Kolkata

We got on the train from Varanasi on the 25th, at about 17:20 - delayed half an hour or so in arriving. I was in a black mood, feeling physically much stronger but angry with India as a whole - the stupid rules, the lack of certainty that anything is clean (food, for example - how much is my upset stomach because I'm ill, and how much because the food we are trying to eat has bad stuff in it.. I just don't know), the dust and heat.

People on the train stare at us, as usual. I want to poke their eyes out with a hot poker, as usual.

Sleep helps, and when I wake I'm more mellow, less purely angry. We arrive in Kolkata, and get a taxi out to our hotel - what a mess of a place. In a poky hot non-AC room we swelter for a bit, then I go out to do some shopping. I buy a bad selection of things, apparently, and it gives my almost-okay stomach enough of a shock to set me back to square one. After a few hours sleep, I feel weak but in need of something to eat, so Kara and I head back to the supermarket and get some more sensible food, breakfast cereal and plain stuff. Coke, amazingly, helps me no end - perhaps the combination of caffeine, sugar, and cold?

Anyway, when we get back to the hotel, we move into an AC room. It's about twice the size of the other room, and while the AC isn't the best, it's a damn site better than sweltering. I feel comfortable for the first time in ages. 40+ degrees C is just not for me, I understand that now.

So we sit and watch films, til the lights go out at 11:30 - oh no, the AC goes off at 11:30?? Then the generator comes on, which powers everything BUT the AC. Let's hope the power doesn't go out too much... Sleep comes, eventually, and I wake just before 6.

I'm learning, though. I may not be enjoying the experience much, but I am learning things. What I want out of life, what I don't. How much I dislike large busy cities - actually Kolkata isn't so bad, some how. A nice small city I could cope with, I think, but I'd rather be out in the middle of nowhere, as long as I have broadband and a decent postal service... take what I want of society and leave the rest? Perhaps.

Now we are waiting for our Bangladesh visa appointments. After Kolkata we head to Dhaka, then a place called Srimongal, to stay in a tea garden ecovillage for a week. After that, Nepal. So here we sit, before getting the privilige of paying to go to Bangladesh. Apparently it's a reciprocal thing - Bangladesh's charges slide on a scale relative to the UK's, Canada's (Kara's is about 75% the cost of mine!!), etc.

I feel stable. That this is something I can cope with. I'm under no illusions that I'll want to travel much when we are done, other than the UK and Ireland, Canada, some of Europe, the northern US I suppose. I want to walk up mountains, and eat cheese and tomato sandwiches; I want to get a decent camera and take photographs. I don't want to be in 40-degree heat ever again. I guess I can sympathise with Californians living in the desert - of course they'll have AC on all the time. Surely better to move somewhere that isn't a damn desert, though.

We saw a documentary on a guy called Sam Peckinpah yesterday, it looks like he made some good films. Also a film called Love and Honour, a Japanese one - more to look up when I have time. That, the history of India, the list of Things to Do in Ireland... I'll be busy a good while, I think!