The 24 hour flower market - Calcutta

Last day in Calcutta – the noise is unbelievable and I haven’t seen blue sky for the pollution.  No one speaks in a normal voice, everything is emphasised and repeated even louder and youths seem to enjoy shouting with their new found voices. Loud bells ring in the metro to signify doors closing and the trains  are incredibly noisy; the disembodied voice never stops for breath and her English is excruciating – ‘she’ is in the airports, every train station and every bus station – horns of varying length, tone, warble and pitch rend the air which is thick with dust and fumes.  I shan’t be unhappy to leave but it has been an experience I shall remember for there have been lovely moments and my eyes have been continually assaulted by colour.  Calcutta is not awash with tourists so the only place I have felt hassled by touts was in the Sudder Street area where most tourists congregate.  In fact I have only seen two other westerners away from that area.  The rickshaw and tuktuk men haven’t followed me with horn blasting hoping for a job and when I have asked the way somewhere often someone has accompanied me on the route to point it out more easily.  My Hindi hasn’t been quite so useful here as most people speak Bengali. Today has been fun: started off in a hail and ride taxi-tuktuk to the Kalighat metro where I had breakfast of two puris and chickpea curry presented in a double leaf plate; caught the train to Esplanade in the center; caught the bus to the Howrah train station which took me over the Hooghly river via the 74 year old Howrah Bridge. Then I walked back over the bridge with masses of coolies carrying huge loads of flowers on their heads that had come in on a train from the countryside – they bend their thin little legs and half run with their load. At the eastern end I looked down on the 24 hour flower market and went down with the coolies – it was wonderful that not one person took any notice of me or my camera which was so different from elsewhere that I have been. Every person there was bent on selling their garlands, baskets of blooms, leaves, beautiful bouquets etc. wholesale. Just amazing to think that every bloom has been hand picked… There were also basket sellers, spice stalls and a couple of stalls where large blocks of ice were sawn and chopped into blocks to be sold to keep flowers fresh on their journeys elsewhere. Then I retraced my steps back up and over the bridge again to the Howrah Station for I wanted to ride in a ferry.  I boarded a ferry for somewhere back across the river but the destination turned out to be not far enough south for me so I took the return trip and found another one which did go further.  And what a thrill – I saw a Gangetic dolphin rolling its way upstream.  No health and safety on those ferries – there was the pilot and one lad who managed the ropes but many people leapt off from the open sides before we had been secured.  They leapt on too when we had left the quay – springs in their legs! Then I caught a bus which should have dropped me off in the center – but the conductor forgot to tell me so I had to leap off and take a return journey!  (Lots of leaping today!) After a curried veggie lunch I took the metro to Kalighat again where there were lots of prostitutes sitting in the sun waiting – strange in such a holy area - and a hail and ride taxi-tuktuk back to the hotel.  The park is host to 5 cricket games this evening and one football match but last night I slept really well with my earplugs well in place.  This picture is taken from the Howrah Bridge looking down on the flower market - this represents a really small part of the huge area. The extra is the ritual of offering incense to the stock for sale each morning. So sorry not to be able to comment and thank – the star button still doesn’t work.  So thank you to everyone – you are enormously encouraging. Will be off piste for the next few days but come with me today PICASA PIC LINK HERE NOW