Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Kolkata Konundrum


After witnessing a man getting knocked out by a cold, hard fisted Indian, we hopped on a rickshaw from Bodhgaya to Gaya Junction where we would catch our train at 11:15pm. That is, if it wasn't running on Indian Railways. We arrived around 10pm on an exciting rickshaw drag race we had against other rowdy Canadians. Unfortunately, all that excitement was lost rapidly as we realized we would have to wait around until 3:15am before our train would show up. Well, at least it -did- show up. Apparently there was a collision between two trains, but we saw nothing of it in the morning newspaper. If it did actually happen, I sure hope everyone is all right.

Anyway, we arrived in Kolkata at 11 where we proceeded to ferry and taxi over to Sudder St, where most budget hotels are. We were accompanied by a full-fledged Italian man named Andreas who recommended a great pizzeria that we will be joining him for dinner at tonight. Boy am I excited.

Anyway, back to Sudder St. As we began looking for a hotel, we were confronted by an Indian man seeking commission by leading us to hotels. Now this is nothing out of the ordinary, except this man was furious. Almost dangerous. We said he wanted to go alone, and he started to yell and make a big scene. He even went so far as to tell Andreas that he should leave India immediately before muttering something about Israelis and pointing his hand in the shape of a gun at Andreas' head. It was startling to say the least.

As we began to walk-- and he followed us because he would get commission so long as he entered with us-- a man informed us that the commission-hungry Indian had lost more than a few marbles due to extensive use of cocaine and 'smack'. Well that did little to comfort us, since he was hot on our trail and didn't seem to be giving up. Luckily, we spotted a grocery store (it's always exciting to see one) and we entered, hoping he would be gone by the time we left. Sure enough, he was.

Whew!

So we're here now and we've enjoyed a delicious breakfast. It's strange to think that next Wednesday we will be walking upon Canadian soil-- well I suppose snow would be a better word, wouldn't it?

We hope all is well in the motherland and we'll see you all soon. Maybe too soon ;>

4 comments:

mbesh said...

the snow is terrible... nothing like a good game of starcraft to warm your bones though. i finished school today. things are KEWL..pete.

see you guys soon!

Anonymous said...

It sounds wild. I hope you guys are fast runners.

Unknown said...

Yeah man, we'll have some wild sc matches goin. Mbesh is gonna have to come too.

Peter said...

Congrats, Mike! I guess you'll be moving to Waterloo pretty soon then, eh? Charles, did you know Mike will be working in Waterloo next year?