Pause and Rewind: Temporary Pause

Today I'm off to Myanmar. I've got no idea about internet access there, or whether it will be possible to blog. 

I've set up an e mail link so that I can post from my outbox, and this is the first time I'm doing it (from Bangkok). 

Let's see how it goes.

Travelling in... India - Kolkata

The first time I came to Kolkata in 2010, I described it as having an "engineered state of decay", which was my polite way of saying it looked nice but I hadn't really left the hotel to find out. So again this year I found myself in a 5* hotel in Kolkata and determined to actually get out and see the city. Together with my travel buddy Henry, we first had to transfer to the dive establishment that we booked in the centre of town in a taxi with two bicycles in the rear seats (thankfully Ambassador cabs have a front seat big enough for three guys to sit across).

Follow that yellow taxi!

We were due to sleep on the AJC Bose Rd, but the Bose family must have been highly influential across several generations in the Bengal, so that SN Bose also had a road (and the airport) named after him. Obviously the driver took us to the wrong Bose road and proceeded to drive up and down it, recreating the Turkish steam bath effect that we had been enjoying earlier that morning in the 5* hotel, until the 14th person we asked for directions was able to point us in the right direction. And as we spotted the 'Hotel Circular', the driver pronounced triumphantly that we were on Circular Rd. Only that all the signs said AJC Bose Rd. But he couldn't read English and claimed this was traditionally known as Circular Rd., so we were wrong and should pay him a larger tip for having wasted his time.

Waste of Space. The memorial, not Henry...

First we headed to the Victoria Memorial, set in the massive green of the Maidan which immediately gives Kolkata a space and chance to breath which is unique in an Indian city. After absorbing the impression of the marble building, I asked Henry what its purpose was? It took several explanations before I realised that as a memorial, it has stood empty since it was built in 1921 which struck me as a complete waste of space. Together with the rather honest history of Kolkata exhibition inside, served as a reminder of the more pointless aspects of the British experience in India.

The wrong bridge. Still not bad.

Strolling along the maidan, Henry was being unfairly targeted by street children, and as he had set his heart on going to the flower bazaar that was next to a ghat at the foot of the main bridge crossing the Hooghly River, we jumped in another taxi and pointed at the big suspension bridge in the distance.  Only that there are two bridges in Kolkata, and so again we found ourselves struggling for directions in a taxi, only this time at a toll booth. But once we crossed the right bridge and got to the flower bazaar we had the type of experience that is truly Indian: walking along a horticulturally sprung floor amongst hundreds of vendors in a fading spring light, the perfume overpowering one moment, only to be overcome by the smell of piss the next. We passed on to the ghat to watch the commuters crossing the Hooghly, together with stray dogs and more men pissing upstream and women washing clothes downstream.

The right bridge

Another thing that I very much enjoyed in Kolkata is that we were able to go for the occasional seedy beer (and request to be serenaded by Bollywood songs), get a fresh coffee, and drop in on a Jacky Chan matinee screening (which was a rip off, as he was only in the film for 3 minutes). This is a city in which there are things to do, not just monuments to see. By late evening we took our 5th taxi of the day to find the smallest Bengali restaurant we could find, so small that we didn't get a table till gone 10pm. Thankfully, Bengali food is meant to have been pre-cooked and eaten luke warm with your fingers, so we had finished various plates of chicken, seafood, fish, veg and rice by 10:30.

It doesn't always smell like roses

On the way back we hedged our bets, and told the taxi to go to AJC  Bose Rd/Circular Rd.  Inevitably, the driver managed to find a completely new Circular Rd, followed by SN Bose Rd, before we directed him to AJC Bose Rd. So as we spotted the 'Hotel Circular', the driver pronounced triumphantly that we were on AJC Bose Rd, and we had given him the wrong name and should pay a larger tip for having wasted his time. Only in India.

All photographs are the copyright of Henry Churchill, 2011

Life in Dhaka: The End

Dear Dhaka,

Let's be clear from the very outset: you won't miss me and I won't miss you.

