local sites: howrah bridge, eco-park and new town

Saturday evening we decided to adventure even after volunteering with the little people and then the elderly.

We hopped on a bus to head to Howrah bridge. For a Saturday night the bus was packed.

We got off at Howrah station which is the real station in the movie Lion (I was wrong in my leper colony post). This place puts Grand Central Station to shame of your category of judgement is volukme and bustle.

We spent time in the station just watching people. There is a lot to observe. It was often overwhelming. We both were very glad to not be travelling by train on this trip. I felt like we were in the middle of an ant colony or bee hive of people. I am certain there were no fewer than a bajillion people who walked past us in a half hour of observation. 

We then opted to walk back over the Howrah bridge. If part of us was hoping to get a respite from crowds, this was not the time nor place. It is exhausting always needing to be aggressive. We just want to get from one place to the best but everything feels like a fight. We stopped for a bit to take in the site. At this point the sun had set. Teresa commented on how few lights we could see on the cityscape. For such a populated city as Kolkata, it was eerie to see such darkness amidst the building-filled landscape. And even in the darkness, one could still make out the haze of the city. ''Twas an interesting perspective on Kolkata.

Note: posts are kind of out of order. The flower market happened next and then this:

Sunday was exciting. After the flower market we enjoyed a slow morning. We watched the movie Amal and we highly recommend it. Amal debuted at the Toronto Film Festival in 2007 as a short film but after rave reviews it was adapted as a full length feature film. Its flavour is authentically Indian and the main character is a beautiful soul who reminds me of Hassan from "The Kite Runner". It is on Netflix and should be watched.

Following this we went to a highly recommended Chinese place where we ordered our most expensive beer: a nearly $10 Heineken bottle. We enjoyed veg spring rolls, Kung Pao Chicken (which is just fun to say) and veg noodles and left content. 

We read for a bit at our "regular" coffee shop where there is bottomless tea for 60 rupees ($1.20 CDN). This coffee shop makes us laugh because all employees within eyesight of the front door (which is at least 5) welcome each customer as they enter and say thank you to each customer as they leave. It's endearing the first 17 times but after that...teresa continued "The Kite Runner" and I read "The Book Thief". 

Following this we booked an UberPool to New Town. Yes, New Town. This is a modern, newly developed area of Kolkata with a classy and informative name. Now, before you make fun of the name (as I do regularly in my head), compare it to Newmarket, Ontario. Now you don't have much of an argument.

New Town is an exciting development/extension of Kolkata. It is cleaner, bright and open. I was most excited to leave the haze of the Kolkata core and see blue skies again! It is hard to believe, really, that blue skies and green vegetation are rare where we are in kolkata, but they are. The UV index (even without rain) is regularly 1. In short, New Town was a breathe of fresh air, literally and figuratively.

In New Town we went to Eco-Park: the most highly recommended thing (by locals) for us to see in the city. At a 30 rupee entrance fee (60 cents), we had access to 480 acres with a kids park, butterfly garden, and its own lake and island (among other things). We did not even get close to exploring the entire park, for two reasons. 1) we mainly went to see the recreations of the 7 man-made wonders of the world. This exhibit is not yet completed, and still fenced off, but we got decent glimpses of the structures. It is going to be fabulous once it's opened. The exhibit is close to completion: it has most of all 7 wonders: Great Wall of China, The Taj Mahal (India), Pyramids and Sphinx (Egypt), Christ the Redeemer (Brazil), Easter Island statues (Chile), Colosseum (Italy) and The Lost City of Petra (Jordan). For scale purposes: the Great Wall is about 120 meters long with a width of 2.5 meters. Even through a fence, this display was incredible: a definite highlight thus far.

The second reason we were unable to see much of the park is because we were regularly stopped by locals who wanted their pictures taken with us. Throughout much of the rest of our experience in India we are looked at but often aren't acknowledged by locals. For some reason, at Eco-Park we were celebrities. It reminded me of being in the Dominican Republic. The first encounter was with teresa: she was taking pictures of the Wonders of the World display when a couple came up to her. She thought/assumed they wanted her to take their picture in front of the colosseum, but, no, he took a picture of the girl and teresa in front of the colosseum. That was the first of being stopped 8+ times in less than half an hour. Some even wanted intergenerational family pictures with us! At first it was funny but...I don't know how celebrities do it.

Ignore the weird closed eyes. Focus on the ducking and the people in the background.

I'm not standing as straight as I should. We moved the whole family in front of Jesus on purpose.

Our day ended with a church service at the University in New Town. Last Sunday at church we heard their push on wanting to buy land in New Town to plant a church, so we decided to check it out (and it is 40+ minutes away and they take a church bus out there so we knew we had a free ride back). It was a service much like a Baptist service back home. They had testimony time where people went up to the front and shared what God was doing in their lives. Considering the otherwise guarded Indian nature we've experienced, it was different to hear over 10 people share publicly. This church experience was, again, refreshing.

All in all, we're glad we pushed ourselves to get out and explore