As the former capital of the British Raj, you’d think that a visit to Calcutta (or Kolkata, as it’s now called, though many people still use the old name) would be rewarding. In our humble opinion, this is just not the case. It’s a polluted, congested, noisy place with little to offer the traveler, particularly when compared to India’s other major cities.

A Rough Start

Our train from Varanasi pulled into the station 4 hours late, and took an additional two hours to arrive in Kolkata. So all told it took us 17 hours or so. Luckily there were some other backpackers in our sleeper compartment, so chatting with them helped to pass the time.

Every week or so we have to stop and take care of some business: website stuff, train or plane tickets, moving money around, booking places a few days in advance, laundry, get mail, etc. We arrived in Kolkata with lots to do. The budget hotels in the city are cheap, but not always clean, and the staff can be unfriendly. That’s what we heard from one of the people on the train who’d already been there. They also aren’t so great with reservations. The basic system is you go around looking for a place once checkout time has passed. The best places have lines starting half an hour or so before people start leaving. Hotels fill up fast, and by the afternoon it can be difficult to find a room.

We planned for this and made a reservation at a place that sounded decent, but our train pulled in at 2:30pm instead of at 8am. By the time we got into town it was almost 4pm. Our hotel gave away our room, but rather than explaining this to us, they put us in a crappy, ant-infested shoebox of a room that they usually use as a TV room. When they led us in it was clear they had been watching TV, lounging on the bed, etc. Not a great start.

Mother Teresa’s City

Kolkata is where Mother Teresa devoted her life helping the impoverished and suffering of India. There’s plenty of that here; beggars roam the streets frequented by Westerners and homeless people bed down anywhere convenient. The gap between rich and poor is particularly evident.

Walking down the streets is tough at any hour of the day, and the traffic is merciless. Add to that the constant car horns, stinging and choking (literally) air pollution, and dirty streets, and it’s a struggle to get excited about exploring the place.

But the food’s good

The food in Calcutta was actually pretty good. Park Street, just near the tourist enclave of Sudder Street, boasts some pretty amazing restaurants. We definitely took a culinary tour of Park Street, visiting some of the more recommended of the nice restaurants in the area. We had some delicious Chinese food, great Indian food, drinks at a cool bar, and even some KFC and Pizza Hut (our first Western fast food in almost 3 months). All for a very reasonable price.

Calcutta is the capital of the state of West Bengal. East Bengal is now known as Bangladesh. Although we didn’t manage to try any Bengali cuisine, we did try some of their famous sweets. They were pretty tasty, although we have to admit we’d rather be eating baklava any day.

Moving On

Our list of things to be done before moving on turned out to be much more difficult than expected. Much of this is due to how much longer things take than you would think they should. Buying a plane ticket at a travel agent took an hour, when we could have purchased it ourselves on the internet in 5 minutes (we just paid them a commission to do exactly that). The site just wouldn’t take our credit cards.

So after a few frustrating days of trying to get things done, we were worn out. The few places of interest weren’t interesting enough to keep us there, let alone get us to make the effort to see them. At the earliest opportunity we took a plane to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, where we hope to start enjoying “Incredible India,” the new tourism board slogan.

Perhaps we’re just missing something, but India’s so huge we’re more inclined to cut our losses and move on, rather than search for something we’re not sure is even there.