Travel Day 895 – Kolkata to Puri, Orissa, INDIA
The departure day from Kolkata had finally arrived and after being here comfortably at home for about 5 weeks, I finally had to close my backpack again and make move…
Nice Taylor at the Post Office in Kolkata
Obviously I was once more reminded of my much too heavy backpack, but luckily I had worked out a scheme for some improvement. On the one hand I had a new lighter and smaller Tabla in my pack and on the other I was doing the final touch ups for a big parcel to be sent home. This parcel was containing my other Tabla and some miscellaneous items that seemed not really necessary to carry around because I haven’t used them much over the past two months…
So this day not only became a Tavel Sunday of packing and organizing everything, but also an India post office day. It had been a while since I last sent a parcel home from India, but I remembered that it needed to get stitched up in fabric before could be sent. What I did not remember was that it also had to get wax seals and filled out forms with stitch attachment. The nice Taylor in front of the post office actually did a really good job and within about an hour we filled out the many forms and had the nicest wrapped up cloth parcel I had ever seen…
While usually everything seemed to be quite casual in India, the entire process of shipping a parcel seemed to be extremely organized and regulated. One had to wonder it was just a left over of the British era, but especially because even the writing had to be done in a certain form and fashion. At some point the friendly Taylor quickly took the pen out of my hands when he saw my best attempt of writing clear block letters and he rather did everything himself… : )
Train at Howrah Station in Kolkata, India
After so much fun at the post office, we needed to enjoy one last time the great street food and we stopped by the guys who had channa masala, vegetable curry and paneer butter masala with freshly made naan bread from a tandori oven right on the curb. This local street-food was not only extremely cheap, but also the most authentic and the most flavor-fully spiced food we had ever found in Kolkata so far…
Our last act of the day was then a short visit in a local dusty park along the Ganga, before we then had to grab our stuff and leave for Howrah Station to go on our first train ride through India…
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