Day 1 - Kolkata

I'm now in Bodh Gaya, after a freezing 8-hour sleeper-train ride that I got on last night at 8:35 PM. I had tried updating with a blog entry, but the Internet Explorer kept crashing on me...now I have to write everything again!

Things I didn't expect
1) I wasn't expecting so much traditional clothing to be worn by the women. The older generation wasn't much of a surprise, but girls my age I saw walking on the street were all wearing either saris or salwar kameez's (dress-like tunics and trouser combinations accompanied by long scarves). It didn't conform to my Bollywood-watching impressions of jeans and such.

2) I was stared-down like no other. There weren't many tourists in Kolkata, especially compared to Thailand...and tourists I saw were usually white...making me an exotic specimen. I mean, I got turning heads, even groups of people circling me and silently staring at me up and down, no joke.

3) The weather. I was expecting sweltering heat. Instead it's cool and dry here.

I arrived at the airport in the morning, welcomed by the familiar crowd of eager taxi-drivers waiting to prey on tourists, "hello, where are you going? Taxi?" He followed me for about 3 minutes before finally giving up on me, as I reached the bus stand and took a 1-hour honk-fest/nausea run through the labrynth of the bustling streets (9 Rupees / 20 UScents). And then walking into the train station made me feel like an ant running into an over-crowded ant-hill, bumping this way and that not knowing where to go or how to buy a ticket (every counter mysteriously directed me to another counter which then would direct me to another counter and after 1 hour I finally got to the right place). For lunch I had an 8 rupees (18 UScents) lunch of rice and veg-curry. It reminded me of the noodle-soup I found in LiJiang, GuangXi China for only 25 cents that I was so proud about, because it was super cheap yet super good food that's not so easy to stumble upon.

I can't seem to upload my pictures, will try next time.