First stop Calcutta

Our first stop across the border was Kolkata (Calcutta). While I was apprehensively expecting massive slums and poverty, what we found was a surprisingly green modern city with less traffic and fewer beggars than Dhaka.
Courtesy of the massive textbook Shaun is lugging around (as a 'reading book') the Kolkata area was the original base of the East India Company in the early 1700s. There are many colonial style buildings in the centre of town, including the Victoria Memorial (above). Our trusty Lonely Planet describes the colonial centre of Kolkata as a 'testament to the vain glory of empire'. Uh-huh.

Kolkata is also one of the last places on earth you can ride a human-powered rickshaw. We agonised over whether to ride one and it was an uneasy experience. Our rickshaw driver didn't seem to be having too much fun either as he had to pull over a few hundred metres before our destination with a possible hernia after dragging both Shaun and I through the streets on his bare feet.

On our last day we hunted out the base of Mother Teresa's original "Missionaries of Charity" which, as well as being a working convent, has a small area set aside containing her small nun's room and her tomb. It was very moving.

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