Yesterday morning we said good bye to Varanasi by placing a floating candle in the Ganges, rode a taxi to the airport and checked into a flight to Calcutta. There had been two options regarding flying to the south –via Delhi or via Calcutta– and since we have never been to Calcutta, we chose the latter option. The second reason was that we were really eager to taste Bengali food.
Our time in Calcutta was limited to fourteen hours but it was enough to fall in love with this former capital of India. It seemed very colorful, lively and culturally vivid, and yes, the food was out of this world. At 4.30 in the morning when we got into a taxi, the city was preparing itself for a new day. Market vendors were getting thousands of chicken out to the street and the yellow cabs were moving fast as ants. It was indeed a very memorable departure from Calcutta, and we will without any doubt return to experience more as soon as we can!
From Calcultta we flew to Bombay, changed into a different Jet Airways plane, flew over the house of our Bombay friends that we are going to see in one week, and some two hours later landed in Trivandrum, Kerala.
Almost every time I move from one place to another in India I fall in love with the new place. The Indian continent is extremely diversified and I absolutely love the fact the every new destination reveals something new to me, be it textiles, clothes, style, food, art, culture, religion or architecture.
Moreover, thinking about being in Varanasi, the holy Hindu city, yesterday morning, spending the night in the British-influenced Calcutta and writing this post from my bed in Kerala where I am surrounded by coconut trees, Ayurveda doctors and the Indian Ocean is mind blowing. Apart from incredible India, in which other country one can in less than 48 hours so easily travel between such culturally diversified places?
pearlspotting 