Year View| Saturday 25 November 2000 (Day View)

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25.11.2000 – Saturday 25 November – Calcutta – Train

• I woke up and set off on my traditional pre-breakfast search for milk and cornflakes. I sent and read my emails for 25 rupees. I heard that Sarah wants to go to Perth to do school? I caught a ferry to HOWRAH, then a three-rupee bus to the BOTANICAL GARDENS at about lunchtime, having checked out of my hotel at 10:40 and sending an addendum email to Mum about Sarah. I stayed at the botanical gardens for nearly four hours, wandering around. They are very big (apparently 109 hectares), with some areas really nicely set out, and other areas nearly forest. This is where Darjeeling tea was developed. I saw what is claimed to be the biggest banyan tree in the world and about 200 years old. It has a circumference of about 400 metres. That is BIG, although it looks more like a small grove of trees, than a single tree.

• I caught a bus and ferry back to SUDDER STREET, where I met the two men I’d met on the train on the way into Calcutta, and we went and had dinner. 7:15 PM saw me on the ferry across the river and back to Howrah, where the train station is. I had a few more of my traditional cornflakes with milk while waiting for the train, which left on time at 9:45 PM, and I chuffed out of Calcutta.

• Just as the train was leaving, there was a fuss in the next compartment, and some police came. Apparently a man had left his bag on his seat, walked out of the carriage and stood at the door waiting for the train to leave. While he was standing there, another man walked out with his bag. Hardly surprisingly, he was a bit miffed, and called some police that were standing nearby.

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