Kolkata - just one day in the city of contrasts

After an expectedly very fresh train ride I pumped into a Catalan couple at the platform… we decided to take the ferry to the other side of the Hoogly river in order to avoid the huge traffic jams warned from in the guide-book. As we did not find the ferry immediately we started walking, following our nose and a compass ;) I never thought I would actually walk the 3 or 4 km from the station to the famous backpacker street, but chatting and joking around my new friends and I kept walking, believing that we were about to arrive, which we did eventually after maybe one hour with our backs aching and our shoulders asleep ;)
Incredible enough, in this hour we walked together, we established such a natural and trusting connection, that we ended up sharing a room for the night and decided to go to the airport together the next day, as they had a plane heading south and I wanted to fly to Guwahati, Assam at the same time.
Armed with the rather rudimentary map of the "Lonley Planet" we went to conquer this 15 million city with an old tram system, metro, ferry and huge amounts of Embasador-taxis rushing through the boulevard-like streets near the famous "Victoria Memorial", probably the most impressive building remaining from the British colonial times. Of course we underestimated the distances completely and spent walking for a few hours before we decided to catch a taxi -- literally we had to catch one, as they were all occupied -- and find a place to have dinner. Kolkata has it all, a rather developed public transport system vs. the daily traffic jam, huge colonial buildings with promenades vs. small and dark roads full of people, rich people going to shopping malls and eating fast food vs. pour and mutilated people earring their daily survival pegging on the streets. Maria Theresa chose a good place to help the pour and her volunteer-foundation has become huge over the years. According to my information this organization is very respected in India, but many voices criticize the rather antiquated approach to birth control (somewhat like the pope´s) and a rather short term oriented help (giving meals instead of helping the people to learn to sustain themselves).
Kolkata definitely deserves a closer look. Maybe I will have the opportunity after the retreat ;)