Overnight train to Kolkota
Our first overnight train experience was actually decent. We had booked 2nd class (AC/2) tickets for all our overnight journeys and were pleased to see they came with sheets, blankets, a face towel, and a top and bottom bunk bed. We had to be very organized, booking our tickets two months in advance when they opened online. The first ticket from New Jailapuri to Kolkota we were about a day late in making the reservation, so ended up with a train that got in at the ungodly hour of 4:45am. As we had been getting up pretty early this trip anyway, we weren’t too concerned, and our train was about half an hour late. We were appreciative.
Exploring the city
After storing our bags in the cloak room and getting some very sweet chai from the station, we headed out on a walk around town. The good news is the city wasn’t that busy, making navigating the streets and traffic pretty easy. The bad news is the city wasn’t that busy because no one was up and about. In other words, nothing was open. This included for breakfast. We did some research and found a cafe that was open at 8am but when we walked in we were informed it didn’t open til 9:30am. A late start city indeed! We finally found a whole-foods type store that had mediocre breakfast and great coffee where we loitered until the Victoria Museum/Memorial opened at 10am.
After a couple of hours of history on the city and the English colonization and subsequent local rebellions, we grabbed a taxi back to the train station and headed to our airbnb for check in, just south of central Kolkota. With the city now up, we experienced the intense traffic, stuck in gridlock and incessant honking.
Our airbnb was fortunately in a great location, quiet but with lots of amenities and we had two big bedrooms upstairs in a lovely old home. It came with a lovely caretaker who served us tea twice a day and even helped us with our laundry. It was perfect and exactly what we needed after a long overnight train ride.
Post office adventures
Even more importantly, Kolkata was warm! Actually nice and hot during the day and perfect temperature at night- just enough to need a light long sleeve. We were finally warming up! It was also a good test to know what to send home in terms of our hiking gear. After Marieke and I’s last post office experience 11 years ago, we knew it was going to be an adventure. We headed to one nearby post office and were told we needed to obtain our own boxes, with no indication of where we could get those. We found a few packaging places far away but a reddit search indicated we should go to our local supermarket and ask for leftover boxes. That was a success! A lovely kid at the market helped us put them together, sold us a roll of tape and we headed back to another post office.
When we arrived the tape wallas/hustlers tried to convince us that our clear tape we were packing with wouldn’t be accepted and that we needed their special brown tape, but the customer service agent let us know we were fine. With many instructions and about an hour later, we were all packaged up, with hiking boots, sleeping bags and rain jackets sent to Canada. We paid, received a tracking slip, and proceeded with our day, checking out the famous South Street Cemetery. Inside the atmospheric cemetery, Jon’s phone started ringing. As it was his Indian number that hadn’t been given to anyone yet, we all looked at each other. Was it someone calling from the grave? An old British officer?
No, it was just the post office, our efficient customer service agent who had apparently been too efficient, and given us too much change. Marieke understood the mistake and said we would be back before closing at 6pm. We continued on our day, walking across the city to the national library, apparently the country’s largest. Whether it was because we arrived near sunset or were foreigners, it certainly didn’t feel like the largest library from the area we were allowed to access. But the grounds were really lovely. It was also very strict on the silence rule, so with our phone switched off, we missed another call from the post office, who was worried we were not going to make it on time.
We grabbed a cab that said we would make it there before 5:30pm, but of course the traffic was horrendous. We eventually got out, dodging cars to cross the busy street and arrived at 5:50pm, greeted to a look of relief by the agent. We paid up, shook hands with him and grabbed dinner. Our last day we decided to skip the traffic and headed to the metro. It was clean, quick, easy to use, cheap and air conditioned. Unsurprisingly, it was packed. Definitely the way to go though.
We walked around the old part of the city, dodging cows in narrow alleys and checking out old colonial buildings, including the marble palace, a 19th century former mansion with opulent gardens and artwork. We made our way to the Indian museum, the largest in the country, before heading back for dinner. Despite the traffic, overall, we enjoyed the city.
Our last day we checked out at 11am and headed to the train station, leaving our bags at the cloak room and heading to Chandanagar, a former French colonial town up the Hooghly river before our 8:30pm overnight train to Varanasi.
