BANG-BANG! ladesh

Like I mentioned before, I stayed at a beautiful house with a very hospitable family.

They even had they own little temple and every mornings the mother would make a pray, and for the evening pray the priest would come over.

On the way to one of the palaces we had a typical Kolkata snack — jhaal muri, which looks like puffed rice with some spices, but in fact has about 20 ingredients. I like Indian cuisine 🙂

The Marble Palace was recommended by many, so I went to check it out with some members of the family I stayed with. It is free to visit it, but one should first get a permission from Indian tourism agency. If you want to avoid the hassle, you can just give some cash to the guys by the entrance (you will need to tip them at the end of your visit anyways).

There is not much special inside if you have been to other palaces/museums. The difference is that all the treasures they have are kept in the non-ac conditions which makes everything alter faster.

And again, no pictures were allowed, but I hate this rule.

The family I stayed with is supporting a school for slum kids. After the classes of the main school the slum kinds come in and have their own. They are provided with the uniform and everything else needed. It is a private school, but for the slum kids it is of course free. I was invited to visit the school and it was a very intresting experience.

The school is huge. This is just one side. In total there are about 8000 pupils (if I remember it correctly).

Every day children have a different routine. I didn’t understand if the performance we saw was specially for us or it was a regular thing, but it was impressive.

Firstly, there are many kind and some af them are as young as 4 years old. In the beginning they did some playing, after sang a national anthem and some other song and afterwards they did some yoga! 4 year old kids! Yoga!

In the school we had a snack and walked around a bit

The schedule of one of the classes (not for slum kids, they have a different program)

On the way to the airport I managed to take a picture of what you can spot on many streets in Kolkata — people bathing on the streets.

The airport building is quite new, but a bit deserted. You can see planes’ houses though!

Oh India, so full of contrasts and tastes!

This day I started with a walking tour. Welcome to the holy river and a long hanging bridge. Once you get on it you can actually feel how it is going up and down.

Right next to the bridge is the flower market. Flowers are used daily for religious purposes and therefore people buy them by weight.

There is a train station on the other side of the river and many people from around Kolkata are coming to the city every morning to bring their goods for sell.

Overall, Kolkata still has many beautiful old buildings. For example, this is one of a few synagoges.

Dinner was at a very nice restaurant called Yauatcha and it was sooo tasty and surprisingly affordable (for a Michelin star restaurant as it claims to be)