The India Journals, Ch. 7, The Big Boat

Ch. 7, The Big Boat

Hey, people who travel with their bed pillow. You look insane.—Jim Gaffigan

Our motor coach pulls over to the side of a nondescript street in the Kolkata darkness and lets us off.  Thankfully, there are no rickshaws, taxis, or sacred cows impaled on the front bumper.

We are met by several men who lead us around the railroad barriers, across the tracks, past the wild dogs, and onto the river boat that will be our home for the next seven days.  

Two India crows on the wide tracks.   India's railroads have three gauges--narrow, medium, and wide.

This is the RV Ganges Voyager.   Brand new, we are the guinea pigs—this is her maiden voyage.   “Has she had her sea trials?” I ask.   I am assured she has passed her inspections in the river, but we are her very first paying passengers.

The dashing captain.

There are 38 Vantage Tours clients aboard and we are ushered up to the lounge on the top deck, where we are offered complimentary local beer and wines, and “crisped rice” as a canapé. 

The lounge.

The lounge.

Crisped rice ("rice crispies) seasoned with every hot spice known in India and Mexico.

We are welcomed aboard and given a briefing.   Understanding that we are brain-fried after a fourteen-hour Air India flight from the U.S., then a long wait in the Delhi airport before another two hour flight to Kolkata, the briefing is mercifully short.

Room keys are passed out, and we head to our rooms before a light buffet in the dining room.

A photo I stole off the internet, because my photos were taken under fluorescent lights.

East India dining room.

The other side of the dining room.

The boat is exquisite.   Wood floors gleam, everything is bright and shiny.  Someone put a lot of thought into designing this boat and it seems they thought of everything.   At 185 feet in length with a 41 foot beam, the boat can carry 56 passengers in 28 rooms on two decks.   The rooms range from 260 square feet to 400 square feet for the sumptuous Maharajah suite.

My room is called a Colonial suite, but all the rooms for tourists are called “suites” and evoke India’s rich colonial past.

Photo is from an internet posting, enlarged and not very clear.   I post it because it shows the true colors of the room.

My room in natural daylight.

The furniture is not purple.   It looks that way because of the fluorescent lighting.

There's a mini-fridge in that cabinet.   Again, fluorescent lighting messes up the color.

My French balcony.   I opened the windows and watched India go by.

Carpet runner in one passageway.

Look at those floors!

Aboard is a Vantage “inspector.”   I don’t know Joanne’s official title, but she is here to see if this portion of the tour measures up to Vantage quality.   She is Chinese.

Also aboard is Dinesh, born and raised in Kolkata, now living in Chicago and operating a travel agency.  He is a special guest, because Haimark, Ltd., the company operating the boat, hopes he will book tours with them.

 

I want one of those sprayers in my bathroom!  See the tiny white ball on the drain?   See below.

In the sink drain, as well as in the tub, are three balls of deodorant, the kind they used to use in bus station restrooms.   The smelly ones.

We are introduced to a dizzying number of people, all of whom are in charge of something.   All but one are Indian, and the lone Caucasian was from Haimark, here to see this very important voyage goes off smoothly.  It seemed to me that there were many chiefs but, pardon the pun, there appeared to be few Indians.  I guess they were all working somewhere else on the boat.  I have a difficult time determining who is with Vantage, with the boat crew, or with Haimark.

All I know is that this guinea pig is very, very excited and very, very tired.  Breakfast will be from 7 to 8 A.M. in the East India Dining room with a tour of Kolkata immediately following.

So off I go to room 310 on the upper deck and my very comfortable bed.

Not so fast there, Gullible.   The party boat is ramping up the music and dancing next to us.

Intermission

I'm home and mostly intact.   Not missing any parts, just some memories of miserable flights, for which I am thankful.  

I'm also sick in bed with a cold.   During my school years, and my work years, and my marriage years, I often dreamed of what it would be like to just be able to go to bed when sick with a cold or whatever.   I can tell you now, it's everything I dreamed it would be.

So as I recover from long flights and coughing spells, I'm planning chapters in the India Journals.   Should be up and running soon.

