Monday, 23 February 2015
We docked in Kolkata (Calcutta) just before midnight. We had to wait until low tide to be able to go beneath three bridges.
We had a morning city tour of colonial Kolkata. Before the British made Calcutta the capital of the British Raj, it was a rather small backwater town. The colonial buildings are an interesting synthesis of architectural styles that became known as Indo-Saracenic: not really Indian, not really Mughal, not really European. Mostly they seem ostentatious and musty.
You can find many pictures of these buildings online -- even in my earlier blog postings. (See Kolkata, Kolkata Part 2, and Kolkata Miscellany.) So I'll omit the over-worked shots and concentrate on more unusual (or amusing) sights.
I'll start with morning fog/haze/smog on the river.
And now it's all over. We disembarked after lunch and headed to the airport and home.
Even though tulsi is usually at the front of a house (or ship), I'll use the tulsi plant to end my postings from our "Journey on the Ganges".
We docked in Kolkata (Calcutta) just before midnight. We had to wait until low tide to be able to go beneath three bridges.
We had a morning city tour of colonial Kolkata. Before the British made Calcutta the capital of the British Raj, it was a rather small backwater town. The colonial buildings are an interesting synthesis of architectural styles that became known as Indo-Saracenic: not really Indian, not really Mughal, not really European. Mostly they seem ostentatious and musty.
You can find many pictures of these buildings online -- even in my earlier blog postings. (See Kolkata, Kolkata Part 2, and Kolkata Miscellany.) So I'll omit the over-worked shots and concentrate on more unusual (or amusing) sights.
I'll start with morning fog/haze/smog on the river.
 |
| Early morning looking upstream (to the west): Two ships anchored nearby and a power plant on the opposite bank just barely visible. |
 |
| An hour and a half later, the fog had mostly lifted, but the smoke remains. |
 |
| Same early morning hour, this time looking downstream (east). |
 |
| An hour and a half later. More detail, but still extremely hazy. |
 |
| Waiting in a toll-booth traffic jam gave me the opportunity to take this photo of a tailor at work. |
 |
| A moving marble sculpture in St. John's Church. |
 |
| Organ pipes in St. John's Church. Classic Victorian floral design, but so dingy with "dust" that they are difficult to truly appreciate. |
 |
| Crows taking advantage of the view atop a lion at the gate of the Victoria Memorial. |
 |
| Right at our dock, where much laundry and bathing were taking place all day. The cow is eating a floral garland. |
 |
| And the sign above the cow and trash proclaims "Keeping the Ganga clean". Looks like there's a lot of work to do! |
 |
| A tulsi ("Holy Basil") plant is found in the bow of just about every ship on the water. Most homes in India, especially Hindu homes, have a tulsi plant outside the door or in the courtyard. The leaves are used medicinally, as an herbal tea, and in Hindu worship. |
Even though tulsi is usually at the front of a house (or ship), I'll use the tulsi plant to end my postings from our "Journey on the Ganges".
No comments:
Post a Comment