Kolkata - Day 2

This is a link from my blog about my trip to India in 2014
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Kolkata - Day 2

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Just for research reasons you will appreciate last night at dinner we tried out some (wait for it) Indian wine and although expensive at
£40 a bottle (far cheaper than anything imported) it was surprisingly good (well actually it was excellent)

Now for today’s exploits. As I mentioned yesterday today is Diwali aka The Festival of Light (I think that is one of the correct ways to spell it) – a bit like Christmas bit far more of a party atmosphere (the only downside that I am aware of is with the notice outside the bar say that because
of Diwali today is a DRY day). The main focus of the day is this evening when, mainly, the Hindus have their celebrations. These take place in the street where enormous statues of the goddess Kali are erected just for the day with different groups trying to outdo one another. It is also a time when everyone goes around wishing everyone else “Happy Diwali” and exchanging gifts. As I said this is also known as the Festival of Light where literally every street/house/building is adorned with lights.

The day started with meeting our guide for the day who outlined what we were going to do and in what order only for the driver then
telling the guide that because of the heavy traffic the order in which he (and therefore us) was doing it. The first call was supposed to be at the flower market where all the fresh flowers are sold, many of which are used for the Diwali celebrations. Now I say “should” have visited the flower market but due to the vast numbers of people is both impossible and unsafe for us to even get out of the car. So instead we spent some time driving round (well sitting in traffic jams would be a more accurate description) seeing the hordes of people on the streets going to/from the markets. Many “interesting” buildings were passed along the way with us eventually arriving at the Victoria monument.
One interesting fact about Kolkata is the shopping where, as you would probably expect, you can buy anything but everyone selling any particular item will be found in the same area as everyone else selling the same item.

Back to the Victoria Monument which is dedicated to Queen Victoria (no surprise there then) and is more of a museum than anything else. After our visit to the Victoria Monument we took a short walk to St John’s Cathedral. A quick lunch stop was next before setting off for the afternoon “adventure” – I say adventure because it involved crossing roads (an experience not for the faint hearted!) and we spent much of the time going round some of the back streets where the statues of Kali were made – no H&S regulations here with the basis of the statues being made from (non flame retardant) bamboo and straw.

The afternoon finished with a visit to a Jain Temple which is quite a spectacular building, then back to the hotel so that we can prepare
ourselves for our walking tour tomorrow starting at 08:00!

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