Ok people so I'm leaving Kolkata in about 5 hrs I've just said good bye to robin who's heading back to Kharagpur to finally do some work and I will be heading up to Darjeerling to capture some panoramic views of the Himalayan's...

SO Kolkata after 4 days it's dirty polluted and over crowded but it's full of life colour and culture. Ended up doing a tour yesterday it was very basic and hot and I wouldn't recommend this one (west Bengal gov't tourist)... but it did allow us to see some of the Hindu temples we would not otherwise have seen or if we did someone would have taken us for a ride....

Started at the JANIS temple, which was absolutely gorgeous. It's was wall to wall of small mosaic mirrors.... the jainists separated from the Hindu religion because they didn't agree with the Hindu cast system

Next we went to Dakshineswar kali temple where Ramakrishna started his spiritual journey. Followed by Belur Math and the kahli temple both Kali temples are surrounded by beggars, children and people with disabilities. It sad to see and you feel empathy for these people but at the same time u don't want to give them money cos then u get swarmed by them... its hard to say no and then u look at your self thinking is there something wrong with me that I'm immune to this suffering and can say no so them....

Karma is always on your mine so to counter act the thoughts robin bought 4kg of rice yesterday and me today 2kg rice, Dahl and milk powder for the local's that live around the streets where we are staying... it's been helpful cos now we're developed some friendship with the local ladies and they don't bother us anymore so the whole $8 hopefully to help some people.

Anyway the second half of the tour was all the more colonial stuff. Victoria memorial, St Pauls cathedral which is empty compared to the over crowed Hindu temples where u get pushed in to see the icon and pushed in a matter of 30sec's but that's the way life is here its so busy and crowded people push, pull and cut into each other and its totally excepted

The one thing I will never understand is the use of the horn here in cars ok I can understand using it if in a car or motorbike when your overtaking to indicated to a truck that your there but when there's a traffic jam or red light why honk your horn the traffic is not going to move any fast by the fact your using your horn.. But anyway....

So that ended our tour it was an interesting mix besides one other ozzie an ecologist from Brisbane who is here helping the Kolkata gov't with waste management all other 30 where Indians on holidays in Kolkata its weird seeing people travelling there own country well maybe not that weird anyway that's about it as I said heading to Darjeerling tonight back in Kolkata on Friday were I hopefully see robin again and we go do a tour to Sunderban tiger camp... up to Varanasi and to Kanpur where robin has a conference which after we are going to do the golden triangle ahaha im so excited

Missing u all

niki