Day three in Kolkata...

By now we’d worked out that everything is much further away than it seems, so we planned more of a modest day of checking out the place! Today was the day that we planned to go and see the Victoria Monument, Kolkata’s best-known attraction. And for good reason: it’s huge, it’s set in amazingly manicured grounds, and it’s beautiful. It epitomises the British colonial influence, and was clearly built to stamp their authority on the city – and of course pay tribute to the Queen. But it’s certainly a great legacy the British left to Kolkata. I was a bit miffed at the ten-times entry fee for foreigners vs locals, which pretty much cleaned us out!

But it was worth it; a wander around the grounds is a cool respite from the heat; the trees and lawns are beautifully kept; there are lovely ponds located around the gardens by which you can sit and cast your eyes over, with the white marble palace looming behind it all. The entrance is amazingly ornate, and opens into a huge domed foyer that almost looks like the inside of a cathedral. In the very centre is a statue of her Majesty; she is surrounded by colonial-style paintings of the royalty of old and carved marble walls that are all overlooked by the small stained-glass window in the dome’s lofty centre that sends down a shaft of light. One of those ‘aaahhhh!’ moments, but another place you can’t take photos! Damn you English! All I’ll say is, I decided to take one to test the theory, and managed to sneak one in even though I was hastily set upon by one of the grumpy guards. In fact, all of the staff in that building were pompous, self-righteous, and overly grumpy people. Boo! Felt like being in England. :P

The Victoria monument has been converted into a museum, and it hosts an extensive exhibition on the history of the city, from original Indian inhabitation, the arrival and takeover of the British, to the emergence of the city as a huge trade hub and colonial city. We spent quite a lot of time in here – and the icy cold AC was quite a large contributing factor – before heading back out into the heat to our next target – the Eden Gardens cricket ground.

It wasn’t too far away, just across some parklands that incorporated the city’s racecourse. We saw the dark grey clouds approaching, but were enjoying meandering around the big grassy expanse right in the heart of the city – which were home to quite a number of horses. They seemed very comfortable with their spacious surrounds, even though they looked quite out of place with the city skyline behind them.

Those dark grey clouds were soon above us, bringing smatterings of rain and wind that whipped through our hair. We had timed our walk through the open parklands kinda badly… and once the cracking thunder and amazing lightning display started, we started walking quite a lot more quickly! We ended up bolting to the shelter of the cricket ground in the rain, and luckily made it before it started absolutely bucketing down! We weren’t the only ones heading for its inviting cover – in about 5 minutes we were amongst a crowd of about fifty people all sheltering from the storm, which seemed never-ending.

After about an hour of waiting, which included fending off some local women who kept badgering us for money, we got chatting to some young Indian cricket team hopefuls on their way to training (actually should I say on their way home from training – it was cancelled, and for good reason!) we realised that we could actually get into the ground with little trouble. We sprinted around to the main entrance and asked if we could have a look around. No problem! Up we went into the grandstand, and admired the view of Kolkata’s international cricket ground.

It was quite interesting to look around; the big screen for replays, the tall, razor-topped fences around the ground, which were there for good reason – totally crazy Indian cricket fans – and the extremely poor drainage of the oval. The whole place was under water. Clearly it wasn’t cricket season; everything was completely grubby – not that it would be clean after a cricket match in India! We eventually got kicked out by an impatient groundskeeper, but were happy to have had a chance to visit such a venue without having to pay or to go on a guided tour. No such thing as a free ticket into a national stadium at home!

Our next plan was to wander down to the riverfront to try and see the old Fort from another angle, considering we weren’t allowed to go inside. But we never quite made it that far, as we got caught up wandering the streets of the grand old buildings of the courts and financial buildings nearby. Not to mention the yummy street food and small terracotta cups of cha that warmed the cockles of our hearts after being wet from the rain!

The very last stop on our Kolkata agenda was a little coffee house hidden away in the university quarter, surrounded by street stalls selling every type of textbook you can imagine. The coffee house is apparently a Kolkatan institution and has existed for a great number of years, providing a meeting place to cultivate the great minds of this great city. And so it was with a café latte that we finished our time in this amazing place, and wound our way back through the streets to our hotel, with much-needed sleep and a very early start the next morning on our minds. The honeymoon was almost over…