ChrisandCin

Kolkata is a different creature early in the morning. The streets are quiet, the streets are clean and swept, they almost smell clean! And for some weird reason there are no parked cars anywhere, except the odd taxi with the driver asleep in it.

So at 6am we go for a walk now to beat the heat and the noise and hussle and bussle of the morning city life. The adventure starts with getting out of the guest house. The houseman Salim, sleeps on the floor of the living room at night, the poor guy works almost 24/7 slaving away for his guests, and last night he was serving a new checkin dinner at 12am! So we have to slip past him, and get the spare key to let ourselves out.

This is Salim slaving away in his hot, unairconditioned kitchen:

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In the foyer of the building and of the area on the 9th floor in front of the elevator they have the most strangest looking fire extinguishers!

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God only knows how you work the thing!

So we get the elevator by ourselves, which is nice as the elevator men don’t like dogs, one of them rants and raves in Bengali until he finally gets out and lets us use his mighty elevator by ourselves… its automatic but still its dangerous without a operator in it apparently!

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Moe waiting for the elevator

The streets are relatively quiet, this is Middleton Street:

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The street is nice at this time of day, the guards of the buildings come out to look and stare, one of them already knows Moe’s name and calls him over. One guy surprises me and asks in perfect queens english if Moe is a American Cocker Spaniel! I of course say yes, but they normally are a bit skinnier!

This is Vardaan market , by day and night there are food hawkers outside it, selling everything, and inside its a airconditioned market mainly with clothing in it, and supringsly a store 6ft square that sells pet food and supplies.

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The street we are in is a mish mash of old and new, at one end of the street is a old decripit mansion . People still live in it, although I dont think the wiring or plumbing is really up to code!

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You see some strange things, like this , your morning coconut delivery boy!

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Newspapers arent sold here during the day it seems, on sunday there are boys selling them on the street but I dont see them during the week. During the weekdays they are delivered by people on bikes, and it seems they do only 2 buildings each as its funny to watch the team of them ride down the street and slowly peel off one to a building.

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There are some shop open at this time, like if you want breakfast, you come here to Indias version of a drive in Restuarant, that literally is a hole in the wall!

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But first watch out for the cables that may strangle you or electrocute you !

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It really is just like the email that floats around with pics of the wires in the streets here in India that states ‘ and we wonder how they operate the call centers of the world. ‘

Next door to the guest where we stay is a hidden away little oasis. Its part of a old mansion which is now upmarket apartments.

We cant see really into the apartments but they are big, from the front of the building on the main road you cant see much either:

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The building must have been a grand old girl in her day, it has 4 clocks on the exterior and ornate fixtures, like this angel or child playing a trumpet;

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From the back we see the garden of eden, actually most gardens here are like this, and parks too. The parks are immaculate and the streets are trashed, its quite strange to see.

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One of the families there has a sad old horse that a little girl rides around on most mornings. The horse seems well loved, its just real old and bony.

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The gardners toil all day keeping it immaculate, and the grass is perfect, and they dont have a lawn mower. I swear they do it with scissors!

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Today I spent the day doing not much in the office, sitting talking, walking then left to get the dogs in the suburb of Tollygunge. Here is the day I had in pictures:

This is the office

The desk I sit at is covered in paper

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In a mighty amby cab to get the dogs

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Where they crash or stop they stay as the case is with this bus

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Autoriskshaw mister

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The main street of Tollygunge, there was once trams here

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A door that could tell some amazing stories

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Pumpkin in the back of the Tata 1950′s ambulance we came back in

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Moe in the front of the ambulance

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Notice there are NO windscreen wipers! and its pouring….

Well today we are bringing the dogs to come live with us today. Pumpkin isn’t doing so great she isn’t getting enough exercise and it seems just too hot where they are. So the company has agreed to let them live with us in the guest house. Hopefully this too will expedite the need to get us into the apartment or house that Is per the contract!

