Northern India Journey - Day 29 Kolkata - 10/1/2011

Arrived in Kolkata in the morning, I followed a man, who said he was a taxi driver, to a "white" taxi, later I realized that it wasn't an official taxi, to Sudder Street to find hostel. There was no private bathroom, and I had to collect hot watch outside with a bucket. That was my first time in India to have a bath without shower.

I, then, went to the China Town in Kolkata. The China Town wasn't very big and I barely saw any Chinese there. There were still some Chinese style buildings and temples in the area. I went to a temple, which was difficult to find, located in mid of the area where poor people living in. I met the keeper in the temple and asked why there were only a few Chinese people in Kolkata. He said there was used to be millions of Chinese lived in there, but when there was a Sino-India war in 1960's most of them moved to other countries, like UK, the US, China and Taiwan. So what I saw was a sized down China Town. But I still found some influences from that period such as there was a street called Sun Yat Sin Street.

TinHau Temple

A notice I saw in Kolkata about the dinner for the in inauguration of the new China ambassador.

In the afternoon, I met up a friend I knew in Jaisalmer, We decided to do some volunteer works in Motherhouse which was established by Mother Teresa. There was a briefing section at 3. So we went to Park Street Cemetery for a short visit. The staff there were very nice, he asked us to write down something on their memory book.

The tombs inside the cemetery.

We went to Motherhouse, there were lot of people coming there for volunteering. I saw there were lots of Americans in the hall, they came in groups as if they joined a scheme or what from their home town. After the briefing, a sister talked with everyone there to ask which centre or type of people they would like to serve, as there are about 8 to choose. During the time, we meet 2 people also from Hong Kong, that's amazing to see Hong Kong people in India. We shared a lots about our experiences in India.