Jan. 23 : Calcutta, India

Monday, January 23 :: Calcutta, India :: 9km today / 2688km total

Up early and quickly over to the train station, very nervous. You know the final scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the Ark is being stowed neatly away by a solitary clerk in a massive, unending warehouse? Imagine that, but with several bombs having gone off blowing boxes, carts, and crates into countless heaps everywhere, with 1000 people running around yelling, trying to make sense of it all and get everything onto or off of the right train, to or from the right agent. Oh ya and the ever-present, faint-or-not-so-faint scent of urine and some type of fluid on the ground, running in little rivulets from Point A to Point B, neither Point do you ever want to visit. Thats more or less what Calcutta's Howrah Train Station Parcel Warehousing was like. As such I was handed off from agent to agent, from warehouse to warehouse, in an attempt to reunite me with my bicycle. You can imagine my faith in the system I was being ushered through. But coming around one corner I saw it, gleaming in its now-dirty pearl white, jumping up and down, happy to see me. Likewise. It was quite obvious to the agent on hand that the strange bike and strange foreigner were a pair, and without much interrogation we were off.

Immediately I sought an onward ticket to Siliguri, gateway town to the Indian Himalaya. I won't go into the agony and idiocy of it all, but after 3 torturous hours that had me running from office to office, in 2 parts of town, I ended up with a 2AC (2-level sleeping berth, air-conditioned) ticket via a special Tourist Quota, on tonight's overnight train. 12 hours, I'll sleep at least 10 of them. Perfect. I immediately checked the bike in, wanting no surprises at 9 p.m. when I show up for my train. No problem, all good, I left the train station happy.

Now... shopping! For the first time in India I set out to BUY. I needed to get some gear for the Himalaya, gear that I hadn't wanted to uselessly drag with me 3000km by bike from Delhi to Trivandrum for 45 days. You don't need hiking boots or sweaters on the beach. I figured in Calcutta I would be able to find Lonely Planet's "Nepal" guidebook, hiking boots, thick socks, and a sweater, so for these things I set off. It took a while, but my happiest moment was spotting Reebok, Nike, and Adidas stores side-by-side. Are you kidding me, Western brand stores! Overall, mission successful, credit card not hurt badly at all, I'm all set for the mountains. The only downside of the shopping experience (other than the fact that I was SHOPPING) was that, carrying one bag that said "Reebok" on the side, another that said "Nike", I was an even bigger mark than usual for the touts, and they were ALL over me, relentless. Surely I wanted spices, or shawls, or a sari, or jewelry, or hash, or... I was like a lamb to the slaughter every time I left a store with a new bag in hand. Ah well, such is India.

Calcutta wasn't as bleak as my first impressions had led me to believe, and there is actually grass and grenery in some areas. It's main "sites" are mostly remnants of the British Raj (since they, essentially, built Calcutta), lots of buildings that could just as well be in Sydney or Bombay or London or Toronto. Clock towers. Government buildings. Monuments to Brits long-dead, most of whom felt the Indians, as human beings, were far beneath them. Who... really... cares.

Looking ahead: I will leave my bike in Siliguri (elevation less than 1000 feet, I think) and continue up to Darjeeling, 3 hours away, about 7000 feet above sea level. The temperatures will be too low to ride my touring bike (it IS Winter in the Himalaya), and I worry about ice and snow on the road at this time of year, as well as my dubiously-glued-together bike frame handling steep climbing/descending. Oh ya, there are some new small cracks, that may or may not have been from the crash. Darjeeling should be a fantastic few days, and I will try to arrange a mountain bike rental/ride in Darjeeling area or neighbouring Sikkim. Yes, mountain biking in the Himalaya! The thought gets me all giddy. After returning to Siliguri and picking up my bike, I will RIDE across the border into Nepal, and hopefully all the way, contiguously, to Kathmandu!

And yes, I'm watching the political situation in Kathmandu very closely. Its been a bit dicey recently, with occasional military curfews during the day, almost always at night, but the rebel Maoists are under a strict code not to harm or involve foreigners in their quest to overthrow the Nepalese Monarchy/Government. Very, very smart. Many travellers in the past few years have come across armed Maoist rebels and, at most, are kidnapped for a day, educated as to why Mao was such a great guy, and "strongly encouraged" to give a donation, $10US, for which they are issued a receipt. Sounds like fun to me! They don't do the terrorist-suicide bomb type of thing, they do co-ordinated, planned military-style attacks on government, police, and military posts. As long as I stay away from police stations, I'll be fine. I WILL be visiting the Pakistani embassy, but there is no perceived quarrel between the Maoists and the Pakistanis.