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Update: June 21, 2008 Into India, to Calcutta
We spent the first week of June in Kathmandu getting our visas for India -- once gotten, off we went... It took a couple of days to get to east Nepal due to transport strikes and a bus accident that was pretty bad. Once in India, we went up to Darjeeling, but there was also a stirke ... a pretty bad one. The state of Darjeeling wanted to be a separate entity. We had to leave being that we didn't want to sit around idle waiting for the indefinite strike to be over in order to catch a ride out. So we went to Calcutta -- a crazy, chaotic city stuffed to the brim with people and rubbish.


From Kathmandu, we went east making our way towards Calcutta in Inida. Yellow is our path in Nepal and Green is in India. Darjeeling is in the north (top of Green line).



Here's where Calcutta is in the overall map of India. Arrow indicates our direction after Calcutta. Being that it's summer and monsoon season, we're going to go north up to higher elevation where it's cooler and hopefully more dry. Eventually we'll be up in Ladakh.



Here's our path since Nov 1st 2007 starting in Bangkok, Thailand.



In Calcutta, there are many forms of transportation... here's one.



A taxi... pretty cool model.



Or an auto-rickshaw (very similar to tuk-tuk's in Thailand).



The best way... human power!



Truly human-powered! Wonder how they'd do with running shoes.



This is one of the ways to get around Calcutta....










Update: June 25, 2008 More of Calcutta
We stayed in Calcutta for more days than we thought. Christi had to get replacement eyeglasses since she had misplaced her spare ones. So getting them made special to-order took some time... but we weren't on a schedule. Besides, Calcutta had lots of food to chomp on...


Being that it's June, fruits were everywhere. This lane had a variety of Nature's sweets -- even cherries, in India! Yummy cherries (lower left hand corner in square cartons.



But the best for eating are the street vendors. Here, this guy is making some curry-ish thingy (everything in India is a curry, huh?). Some lentil curry and two chapatis and you're good till the next meal.



There's Christi ...getting some Paw Bhaji. FYI... 12 Rupees... at 42 Rupees to the dollar ...that comes to just over $0.28 ...for a meal! Christi says, "Yelp, I'll take three of those."



What's this guy making? A kind of pancake-ish thing? Turns out to be Masala Dosa.



And Christi says, "Can I have one?"



There you go...



Yum. She stands around some folks chomping on her Masala Dosa -- potatoes, lentils, tomatoes, a lentil soup, and a small bowl of curd. 15 Rupees, so just barely over $0.30.



Mother Teresa, who is now either a Saint or close to being one, and Calcutta are synonomous to most Westerners. Everyone has heard of Mother Teresa, and everyone has linked her with Calcutta, or Calcutta with her. For good reasons. She spent a good chunk of her life helping the poor here (early 1950's to her death recenlty). We went to see her mission. Here's a statue of her.



Christi in the "Mother T" pose.



Mother T's tomb with Sisters around praying.




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