Kolkata Trip 10/2019

        
Trinca's Restaurant and Bar

We went to Kolkata, India's capital during British rule and a major city in the state of West Bengal, right after Diwali over our Diwali Break. What an experience! It was our first domestic flight in India, and my first time in the city of my ancestry. We were really in awe of how different the city felt from Delhi with old colonial architecture, different sunset times, and even a little hotter. The feel reminded us quite a bit of Cuba.

Kolkata is much more walkable than the Delhi that we've experienced so far, so we walked everywhere. We saw all the main attractions and ate the most delicious food we've had since being in India! Debika Mashi's aunt treated us to a traditional Bengali meal at a restaurant called 6 Ballygunge Place, and it was incredible! Bengali cuisine is completely different from North Indian food, which we find in Delhi. It is more mustard based and more fish based with different spices in the eastern part of the country.

Some notable things we did and loved were taking a boat ride at sunset down the river, going to Kalighat Temple and seeing the smaller Kumartuli there, walking down Park St. when it was all lit up post-Diwali, and expericing the throngs of people cheering and ululating on buses for Kali Puja. One of our favorite nights was going to Trinca's, which is a bar/restaurant with live music, where the music is Indian until 9pm at which time it switches over to American. There was a beautiful female singer and then an older Indian male band playing some Nickelback hits! We felt like we were in Casablanca the movie (minus the Nickelback).

We also enjoyed a delicious food tour where we learned about the cabins on the city, and the writers and revolutionaries that would frequent the Coffee House on College Street, an area completely lined with booksellers. Finally, our favorite neighborhood was the neighboorhood between Tagore's former house and the Marble Palace. Here there were narrow, winding roads, bright with shops of marble makers, carving marble statues and deities right there along the road. We loved the richness and culture of this city, and it definitely won't be our last time there. Before leaving, we had already written a full itinerary for our next trip.



Kumartuli Steps - For making the deities that they immerse in the river during festivities
      

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