bengali's) who never seem to shut it until about 2 in the morning. There is plenty of surrounding noise, from other places, but it's far enough away to not be bothersome. After brekkie, I walk across Chowringee to AJC Bose Road, (formerly North Circular Road), and, with the help of LP's excellent instructions, find Mother Theresa's Headquarters (the 'Motherhouse'), up a back alley. Like everything in Calcutta there are photo restrictions, but you are allowed to photograph her tomb, where tourists and nuns alike almost seemed to be keeping a vigil. There is a very informative 'museum', which is actually a few score yards of text and pictures of her life, where I spent so much time that I forgot to visit the upstairs, where 'Mother's' room, with a simple camp cot and her few belongings, are on permanent display. Afterwards I visited the Park Street Cemetery, which contains many old graves, especially from the Colonial period, in derelict condition. There were many crows flying noisily above, and if one had been of a suitably hysterical disposition it could have been quite spooky. Occasional signs on the trees warned against indulging in any 'inappropriate' behaviour in the cemetery, but the guards let in beggar children, so that even here you are continually hassled for money.

The U.S Consulate in Calcutta is in a road that used to be called Harrington Street. With the general 'Indianisation' of Calcutta's street names, Harrington Street must have come up for review. Bengali's are well-known throughout India for their sense of humour, and on what can only have been on a Friday afternoon, it was decided to rename this street Ho Chi Minh Sarani.
This I must see, I thought, and tracked it down. There were police posts at each end of the block where the Consulate was, and I asked if I could go through. The Consulate building seems quite small, and if you didn't know otherwise, you'd think it was something like a two-storey factory. I snuck a shot of it from a distance, and walking closer espied a shiny brass plate at one end of the building : "Office of the Consulate-General of the United States of America. 5 Ho Chi Minh Sarani" Aha! But no sooner had I zoomed the camera onto this priceless artifact, than people came running from various directions, saying 'You can't take a picture of that'. Fortunately I hadn't, because they demanded that I show them the last shot taken, not being about to take my word for it.

Back in Chowringee, I decided to investigate the length of Park Street, as it is reputedly the home of some good eateries. Walked about a kilometre and a half, almost to the cemetery, but nothing. Walked back, and tried the other end, 400 or so metres of unimposing-looking street, which of course was where all these flash-looking cafes were. Went into 'The Street' cafe where I feasted on some decadent and over-sweet confectionery. The air-con was so high that after 15 minutes you were freezing, and I had to ask for the 'loo. A disinterested finger pointed to the far end of the cafe, which was alongside the entry ramp for an undercover car park. Nothing there, so I walked out through a glass sliding door, and down into the car park, from where there was the car park entrance to an obviously 5 star + hotel. Further enquires led me across the lobby, up a corridor, up to level 2 by lift, then 'down there, turn right', another hike, and finally the plushiest 'loo of my whole trip. On the way back a comely and smiling receptionist in the foyer made eye contact, and after I'd bared the fangs, she gave me this few minutes spiel on the advantages of staying at this hotel, backed up with numerous brochures etc. I mean I've got the day-pack on one shoulder, the white t-shirt, (decidedly grubby by now at 4pm), and here I'm getting the royal treatment. How'd you be? When I eventually returned to the cafe, the waiters looked as if they thought I'd done a runner. I did some internet in the evening, but didn't feel hungry, and went to bed dinner-less.

Tuesday I discovered an acceptable cafe in Chowringee Lane, near the internet shop, (serving porridge for brekkie - a rare treat), and I ended up having brekkie, lunch and dinner there. In between times I visited the Victoria Memorial and St Pauls Cathedral. The Memorial was built to commemorate Queen Victoria's reign, after her death in 1901, and was completed 20 years later in 1921. It is surrounded by extensive gardens, and is at its best when viewed from the other side of an adjoining lake. Inside are a number of galleries, modern art, history of India, and surprisingly, quite a bit on personalities of the colonial period, that have possibly been there since the Raj. The northern end of the gardens is a bit of a Lover's Lane, and I must have passed seventy or eighty couples holding hands and whispering sweet nothings etc, still in broad daylight. Such public displays of affection are most unusual in India.

It was getting towards dark when I arrived at the cathedral, and inside, a sprinkling of people at the back were sitting and listening as a pianist played soothing music near the front pews. There would have been about 40 inert ceiling fans suspended from the roof, and a few swallows darted above them. Many memorials to Raj era military men about the walls.