The India Journals, Ch. 6, The Most Harrowing Ride Ever

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.

~ Edward Abbey

Kolkata is a cacophony of horns, an endless beeping from luxury motor coaches, humble buses with or without glass windows, bicycles and motorbikes, man- and bicycle- and gas-powered rickshaws, and a few private vehicles.   And taxis!   Dozens and hundreds and thousands of little yellow taxis that look a lot like gangster cars from the 1940s.   The beeping is constant, continual, unending, and it will drive you quite bonkers.

Kolkata traffic

Pedestrians are close enough to touch from my seat on the coach if I opened the window, which I won’t because I am rather attached to my arm.  Dogs are everywhere, sometimes sleeping in the road, and I am astonished that we do not bump over frequently.   The cows are another matter.   No one hurts a sacred cow.

The cabs of Kolkata.   The light trails in the photo will give you an idea of the roads in Kolkata.

Indians drive on the left side of the street, so sitting on the left side of the motor coach meant I was privy to the lives playing out few feet from my seat.   I mean that literally. 

Washing dishes in a water basin on the3 sidewalk.

Note the eyes painted on the front of the bus.

***

The flight from New Delhi to Kolkata (Calcutta) was delayed an hour and Air India, by way of apology, invited us to a food court where we were served a large brownie, a small carton of mixed juice, and a bottle of water.  All gratis.   I asked if Vantage Travel had arranged this and was told it was compliments of Air India.

Once we were in the air, I was astonished that we were served a full dinner.   It’s only a two-hour flight from Delhi to Kolkata, but there was a tray before me with paneer tikka (squares of dense barbequed cottage cheese more like tofu), a vegetable cutlet, a puff pastry, a vegetable sandwich (coleslaw on bread), mint chutney, and sweet rasgulla for dessert.

I thank the Indian woman sitting beside me for telling me what I was eating.  She thoughtfully wrote the menu of a piece of notebook paper, which I am sure was much easier for her than spelling it out for me to write down.

Vantage guides collected us at the Kolkata airport and divided us into three groups.  The groups were named Siva, Dolphins, and Ganesha.   I was in the last group with Asif as the guide.

This was made of flower petals, leaves. and grain and was on the floor of the Kolkata air terminal.

I kept seeing this guy.  He fascinated me.

 

Then a motor coach, only slightly narrower than the ones you see in the USA, took me on the most harrowing ride I have ever experienced in my world-wide travels.  It would be almost a two-hour ride through narrow streets teeming with people and dogs and all manner of conveyances.

One of many sleeping on sidewalks, in gutters, or on the street itself.

I took some of these photos the next day in daylight.   Night photos while on a shaking, bounding, jerking, bumping bus don't turn out very good

Hauling long pieces of rebar (reinforcing steel rod for concrete) on a bicycle rickshaw.  If they can figure out how to fasten it to a bike or a bike/cart, they'll haul it.

Typical storefront.

After four and a half days of travel, my brain was fried and my senses thankfully dulled.   I have no idea how we managed not to maim or kill pedestrians or bike and motorcycle riders.  By this time, it was after 9 P.M., but the streets were jammed.  Vendors in small hovels lined the sidewalks, selling everything imaginable, but mostly food.

Potatoes and peanuts.

People washed dishes under a faucet on the sidewalk.   According to Asif, water is supplied to every building and home that pays taxes.   For those without, these sidewalk faucets or hand pumps supply water.  The vendors in the tiny make-shift shacks don’t pay taxes to the government, yet they are allowed to thrive because they pay taxes elsewhere—to the police.

  

A herd of goats being driven up the street..

The ubiquitous yellow cabs.

Cow in alleyway.

Cow looking for food in trash.

Another cow in the trash.

Finally, thankfully, my tired body was delivered to a pier and I dragged it onboard the RV Ganges Voyager, a brand-new riverboat set to sail on its maiden voyage.

This, I thought, should be interesting.

 

The RV Ganges Voyager, brand new and my home for he next seven days.

Some more scenes from Kolkata. 

Doesn't that look like comfortable bike seat?

Doing the laundry and smiling at the waving tourists.  Parents encourage their children to wave at us.