Eden Gardens

Well I did survive Diwali - popularly known as the "festival of lights" (or in Berhampur as the "festival of blowing things up". We decided to head into town early as our driver warned us that if we left it too late we probably wouldn't get back! (I think he meant the streets would be impassable rather than our lives would be at risk). Many of the fireworks let off are home made - a "quantity" of gunpowder wrapped in a palm leaf with a piece of string as a fuse! Surprisingly the local stray dog population weren't too concerned with the explosions - the monkeys on the other hand were making their escape across the roof-tops.

Jack, Richard, myself and Reny on Diwali.

At the end of the week of festivities we decided to head to Kolkata (Calcutta. We booked overnight sleeper tickets (Indian trains are classed; general, sleeper, AC-3 tier, AC 2 tier and first class) on the Coromandel Express - departing Berhampur at 01:57. We should have realised that during the holiday week the trains would be very busy. We literally had to tip-toe over people sleeping on any flat surface of our carriage. Even though berths are only available with a reservation people pay a small "commission" to the guard to get on. We felt bad when we had to turf out the occupants of our berths - in the end it was so overcrowded that people "joined" you at the end of your bed (or for Jack alongside)! Richard was the only one to get a good night's sleep. We arrived at Howrah Station ten hours later, the ticket costing a very reasonable £3.68.

On top of Paul's apartment block near the South City Mall

The first task was to head to the fancy apartment that Richard's friend Paul was allowing us to stay in. It was located near the South City Mall, a brand new shopping centre that even had a Marks & Spencer! The contrast with the shopping in Berhampur couldn't be greater - a Subway Club sandwich cost the same as our train ticket (three days pay for some, the Indian minimum wage is about 100 rupees per day). We had also purchased tickets to watch India versus England, the final match in England's Indian tour. We were warned that the crowd at Eden Gardens were a partisan bunch at the best of times. As England had lost the previous five one-day internationals we thought we'd be OK. Of course the England cricket team had different ideas and comfortably won the match by seven wickets. What we also hadn't realised was that the game had been brought forward by ninety minutes (presumably because of Diwali so people could get a chance to blow each other up). In the end we arrived in Section D at 8pm just in time to watch the winning England innings. This together with England's win (the first in twenty four years!) meant we had to dodge the water bottles raining down from the stadium tier above us. I wanted to point out that if the Indian fielders had been this accurate when playing then they wouldn't have lost the match - I thought better of it though.

A panoramic photo of Eden Gardens (courtesy of Richard's camera)

He's out - Richard isn't so sure about the decision

We headed back to Howrah station the following morning for our train home - we were in quite a hurry as we'd only given ourselves forty five minutes to cross the city. I'll be returning to Kolkata as it's an amazing city - the Queen Victoria Memorial almost on a par with the Taj Mahal. The excitement for the day wasn't quite over. As we made our way over the Howrah Bridge we had ten minutes to catch the train (as it starts here there was no chance it would be late). As we retrieved our bags from the back of our Ambassador taxi the boot/trunk lid sprang back and smacked Richard squarely on his noggin. Blood shot out almost immediately to the great shock of the taxi driver (and Richard I imagine) who had just opened it. To his credit Richard grabbed his scarf and held it to his head and told me to make our way to the train. Howrah is a very big station (the largest in India) - we were at platform one and our train was leaving from platform twenty one in five minutes. We sprinted across station with people staring at Richard (and the blood dripping from his chin) and finally made our way down the fifteen carriages of our train with about sixty seconds to spare. On the plus side I'd bought AC-3 tier tickets to Berhampur (755 rupees or almost £10 each!) Richard has since made a full recovery, although he's now very wary of getting bags from taxis.

Queen Victoria Memorial, Kolkata