Wednesday I spent a few hours at the Indian Museum, which is just round the corner from Sudder Street. Many many galleries, which could take days to look at properly, on all aspects of Indian life and history. You aren't allowed to take photos inside with a mobile phone camera, but it's okay to do so with a digital camera.

LP makes out that buying a railway ticket in Calcutta is very time-consuming and a big hassle, so I weakened, and ordered a 3AC one from a travel agent's in Sudder Street. 1900 rupees and come back in a couple of hours. When I did so, I was issued with a 1700 rupee ticket, so presumably the guy gets commission from the railways, and also puts 200 ruppees in his own pocket. Plus the ticket didn't show a carriage or a seat number, as I was 'wait-listed'. 'What does this mean?' "That's okay, there are plenty of seats, just ring this number two and a half hours before departure time to find out your berth number".

After, I went for dinner at a place in Mirza Gharib recommended by LP - the Golden Dragon. I should have twigged that all was not well, because the doorman had his eyes glued to a small window in the door, and I had to slip past him to get into the empty restaurant. Inside was a re-run of the experience at the nearby Tea House earlier in the week, with the young Chinese manager being berated by a large Bengali guy in full bellowing mode, the two of them ringed by a half dozen waiters. I stood to the side looking at some fish swimming in a tank for some three or four minutes before someone thought to suggest a table. Later the action moved upstairs, followed by a middle-aged Chinese lady, who may have been the chef. As time progressed, there was a good deal of noise from upstairs, and several times what sounded like furniture being knocked over, or possibly thrown. Every so often the Chinese lady would come to the bottom of the stairs and give a running account of the proceedings to the waiters. Meanwhile, I was enjoying a quite commendable sweet and sour chicken, and concentrating, as far as possible, on a pivotal moment in Anna Karenina, where she comes clean, (regarding her infidelities) to her husband.

Thursday I went on quite a hike to 38 Elgin Road, the Bose family home, from where Netaji Chandra Bose 'escaped' early in WW2, making his way to Berlin and subsequently Japan, where he raised an Indian National Army, comprised mainly of Indian POW's released from Japanese camps, to fight alongside the Japanese Army in Burma. The house (no photos allowed inside), is like a museum, with the family's personal effects, and lots of photographs and commentary. Remarkably, after imprisonment by the British for sedition, he later, in the 1920's, became a sort of chief government officer for Calcutta, and later still the leader of the more belligerent face of the Nationalist movement. The museum charged some ridiculously small amount for admission, something like 5 rupees, and whether it was that, or because I was a westerner, I don't know, but all the attendants were rather surly, to the point of terseness. Bose himself disappeared in mysterious circumstances after boarding an aircraft in Saigon at the end of the war. Apparently Indians in general are a bit ambivalent regarding him, but he is considered a hero in Bengal, and they have (rather appropriately) named the Calcutta airport after him. Be that as it may, one of my aunts absolutely loathed him. She and my cousins were on the last 'plane to India, from Mandalay, as the Japanese entered it. They settled in that part of Assam that is now called Nagaland, and 3 years later had to run for it again, as the Japanese and the Indian Nationalist Army approached. If you ever wanted to get Aunt Kitty going, and hear her swear, you only needed to bring his name into the conversation.

By the time I got back to Chowringee I was hungry and very thirsty, and I tried out a newly-discovered cafe, the 'Blue Sky' in Chowringee Lane. Two mango lassi's were followed by three large glasses of tea, and somewhere in there I put away a prawn and sweet corn soup, and a sweet and sour vegetables and rice. The trouble was that the 'prawns' were a few miniscule shrimps of indeterminate age, and thinking about it afterwards, it seemed as if the main dish had been some veggies, put on a plate, with some sweet and sour sauce poured on later, almost as an afterthought. The result of this injudiciously-chosen meal was to be apparent on the morrow.

