When we arrived it took ages to get through immigration, we then went down to try and get some money out of an ATM but it didn't work so got money exchanged. We went to the prepaid taxi counter and then got into a really old ambassador car and set off.
From leaving the airport to our hotel, about 40 minutes, there was barely a road, all the building were dilapidated, packs of wild dogs everywhere, it smelled awful and the streets were packed with homeless, they were lining the streets touching head to food non stop all the way through town, there were hundreds and hundreds just sleeping on the street, even though we were expecting poverty we didn't expect it to be that severe. We arrived at our hotel which was locked down like a fortress, we called ahead to say we would be late so thankfully somebody was waiting for us. We were showed our room, which was OK, then went straight to sleep.
We were woken early the next day from the constant, needless beeping of cars outside our room, we had air con which meant we could sleep a little into the day. Once we got up and got ready we prepared ourselves to go outside and get some lunch. The streets were hugely busy, really overcrowded and loads of traffic, you could tell that there was too many people in the city. There was rubbish everywhere you stepped, there was stagnant water lining the streets, dogs, cows and a lot of their droppings. It was really overwhelming just to walk down the street and not just because of the smell. We found a small place serving local lunch, we ordered a potato curry type dish with a sauce, and rice each. It was a strange experience eating a curry with our hands, it was quite difficult to mix it with the rice then try and scoop it into your mouth. We ordered some chapattis to help get the food into our mouths, the food was nice, not too dissimilar in taste to something you would get in England. This meal, two currys with two sauces, two huge plates of rice, a pickle dip, four chapattis and a big bottle of water came to 90 rupees...90 pence!
After this we walked to the Kolkata museum which is meant to be the biggest in India, it was closed and had been for about 4 months and for the foreseeable future because the building was falling apart.
Next we walked to the Victoria monument about 2 km away. The hassle on the way was ridiculous, everyone owning a shop would follow you asking to see there shop, beggars would follow you asking for money. People would ask us where we were heading, then point in the direction of where it is, which we already knew of course, then ask for money for giving us information, people would cross the road next to us, then ask for a tip for helping us cross the road. Mothers with babies would see us then beg us to buy baby milk, even though they were obviously not poor with their clean clothes and faces wrists and ankles covered in jewellery. It seemed like no one at all was above begging for money, everyone did it as soon as they saw us, some people probably had more money than we did.
We decided to get the metro to closer to where we were heading. The underground looked pretty modern considering how old everything was on the street. We bought a single ticket each, which cost 4 rupees, that's 4 pence for a journey on a pretty modern underground network.
The Victoria memorial looked very nice but we didn't pay to get in, it was 300 rupees each, which was stupidly more than the 10 rupees it cost for Indians. We went back to our room as we were really tired and wanted to get out of the heat and hassle.
We napped for a bit and watched TV, they have really good film channels, we watched John carter which is a pretty recent release.

The next day we swapped rooms because our air con was dodgy then went walking through town again, it didn't feel very safe, there were just men everywhere, no women whatsoever and they all gave really intense scares all the time, there were security guards at all shops, restaurants, hairdressers etc which was a little unnerving.
We came across a MacDonald's and we went in to get an ice cream to cool down. When we were in there we decided just to have lunch there. They didn't serve any beef at all, we ordered two maharaja Mac meals. Which were big macs but with spiced chicken burgers and a tikka like sauce, it was really nice! It also came with shake in the bag peri peri fries which were also very nice, the whole meal tasted totally different to any other McDonalds anywhere we've been.
We carried on walking and walked past a Bose shop, same as at home, and it was so strange to see a shop selling thousand pound speakers, with about ten homeless people sleeping in front of the door, it is crazy to think that people must be rich enough to buy them and so many others can't buy food, the divide between rich and poor in India is vast.
We decided to pay to keep the room for the afternoon before our night train as we had about 7 hours to kill and the hotel didn't have a common room or anything. We watched children of men on the TV while enjoying the air con and no hassle.
Later on we went out to look for food, we came across a pizza hut and both our mouths started watering so we went in, it was spotless in there, it could not have been a bigger contrast to outside. We ordered two cheesy bite pizzas, a garlic bread side each, two drinks and a water. The whole meal came to about £3 each.
After this it was nearly time to get our train, we went to the hotel to get our bags out of the cloak room, one guy unlocked the door for us then tried handing us our bags, but he wasn't strong enough to lift them so I lifted them up and got them, he then asked us for a tip for getting us our bags, even though he couldn't even lift them and I had to do it, all he did was unlock the door then ask for a tip.
Another couple were heading to the train station at the same time so we decided to share, the traffic to the station was crazy, cars would turn off their engines and get out of the car because it was moving so slow, streets a few metres wide were about three cars across with bikes rickshaws and crown getting in between them, we didn't think we were going to make it.
In the taxi we did get to see all of the really nice British buildings all over the city which we didn't notice before because we were hassled on foot. Virtually every building was a British built with really nice architecture, however a lot of it had not been maintained and it had become really dirty.
The station was absolutely huge, but it was still a really dirty stinky dingy place. We got on our carriage where we struggled to fit our luggage in because all of the Indians carry so much stuff they take up every single bit of luggage space without thinking of anyone else. We were sat opposite an old women, she looked about 100years old, I've never seen anyone look so old, she looked like a skeleton and couldn't open her eyes because she was so wrinkly. We assumed that because the train went to Varanasi, she was going there to die which is what a lot of Hindus do.
The night train was OK apart from we had to keep checking the bags to make sure they had not been pinched, everyone, even all locals padlock everything to the train so that it doesn't get snatched by people that jump on and off the train wherever it stops.