Never have I lived in a place that feels so close to the state of nature, where life really is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." You have made a mockery out of me as I have tried to live as I want to, run our my schedules and plan my ambitions, with your constant power cuts, flooding, dust, open sewers, traffic, violence, hartals, dengue fever, tolerated exrteme poverty, visible open defecation and absolute, total lack of organisation. I complain constantly about living with you and yet I rarely leave, so effective are you at making it difficult to get anywhere else in the country. 


Instead you have reduced me to nothing more than a hypocrite, celebrating as break a number of laws as I ride my scooter over a pavement to jump ahead of traffic to pass through a red light, and the next time cursing the same illegal riders when they nearly take my life doing the same. Most impressively, you have killed the concept of solidarity, making right and wrong disappear, reducing me to simply wanting to get by. So am I beaten and can now admit defeat. I can list all your problems, but I have no solutions beyond escape. Instead, you grow by the day and land prices continue to rise. Seriously, how do you make it look so easy?


I'll be back, but it will never be for long. Surviving wasn't so difficult, but it was not a pleasure. I'll take away happy memories of the people I have met here, but I'll leave with none of you. 


Yours sincerely,


Maximobo

Travelling in... Bangladesh: There are no Tourists Coming

I've trying to get a photo of this poster for the past two years, and finally succeeded this morning. Visit Bangladesh before tourists come...

The slogan almost makes sense. After all, the sense of discovery and adventure is something that appeals to the traveller in all of us. Except for that the idea of true discovery was pretty much worn out in the 19th Century.

Something just doesn't feel right. It makes me suspicious of why there are no tourists now, and what is going to change to make tourists come in the future? Isn't the slogan the equivalent of saying: "Come now, because noone else is bothering as there is nothing here worth seeing or doing. But there might be one day"? Promoting the country with a picture of wheat field doesn't exactly help either.

Travelling in... Bangladesh to India by Bicycle - In to Kolkata

Leaving Bangladesh and crossing the border meant that we had to leave behind our support team. So in the lazy confinement of no-man's land, amidst the porters being beaten aimlessly by bamboo poles, we said goodbye to the team doctor. We had no serious accidents along the way, and so over the previous two days only reported minor ailments that one would expect after sitting in a saddle for half a day: sore knees, upset stomachs, chaffed nipples etc. Unfortunately, the doctor had a very unique form of treatment consisting either of using a suppository or an injection which seemed overly invasive and extreme respectively. So we didn't miss him once we were on the road in India.

The Bangladesh Government's Finest Hotel

After we had cleared the border formalities, which was simple for 80% of the team who had both valid Bangladeshi visas and correctly issued Indian visas, we were racing along the Jessore Road to Kolkata which for the first two hours was wonderful. Our first aim was to try and spot the differences between the different sides of the border: Hindu Temples were more prominent along the side of the road, there were a lot more level crossings, bollywood stars were advertising vests in huge posters, and men were pissing by the road standing up as opposed to in the Bangla lunghi squat. The road was lined by ancient trees that provided us with a shade and we were making quick progress to our final destination.

Smile!

Then the ancient trees ended exposing us to the Indian midday sun. And the roads got busier without getting bigger and the towns we had to cross became larger. One of our team got his wheel trapped in a train track and fell off (sadly we missed seeing it) and it took a couple of very close shaves for us to realise that in India bicycles are expected to give way every single time. Even worse was that the night before, whilst sipping on warm beers that had been smuggled across from the Indian side of the border, we had congratulated ourselves on riding through India on a Sunday as it would be much quieter. So by the time we passed Kolkata airport our aim was simply to finish.

There is no "Welcome to Kolkata" sign, nor river to cross when entering from the north east, so it not clear when you have entered the city. But there was no doubt that we were close to arriving as we were quickly on the city ring road and passing over fly-overs in order to make it to the finish-line, which we had conveniently organised as a five star hotel. So we celebrated by weaving through the necessary vehicle security check and were met by hotel staff with elaborate moustaches who were keen to get us up to our rooms so that we could shower and change out of our orange lycra.

Never understood why we generated so much interest?

Ride of the Tiger Stats: Total Distance - 296km; Average Speed - 21.81kmh; Time in the Saddle - 13:44:13