Friday, in retrospect, turned out to be a day in which I wished I'd never got out of bed. I had decided on a two-day assault on a number of must-see things on my list, and after an early start I got the Metro from Park Street to Kalighat. The Calcutta Metro was the first one in India, and is very simple to navigate, as it is just one line, running north to south. I understand that an east-west line is mooted for 2014. After avoiding the clamourous rickshaw wallahs outside the Metro station, I took off in completely the wrong direction (LP's Office of Vague Sketchmaps strikes again), but after several enquiries ended up at Khalighat, a Hindu temple devoted to Kali, the Goddess of Death. There was a police cordon all around it, and I had to be zapped and searched twice before I got in. The procedure at this place is that a number of goats are slaughtered there early in the morning and the flesh is gradually fed to the Goddess throughout the day, by way of appeasing her. LP says, that for 50 rupees, a guide will usually take you up to the front of the queue to see the Goddess, so I anticipated that someone was going to 'attach' himself to me. This occurred, and this rather well-spoken, highly articulate and persuasive 'guide' showed me around the temple, where they were still hosing down the abbatoir section, and, as if at a given signal, a score or more people at the Goddess' mouth stood over to the side so that I could observe the noisy and somewhat disgusting proceedings there. In the course of travelling around, it was impressed upon me that the meat was eventually used in meals for the poor, and that financial contributions were needed to assist this. I think the effects of the previous night's dinner were already starting to kick in, because I was feeling quite nauseous by now, and counting the minutes till I could get away. The punchline was that we ended up alongside a small pool, where another man pulled out a ledger which purported to show 'contributions' to the cause, written in by individual tourists. My guide pointed to the most recent one, supposedly by a German guy, for 2,100 rupees. '60 bucks!!' I almost fell over backwards, but fortunately recovered my balance, as you wouldn't want to have taken a dip in this pool. Pleading my own unique brand of poverty, I did eventually own up to having 100 rupees on me. 'Make it 200'. "No can do". I eventually wrote in 100, and gave them my complete stash of 10 rupee notes, which came to about 70 rupees. That amount of 2100 seemed a bit sus from the start, and thinking about it afterwards I reasoned that people might give a round figure like 500, 1000 etc - but 2100? An uncharitable person might think that if you used the same pen you could write a '2' in front of a 100 rupee contribution, but it would never occur to me to think that.

From there it was less than 100 metres to Nirmal Hriday, Mother Theresa's first enterprise, a hospice for the homeless at 51 Khalighat Road. I wasn't certain if it was visiting hours, but the door was open, and I wandered in., past a sign that said ' If you want to make a contribution, give it to one of the nuns - don't give money to the patients'. Just a few steps, and you entered the ward. In a space probably half as big again as the Dandenong Library workroom, there were 45 low metal beds, like camp cots, in 3 rows of 15, the beds very close together. All the beds were occupied, and a lot of the patients wore identical multicoloured shirts. At one bed, a westerner, wearing examination gloves, was performing some procedure, assisted by a large blond woman, both of them in street clothes, while a nun looked on. As you would expect, all the patients looked very ill, and feeling extremely voyeuristic, I beat a hasty retreat. Apparently Mother Theresa used to visit there every day in the early years, and in old-age would still visit every Sunday, first tackling the least popular task - cleaning out the drains of the latrines.

Returned on the Metro, and as the early part of the evening peak was starting, it became more and more crowded. As the train is getting close to a station, a dulcet female voice advises which station it is, and then says 'exit on the right' (or left, as the case may be). As we are approaching 'Esplanade', my stop, I realise that I'm on the wrong side of the carriage to exit, but by adopting a couple of the positions described in all reliable sex manuals, I manage to manoeuvre to the open doors. Not however quickly enough to forestall the dozen or so people pourng through the door onto the already crowded train. I feel myself being carried backwards, and in a charge worthy of a Collingwood forward, manage to break through a gaggle of females at the door and leap onto the platform, with the doors closing around me. If they'd been blokes I wouldn't have had the strength for it.

My plan was to stroll through the Eden Gardens, then onto St John's Church in BBD Bagh (reluctant home of the original 'Black Hole of Calcutta' monument, and burial place of Job Charnock, founder of the Raj's Calcutta) ; have a look inside the GPO ; and visit Millick Ghat, where there is a must-see flower market. And on the morrow, (my last day), to Visit Tagore's house and the Ramakrishna temple and museum complex, a few kilometres downstream on the Hoogly. Instead, Montezuma's Revenge - which, to be geographically correct, we could call Delhi Belly - kicked in , bigtime. At first I wondered if it was payback from the Goddess Kali for my parsimoniousness, but on thinking about it, I favoured the 'Blue Sky' as the culprit.

For Saturday and Sunday, I mainly lay low in the hotel, unable to venture anywhere. Fortunately the "Maria" has 5 internet terminals so I was able to catch up on e-mails etc. I did do a quick trip on Saturday to the 'Taj Medical' (chemists) in Mirza Gharib, and bought some big (prescription only) horse tablets over the counter, and some rehydration salts, from a boy who looked about 15 years old. Anxious not to burn a hole in my stomach lining with the tablets, I took them with (bland) food twice on Saturday, with no improvement, but on Sunday I took them on an empty stomach, washed down with 300 mls of lemonade, and things were looking perkier by the time I got the train Sunday night. I think the staff at 'Fruit and Juicy' were getting worried, because all day Saturday I was feasting exclusively on yoghurt, or custard or mango lassi's all day. Sunday morning I wanted to look for some souvenirs in a nearby market, but after walking about 300 metres decided to abandon the idea.

