Kolkata

Interesting approach. Still horns galore. I sort have come to love them though. Waterman Blvd is going to be sadly quiet.
Enjoying some dinner and drinks last night. Carlsburg, falafal, hummus oh my!
The couch seat was pretty nice. And so was this orange gin concoction, complete with chlorinated water ice cubes.
Hotel Astor--reminds me of the castle my family and I stayed in in the UK.
coffee shop number three of the day. mango iced tea and lattes.
coffee shop number two. this one looked really cool on the inside--like a huge study spot (its near the university). but alas, it was closed.
Book vendors on College Road.
Street car-makes sense in the third largest city in India. And most cities everywhere in the world for that matter.

Himalayan tea
At coffee shop number one, reading some Indian fiction

Kolkata has so many bookstores and coffee shops. And I am in love.

We visited four different places and had some medicinal tea from the mountains, some mango iced tea, some banana bread...mmm

We also had Bengali food for lunch--lots of fish. I had white fish in a sweet pineapple curry sauce...the sauce was just right.

While Kolkata has much to offer, we are only here for one day. Focusing on exploring the book/coffee shop scene definitely didn't give me any sort of overall picture for the city, but I definitely can't complain. What I did notice is that I felt more European here than elsewhere. Perhaps a function of spending all day in coffee shops. But Kolkata was a hub for the Brits--it served as the capital for the British Raj until 1911. We even get the London paper at our hotel, which is interesting because it still uses the name "Calcutta," which is the British name for the city that has since been changed to "Kolkata." Many of the streets still have British sounding names, and are laid out in similar fashion to those in the UK (i.e. confusingly and with big sidewalks, granted sidewalks dotted with vendors selling street-side samosas). I'll be interested to compare this to Delhi and see if the feel is anything similar...

Up to Darjeeling in the Himalayas tomorrow!