Walking the Streets of Kolcutta, India

This was a unique experience. On a brief stay in Kolcutta I decided I wanted to walk these hectic streets. I was a bit apprehensive at first because I was unsure of the crime rate in this huge city.

Kolcutta (used to be called Calcutta) is near Bangladesh. It's a big commercial hub for the eastern part of the country. In the city itself there are about 5 million people. Compare that to less than 2 million in Manhattan, NY. Yeah, it's a crowded place.

I took a taxi from my hotel and I had him drive me to the busiest part of the city. He dropped me off and I just began to walk...and walk and walk. For hours I walked, occasionally stopping to rest my back. In all the time I walked I never saw a single foreigner. How can that be in a city that size? Perhaps they were in another part of the city but I never saw a white face. Only locals.

Here are some pictures from my walk:

Lots of local goods

Public baths? This is like Ancient Rome!

Bikes, carts, and rickshaws for transport

Wonder what they're talking about? Being a paranoid person I'm sure it was about me!

How long can their backs hold out???

No bike or cart? Use your head! Or back.

Do they live here?

Streets could be quite dirty.

Selling their local produce

I only bought one thing during my walk. Mostly because I didn't want to carry stuff around. I bought a pound of turmeric to bring home. It's a great anti-inflammatory that helps my arthritis.

I do like Indian food but I didn't buy any on the streets of this city. Normally I don't shy away from street food, but this city didn't look like the most hygienic I've visited.

I've walked through many big cities of this world, but I think I felt more out of place on this walk than any other I've taken. I don't think I'd ever been to a city this size and not seen anyone of a different nationality. Especially having walked these streets so long. Here is a video flavor of my walk:

It was a great experience to walk among the locals for so long. Finally I tired and found a taxi (surprisingly not easy to find in this large city) and made it back to my hotel. I flew home the next day.

My Patriotic Post

Yeah maybe a day late on this one but here it is. I was asked a question by reader R3 yesterday which made me think. I answered him but I’m quite sure I was wrong in my response.

Yesterday was Independence Day as most of you know. I celebrated in the traditional ways with a parade:

And fireworks:

After the celebration concluded I received a R3 text asking me if travel abroad made me less patriotic. Of course I replied it did not. But it does make me less America centric. Meaning I am more aware of world issues now and not just local ones.

If you have followed my blog this past year, you know my disdain for the media here. It is so USA focused and biased I just can’t stand it. It’s all about us. But there is a lot of real news in the world. Suffering and oppression abound throughout the world but we are stuck with hearing about how senile Biden is or how corrupt Trump. After day 30 that’s not news anymore.

Having seen the real burdens of the world I can’t help but see how trivial our issues are. I’m reminded of the Humphrey Bogart line in Casablanca, “I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that.”

That’s how I feel when I see the news. The trivial issues of the 3.5 million people here don’t matter in a world of 7 billion with real problems.

If you follow my blog, you’ll know I’m not one of those apologetic Americans, though. I have defended America when on a tour bus in Vietnam when the guide spewed anti American sentiment.

In South Korea I corrected a tour guide who I felt irresponsibly bashed America in that conflict in the Unapologetic American Post:

https://www.kirkstravelstories.com/post/american-soldiers-in-foreign-wars

Yeah, I’m patriotic. But am I less than I used to be? Well I think I answered R3 wrong. Maybe I am. By being more aware of global issues it does dilute my perception of the USA. Not to the point I will ever be ashamed of my country as many self-loathers are. I would never pull a “Dixie Chicks “ move.

But I do realize the more trivial nature of our “problems” here. In that way I hold our dominant world position in less prominence than before I traveled. Maybe that makes me a bit less patriotic? I don’t know.

What I do now is I detest our media. All of it. It’s all biased trash. Both Liberal and Conservative. It’s all spin and trash. Everyone pushing their agenda and not conscious of a world in true need.

Open Food Markets of Cambodia

Going to the market? Do you like to eat fresh foods? Well, things are done a little differently around these parts. This is a familiar scene throughout much of Asia. These open markets as you see here.

Now these are not necessarily just food markets as typically many different goods are sold. But I've found that they tend to group things together in the markets like this. Clothing might be in one area and food in another. It's very common to see the same booths selling the same goods side by side.

My trip to the markets in Cambodia starts with a walk through the congested streets. An interesting but not necessarily a fun experience;

In the evenings these places could get quite crowded, but during the heat of the day there was little activity. I think a lot of people in these areas eat fresh food each day as they likely may not have refrigeration. So they buy just enough for the evening meal and leave.

But, I must admit that these places did not seem too appetizing to me. All the meats and fishes were just laid out in the open for inspection. There was really no protection for the meat at all. And it would stay there for hours during the heat of the day. Not only was it not refrigerated, but it wasn't protected in any way from other elements, like people handling it, or sneezing on it, or flies landing on it, which was a common practice.

This is just not what I'm accustomed to. But it is what they are accustomed to and obviously it works for them. I say that without knowledge, of course. Maybe it doesn't work as well for them because perhaps the disease rate is much higher there.

The other thing that got to me about this area was the smell. This is an odoriferous area. And the odor is not a good one. At least not to me. It just smelled like old decaying meat to me, even though I saw no evidence of decay on any of the the meat that I inspected.

It's funny, because I often eat the street foods in these areas. It's almost certain that the meats they buy that they cook on the streets are the same meats that they buy in these markets. So, although I say I would never buy any of the meats in these markets, I'm likely eating them on a daily basis. They're probably the same meats at the serving table at the hotel breakfast where I'm staying.

The vendors sit at their kiosk all day long. Many times they have their young children with them because they don't have a babysitter. They have little protection from the heat, and often completely cover their limbs to avoid sun exposure. This cannot be a comfortable life.

This is a big part of life in Cambodia and in neighboring countries. They try to eek out a living by selling what goods they can catch or grow. But farm life is not an easy life, and neither is being a vendor of their goods.

I just wanted to give you a little flavor of life in Cambodia