Travel Day 894 – Kolkata, INDIA
It was Sunday and our last full day in Kolkata, but instead of rushing around and doing many things, we decided to rather have a nice relaxed last day and do as little as possible…
Victoria Memorial in Kolkata, India
We actually didn’t make it out of bed and out of the hotel until about lunch time which meant that we skipped breakfast altogether and rather enjoyed an extended local lunch. There was a little Bengali restaurant close by our hotel and it became naturally our first destination of the day. Some nice fish curry, daal and vegetables with paratha later and we were finally ready for some sight-seeing…
The grand Victoria Memorial seemed to be a good choice for the day and so we just walked around until we finally reached it. Since it was Sunday, there was no metro running again and the entire city seemed more quiet and sleepy than usual. For us it was quite of nice to walk around in a more relaxed atmosphere and even if the concept of closed subways on Sundays still seemed strange to me, today where we didn’t depend on it, we actually appreciated this enforced quiet resting day…
At the Victoria Memorial we were first reminded of the fact that we were obviously foreigners and being treated as such. We had to pay 15 times more money for the entrance than an Indian person had to and even if it was not as bad as the Taj Mahal had been were foreigners had to pay 75 times more, it still seemed a bit strange that the government openly displayed that foreigners should pay more money than local people. No wonder everyone else thought its fair game to ask more money from foreigners…
Kids playing in front of Victoria Memorial
Seeing the memorial again was great. It still seemed out of scale and out-of-place in the middle of India, but it was a great place to visit. Especially the exhibit inside displaying historic maps and old photographs of Kolkata was amazing. But equally as amazing it seemed to just sit outside in the vast park and watch all the locals enjoy their Sunday. It really seemed that every single person had come with their entire family, some blankets and food. While the kids played around, the parents shared a conversation and a chai…
When it was finally time for us to go and get some packing done, we also decided to end this nice day with another extensive meal, our last dinner in Kolkata. And even if it was a bit more pricy, it seemed undoubtedly to be the best food we ever had… : )
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