Kolcata Botanical Gardens January 11, 2008

How do I stay healthy? I try out a restaurant and I go back if I don't puke. It works. We'll see how long that lasts.

Its nice to hear birdsong again. The smog and scarcity drove me from the inner city out to the gardens. Well I actually was driven in a city bus crammed with unfamiliar humans but I'll get to that later. Kolcata is captivating, all-consuming, chaotic, and slowly crumbling in dusty heaps of litter with rickshaws racing over it. One saving grace is Gandhi's grandson is in charge here. He's the governor. Far better than what we have at home in California.

I'm almost embarrassed to be white and not buy anything from the street vendors selling clothes, food, shoes, and electrical items that may not work. I'm a little tired of the dollar sign interaction only. But I'm starting to make friends.

Today at 6 AM I walked out onto the street after waking up the man who was lying on the floor under a blanket inside the locked gate of my guesthouse. I had no idea he was the security guard. I didn't feel that secure when I saw the empty dark street and felt the spooky vibes on the sidewalk. I looked back at the locked gate behind me and thought, angels protect me. And I immediately met Lawrence a nice man with a wife and child who intervened on my behalf to help me find a bus to the botanical gardens - with no expectation of compensation. That was refreshing.

Many times in India I have explained to locals that it is more polite to give directions to visitors who are lost for free. On the plus side there are lovely clothes for cheap here, good food, spicy and sugared chai, and mostly honorable people; maybe. This morning I had planned to take a taxi but it didn't go as I thought it should. I like English in a taxi driver. And I was not finding any who spoke it - they say they know it but I have been in taxis with drivers who assured me they did know where a guesthouse is located but in fact do not and want me to tell him in his native tongue where it is now that we are lost. I'm in a foreign country you chuckle head - how am I supposed to know when I have never been here? So Lawrence worked out the price for me with one of his cronies - 120 rupees which now I realize was only about $3 including tolls. But when we get in the car smoked-out cigarette man gets in the driver's seat. There was a cloud of tobacco stench around him and he may have had something stronger to drink for breakfast than orange juice.

I said, "I'm not gonna get in the car with two men. I'm a woman!" Especially in the near dark of dawn. Then the men start all that, "Don't you trust me?"crap. I said, "I trust you Lawrence but I'm not going with two men, I'll take the bus." So he actually takes me to where the bus is supposed to arrive. After an hour of searching and an alarming squat toilet experience in my ankle length skirt at the public bus station we finally found it. And I saved 110 rupees - nearly $3. Cost for bus: 7 rupees. Yippee. I feel like I beat the system taking the bus, even though I was squashed into the walls and windows when loads more humans would board the bus and the taller men had their heads folded into their necks crushed against the ceiling. I at least had a seat.

Another kind person was the father I met at the chai stand this morning. He was wholesome and friendly the way he inquired about my journey and we talked about raising children and our families in the dark before Kolcata woke up. It was a real happening scene at the chai stand. I was the only white tourist woman up and awake. You don't see any foreigners out at 6AM in Kolkata as their tout guides probably have told them to stay under the covers and wait for room service but this was my first test of feeling fear and moving past it.

Travel in India is semi-infuriating. Indian women look at the tiny square inch of skin showing on my bare shoulders like I'm a stripper. Oh excuse me - your whole fat gut is exposed under your sari and I can see way more inches of skin from the side view. Please cover up. But eventually they smile back at me.Usually. Men are more prone to want to mingle it up and chat not to mention all my new beggar friends. I feel like the bottom of a boat, with sucking barnacles. They keep calling me "Auntie" and "Mother" to get me to open my purse.

Heinous.