Its not going to be the best arrangement as our room is small and there is no grassy areas around to walk them on, but it can’t be any worse than Chicago in the winter for them. Plus we get to give them the regular walks they need and make sure they are getting their meds, as they are technically 2 geriatric dogs at their age and have needs.

Last night I took the $1 taxi ride for 30 minutes drive to go see them … Mr Roy of Animal Crusaders took these pic of us after we went for a walk around the lake behind their office and where the dogs are currently staying.

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I haven’t written much this week as it truly has been an awful week, and I thought that anything I wrote would be completely negative.

We got hit by a Category 2 Cyclone on Monday

That was interesting, I have never been in a tall building in that strong a winds before.

All the drama was related to Chris’s job, it is just so bloody frustrating, you never get a straight answer about anything, if they don’t know, instead of telling you that they lie, which just makes everything worse.  There is a big meeting this afternoon which hopefully will sort it all out, so I guess tomorrow we will be looking for airfares back to Florida or we will be looking for housing here.  Either way I just hope something happens, anything.

Now that I have that off my chest, this is really a great city.  Where the guesthouse is, is the centre of everything.  We found a little supermarket close by to get the essentials , shampoo, chocolate, extra toilet paper :O).  We have some markets that we are going to go and look at this weekend that sell everything known to mankind.  And of course there are all the old buildings which are just amazing, so far we have only got photos of some of them from taxis, we need to do some serious walking when it cools down to do good photos.

McDonalds is one of the funniest places you can go.  We went again as my stomach was troubling me and that is the blandest food you can get here.  You take things for granted, like the menu, ordering, waiting for food.  There is only one here so it is definately a novelty for the locals.  It takes them a really long time to order and then they have to check their receipt extremely carefully, this happens with everything they are obsessed over receipts, and then the concept of waiting for it is a little bit difficult.   Watching them eat the burger is funny, the whole thing is taken apart and eaten bit by bit, everyone does it, its just interesting to watch.  This is where you see the most foreigners, hope they dont go in looking for meat!

Most of the rest of the week has been very boring, I havent been out much as it has been excruciatingly hot, which makes it hard to do anything. The cat is so bored he is pulling his hair out obsessivley which is a bit scary, and of course sleeping a lot.

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I have started reading “Long Walk to Freedom” which I am actually ashamed of  the fact that I havent read it before, especially after living in South Africa and going to Robbin Island.

Hopefully everything here will get better, I really want it all to work out, there is so much to do and see in India and the countries around it, and most of the people are very nice, just not some of the ones we are dealing with.

Even though I am employed as a pilot, when not flyng I am assigned office duties. Office duties simply means sitting around the office surfing the web (or what parts of the web the office allows us to see…ie not much!) and talking BS and learning Hindi.

The Brits of course ruled India …or tried to… for some time of course, and for some weird reason that I cannot understand the Indians still hold onto a lot of the old British ways. The Office Boys (ok some are old men),  are dressed in 1950 style gas pump attendant uniforms, they walk around doing everything from shining your shoes to constantly serving you very sweet coffee or tea. Mind you there are 10 cups of their coffee to a Starbucks Grande size, as they serve tiny portions of coffee . It comes of course in a cup on a saucer, and in the afternoon it comes with digestive biscuits too!

Lunch is an affair, for some reason it is served at 2pm. I havent figured it out, but some days the company buys and some days you buy your own, but at the prices who cares.  The office boys get anything and everything you desire, my normal order comes off the menu of the hotel next door. Its a grand old hotel, and actually really well kept.

A chicken club to the others in the office is expensive, but to me its cheap…here is the bill (and no I didn’t eat 3 of them!).

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Yep people thats just US$1.10 for a club sandwich, that comes with a packet of chips!

The one hard thing about these Office Boys is the language barrier….they have no clue about english, so sometimes I get coffee , sometimes I get water and sometimes I get some weird tasting soda… oh well at least I dont have to ask for the shoe shine, as they can clearly see the state of my shoes!