Written by Nat:
After we left Varanasi by train and I had a very exciting experience that night. We left Varanasi around 9 pm and fell asleep but woke up at 3 am as I saw some guy look very dodgy. He was standing around our area and at first I saw him staring at a Japanase tourist below Dave but then thought he must be a thief. I was not sure and it was happened quite quick and then he walked away. Then at 4 am an Indian guy who was sleeping below me turned the light on and started panicking and said someone stole his bag! He held the cut chain up in the air. Dave had always warned me about this issue on the train but this time I saw it myself. It was lucky as I was tempted to leave my bag under the seat below but Dave insisted we should sleep next to them. After 4 am I didn't sleep properly until we arrived at Kolkatta. On the train we slept on the bunk beds the top one which very close to the fan on the roof and it was very small just enough for my size. Poor Dave had to bend his knees for 13 hours journey even though he can straight his legs cross over to my side but it was very uncomfortable for us.
We cycled from Howrah station to Sudder street in Kolkatta where we hoped to find a hotel as it's the back packer area. It was very difficult like other cities in India but to add to the chaos we had the added bonus of the summer heat coming. Each time we stopped to buy fruit or work out where we were, we attracted a huge staring crowd. We were pretty messy by the time we arrived (with the GPS again!).
In the last couple days in Kolkatta we have enjoyed ourselves very much here. We went to see the Victoria Memorial which is amazing and I have learned more about the relationship between Britain and India history. It's great! The memorial was built in 1906 just 5 years after Queen Victoria died. It was very great place to visit and best place to avoid all the crazy stuff outside. The other good place we visited was the botanical garden which has the largest banyan tree in the world. It was very impressive and the whole garden looks like a jungle. We even saw a few Indian Kingfisher birds! That gave us a nice appetite for some beers in the evening. :-)
Tomorrow we have a flight booked to Singapore and we will make the trip by bicycle again which is around 13 km. We have a very itchy bums to start cycle properly from Singapore. We have enjoyed ourselves very much here in India but I feel it's time for us to CYCLE!!! Dave is looking forward to cycling with a coolie hat on I think.
ps. Dave says so far he hasn't had a repeat of what he got last time he came here (15 yrs ago). What's that? :-)
