Our first weekend with a car

As this was our first weekend with a car we decided to be the real tourists in Calcutta and get out and see a bit of the city. Raymie and the girls went to the zoo, more of that later from the girls and some great photos too.

Dara took this photo of the Victoria Memorial from the moving car, not bad? She's got an eye for a good shot. We went to Millennium Park which is a beautiful green space right on the edge of Calcutta's Hoogly river. The river is an offshoot of the Ganges and runs right through the city, you can cross it by two huge bridges, one is called the Howrah and they say it is the most used bridge in the world with millions of commuters crossing between Howrah (Calcutta's old industrial centre) and Calcutta every day.

We went to the Children's Museum which has a huge collection of dolls from every country in the world, enough to give you a phobia in fact. It included a couple of barbies but sadly bratz haven't been consigned to history just yet. There was a great project going on in the courtyard outside, where hundreds of children were being supported by artists and teachers to paint different images around the walls. The atmosphere was great and the children were just getting on with it, with confidence, so Dara joined in whilst Raymie and I talked with the organisers. We are going back this week to do some filming. Check out Dara getting stuck in with paint brush, and see if you can see any familiar images amongst the wall murals, 'lions and tigers and bears oh my!' even in Calcutta, 'there's no place like home'.


Hinduism has two great epic stories, The Mahabharata and the Ramayana, like the Odyssey or the Tain Bo Cuailgne full of heroes and Gods and princesses, flying monkies and great battles. I can't help thinking the Wizard of Oz and Lord of the Rings must have taken some inspiration from these. The Mahabharata is 8 times as long as the Odyssey and Illiad put together. The Children's Museum brilliantly abridges the epics and takes us on the journey through miniature sculptured scenes. Here's one monster who got his comeuppence.


We have much more travel planned. At the end of February we hope to go the Sunderbans, a huge area of mangrove covered islands that we will have to travel to by boat. A conservation area known as the 'beautiful forest' it is home to the Royal Bengal tiger, a ferocious man-eater. It is also home to crocodiles, sharks, dolphins and sea turtles. We eventually hope to go to Darjeeling too, tea country and spectacularly located at the foot of the Himalayas with views of Mount Everest. But for now there is much more exploring to do on the streets of Calcutta itself.
That's it until our next post, Shona, Raymie, Toraigh and Dara.