Calcutta

After a few more days in Palolem we headed up to Panaji for a couple of nights. On the Wednesday we went to Anjuna flea market which was cool. It's so early in the season that the market is a fraction of it's size in the peak of the tourist months, but on the flip side this meant that prices were at their lowest. We all bought a few bits and bobs and thoroughly enjoyed the bartering game. In Panaji we all had deep cleansing facials at an incredibly fancy beauty salon and spent some time enjoying Dosa Masalas at the Kamrat hotel and wandering around the shops. On Thursday night we got the night train to Bombay. We all slept fairly well and the journey was relatively uneventful. It was a little uncomfortable for me as, in keeping with our collective run of bad health, I came down with a sore throat which worsened considerably and saw me having to exit a Bombay restaurant on the double yesterday afternoon for fear of feinting, throwing up all over the table, or both. My illness unfortunately scuppered grand plans to dine at the Taj Hotel last night which is a real shame. I felt half dead upon being woken by the alarm at 6am this morning, but survived the unnecessarily frantic taxi journey to Mumbai airport, a very pleasant domestic flight with Jet Airways and a second sweaty taxi ride through Calcutta to our hotel. We had booked a room at a hotel but, after seeing it, we decided an upgrade was necessary so have pushed the boat out a little for the 9 quid a night "Hotel Super". First impressions of Calcutta are surprisingly good - we had serious fears as it's reputation for poverty and general squalor precedes it, however these seem relatively unfounded.