Phase II: Discovering Kolkata...

We're a little sad that we have now had the last of our train trips across India as far as planned. Train is a great way to travel India - we've met some really interesting characters, including our friends travelling from Nagaland (see earlier blog), heaps of children who are very interested in how different we look (as well as many adults!!), and last night a friendly bunch of teenage boys (not quite your average teenagers from Melbourne's suburbs!). These guys were really keen to practise their English with us, on their nightly train trip from school in Varanasi to home in Mughal. They hunt for tourists to practise with. They have been learning English for 4-6 months (about the same amount of time we learnet Bengali for), but totally killed us in terms of their fluency!! They were keen to talk about Australia, cricket (everyone loves Ricky Ponting - more than any Indian cricketer especially at the moment!!), marriage, future... like I said their English was great! They were also nice enough to let us know that our very late train had had a change of platform, or we might still be waiting in Varanasi for the Doon Express!! Jeff informs me that overnight trains aren't the most comfortable for a nasty dose of the travel bug... but he endured it heroically!! He's on the improve now, hopefully!
Arrival in Kolkata came around quickly. Until now it had been a nervous wait to try and work out whether we would get an English sign at the station of destination, and if not whether we would meet someone who spoke enough English to help us out. This morning we were both asleep when we pulled into Kolkata, and it was a quick dash off the train and into the crazy station that is Howrah (the old name for Kolkata). We were a little nervous, as we had not booked a hotel for our one night in the city part of Kolkata, but with a few quick prayers and fingers crossed, the first place we tried took us in no worries.
Kolkata seems to be quite a different city to Delhi - not nearly as many animals roaming the streets and it feels a little more organised. We even found a park to sit in, and had a chat to a luvly guy named George. Today has been laying low, trying to kick the travel bugs that have been lingering a bit (nothing too dramatic though). We ran into one of our crew from Melbourne. We will all meet up tomorrow to head out to CCD where our work with Friends of Kolkata will begin. Who knows what lays ahead... things change everyday... but regardless there will surely be plenty to experience and learn and much to challenge us! Not sure what our internet access will be like in Madyamgram (where the boys home is), so our updates may become less regular. Thanks for tuning in and reading our ramblins thus far - your comments have made us feel really connected with our ozzie mob.
Lotsa luv.