kolkata in 24 hours

I was in Kolkata to launch Jet Airways' new flight from Bangkok to Kolkata. It was quite a journey. We left Singapore on the 18th January 2007, flew to Kolkata via Delhi. Arrived in the morning of the 19th, checked in, had lunch and went to the Hyatt Hotel for a stage run. That same evening we had a good show, had dinner after about 11pm, went back to our hotel to sleep. The next day, we checked out after lunch , went to the airport, boarded the flight to Mumbai, waited for 4 hours in the airport before taking another flight back to Singapore. Wow, we had a four day trip but only spent one night in a hotel. Talk about a jet setting lifestyle !

Kolkata is a honking city. It is just what the locals do. They drive like mad, swerving in and out on roads without lane markings. One hand on the steering wheel and another on the honk. Every 10 seconds or so, we could hear the drivers trying to out-honk each other. It was extremely noisy, deafening. After about 10 hours or so , I was beginning to get used to the incessant din when I realized something was wrong. There was silence in my head, peace at last and then it hit me. Kolkata had gone to sleep!

The Indians didn't consider that rude but just a way of life for them. Each honk seemed to send out a message like 'watch out here I come, I won't hit you cos I am a good driver but let us not tempt fate.' And they all seemed to be in a hurry to go somewhere. Even with that in mind, the driver still managed to arrive 2 hours late in picking us up. When we enquired about the transport, the hotel concierge just said "let it come" with the famous Indian nod. hahahha that was so funny.

Nice, friendly people, the Indians. But most of them just like to look and stare- at foreign girls especially. We were in the same hotel as some cricket players. We chatted with some and found out that they were in the city and just finished a cricket game. They invited us to watch the next day but we had to fly back. That was too bad. They were cute too...