After being 'wait listed' for the train last Wednesday I was a little concerned as to whether I actually had a booking or not. The ticket I received had no carriage or berth number on it, and didn't even specify for which class it was. Playing with the internet on Friday night I found the Indian National Railways site, where you could enter your IP (a multi-digit sort of ticket number) and check the status of your ticket. No status then, or again on Saturday night, but at least it confirmed that it was for the 3A that I had paid for. As it was a day and a half's journey, and I was due to fly home from Mumbai on Friday, I was keen on leaving on Sunday if possible. However, by 4pm Sunday the carriage and berth number was there, so I got packed and checked out. Interestingly, the same trick that I got caught by in Macleod Ganj was tried again here. The morning that I took the room at the 'Maria', I was yet to check out from my previous hotel, so they asked me for a day's payment to hold the room, which was fair enough. Now they tried to charge me for 7 days (including the current day, Sunday, because I was way past the 10am checkout time). Once I reminded them that I had already paid for one night, all (without any check being made) was instantly okay. If I'd been in good nick I would have been happy to walk back down to the river the way I'd come a week ago, and get the 4 rupee ferry to Howrah Station. As it was I still felt quite weak, as the tummy was only just starting to come good, and ended up paying 250 rupees for a taxi, which was far too much.

At Howrah there was a westernised cafe on the concourse, and a dozen or so western backpackers were eating there. I imbibed some lassi's and (big step forward) some Lay's chips, without any after effects. The cafe had an odd payment system, whereby you had a look at the counter display cabinets first, to see what you wanted, then you went up to a booth and paid for it and got a docket, and gave that to the man behind the counter to get your items. Some of the backpackers were real 1970's hippie-looking, and I got talking to one of them while we were queueing up, and it turned out that he was from North Fitzroy. He seemed quite amazed that he'd run into another denizen of the inner suburbs whilst in the wilds of India. I'd laid in some chocolate and bikkies for the train trip, and thought I'd augment this with some lemonade and Lay's chippies, now that I wouldn't have to carry them far. Had just handed over a hundred rupee note, when all the lights in the station, every one of them, went out. I just froze, wondering what was going to happen next, and after a minute or so the man next to me switched on the torch on his mobile phone and handed it to kiosk man, who counted out the change by torchlight twice, to make sure I was satisfied I hadn't been cheated. It took about 10 minutes for the lights to gradually come on before things went back to normal. With still 45 minutes to departure I wandered down to platform 21, and noted incredulously that a large series of boards there carried sheets of the names of the people in every carriage, including "Bariness" in berth 21, carriage 1B. The 'sleeper' carriages were already packed like sardines, and I thanked my lucky stars I had a 3A booking. Carriage 1B was clearly marked, and I was soon in my (window) seat. This train was a lot newer and a bit more upmarket than my last one, with the chai wallahs and soft drinks and food vendors soon in evidence, and this service lasted the whole trip.

There was still a good half hour before the train left, and I began sizing up my travelling companions. You can't choose your travelling companions, and you have to just go with who you get, but I can't help always starting with a scale up to ten, and deducting points from that. An guy who was I suppose in his early fifties got on, with a girl of about twenty, presumably his daughter. She had one of those high-pitched rapid-fire sort of voices, and she just didn't let up, with a hundred words to every two of his, and contemplating 35 hours of listening to that, I quickly downgraded the carriage to a 5. Fortunately she was only seeing him off, and soon left.

I spoke a couple of times to a young well-dressed guy opposite me, which he just ignored -so no noise pollution there, up to a 6 now. The guy in his early fifties was the life and soul of the party, talking with the whole carriage, and sometimes addressing a remark or two to me, and I'd just grin politely. It took me quite a while to work out that he was actually speaking to me in English. Later he asked me where I came from, and it turned out that he had been some sort of sanitary engineer, and had once been on a week's study tour in Australia. The trouble was that I only understood one or two words in every ten that he spoke, but he alluded a few times to Berrima and also Barlow, where he had visited sewerage farms. Berrima I know quite well, but Barlow? A young couple sat next to me. They had a little kid of about 4 with them, great sunny personality, enjoying the trip immensely. The wife told me her brother is studying for a doctorate in some branch of I.T. in Melbourne. 'Part-time taxi-driver?' "No, he works part-time in a software company". Soon people start stretching and yawning, and making 'going to bed' sort of movements. After getting shafted up onto the top bunk for two nights last time, I thought I'd sit and see what happened. Sanitary man, who'd stopped talking half an hour earlier, due to several long coughing fits, goes off to the 'loo. To my surprise, the guy who'd completely ignored me before, then motions that I should occupy the lower bunk on our side, and he lets down the middle one and climbs in, leaving me no option but to lie down also, and I'm soon under my blanket. I can't resist looking at Sanitary Man's face when he comes back, which is a picture, dropped jaw and all. He eventually climbs up into the top bunk, succumbing for a while to further coughing fits, so that I feel a bit guilty - but not for long.

It takes me a long time to go to sleep, probably because I'd spent so much time in bed, and in general taking it easy the two previous days. Also, although there was no icy draught from the air-con, I was quite cold. The train is scheduled to make 35 stops between Calcutta and Mumbai, and after a couple of hours the young couple and the baby get off. A stop or two later a couple of guys come into our section, and there is a bit of crashing around of travel bags under my bunk. Metal loops are provided under the lower bunk so that you can chain your bag to it, which I have already done, but I had carelessly left my day pack (containing my camera, mobile phone, etc) beside my bunk. Silent man, who had been gently snoring until now, immediately woke up and stuck his head out of his bunk. A tall man stretches out on the opposite lower bunk, just resting there, no pillow or blanket, which looks a bit sus, so I lift my day pack into the bunk, and curl up around it and go to sleep.

Actually it turns out the next morning that the tall man is a doctor, a really pleasant, unassuming guy, who is returning to the town where he works in a hospital. Of course I don't suppose he's about to mention to anybody what he does, unless he wants half the carriage queueing up for a free consultation, but I noticed he had a large plastic shopping bag with him, from some company that deals in injection equipment. As I'd only a few hours earlier read a really alarming article in the Calcutta Times about botched injections, I asked him if he worked in that line of country, and he says yes, I'm a doctor. I showed him the article, which claimed that 60% of injections given in India are bodgie, resulting in 3 million deaths a year, which I worked out was 0.3% of the entire population. He read the article, and then grimaced and said that the figures were probably exaggerated.

Another guy, who'd been on the train all night, and whose presence hadn't really registered with me, was Varun. He had these piercing eyes, and the full mo, but didn't say much and I'd more or less decided he was some sort of gangster, but once we got talking it turned out he had an engineering degree, had worked in a software company, and was now studying for an MBA in Mumbai. This guy's English was so good that he was (politely) correcting my English sometimes.

During the day another young guy got on, built like a brick outhouse, and just sat there staring at me all the time. You get this a lot. Obviously, in a country of a billion Indians, you sometimes run up against people who've never been in close proximity to a westerner before, but usually a smile and a couple of words elicits a similar response. This guy looked like he'd probably be a bodyguard to someone, when he wasn't tearing phone books in half, and I avoided eye contact and went on reading my book. Later Varun and I and the doctor were discussing some topic at length, and this young bloke said a couple of words a few times, and I realised that he was just painfully shy. Later I talked with him for quite a while, and it turned out he too was at Uni in Mumbai. The strangest thing though, was that this incredibly well-built and husky-looking bloke had this really softly-spoken falsetto voice, and I just couldn't get used to linking him with the voice. I asked him if he worked out, but he said no, though he used to do a bit of swimming.

Anyway, I got my come-uppance for my lack of sympathy for Sanitary Man, who had got off the train in the morning. Despite being clear of the air-con, I still developed a raging head cold, with the fluid pouring out of me. Being in close proximity to half a dozen other people I didn't think it would be fair to keep blowing my nose on TP every two or three minutes, so I resorted to holding my nostrils with TP and breathing through my mouth for a while. To my amazement, after about 45 minutes the running nose stopped, and didn't recur, so I have filed this discovery away for future reference.

During the second night I was a lot more tired and felt a lot warmer, and had a much better rest. Movement started before 4.30 am, as the train was scheduled to arrive at CST (main) railway station at 5.25, and most of the others were getting off a couple of stops earlier. Actually arrive at 5.15, with the plan of getting a suburban train further south as far as Churchgate, and perhaps walk from there to Colaba. Everyone I asked looked mystified, and said the only way to go was by taxi.