Katrina K. Photography

Arriving in Kolkata was a surprise. I had expected a loud, dirty, crazy city. But overall, it’s pretty clean & tame. Except for the traffic. Having been traveling in SE Asia for 5 years now, Tadashi and I have had a lot of experience crossing the un-regulated streets of Asia. In SE Asia, you wait for a break in traffic, then beginning slowly across. You keep a steady pace, and the traffic gauges you speed and veers either in front of you, or behind you. The cars, trucks and motor bikes will come really, really close, but they won’t hit you. The worst thing you can do in SE Asia is to stop or run. Changing speed, stopping or running can cause you to be hit. But in India, if you DON’T stop or run, you will be hit. So crossing the street here is an entirely different game. We often find ourselves running back to the sidewalk along with the locals.

I had a really good blog all set to go about our 3 days in Kolkata. But that will have to wait until later, as the hard drive on my NEW Toshiba laptop has decided to call it quits. That darn thing is only 7 months old!! A similar problem happened to my Sony and I blamed Sony for the problem. Maybe it's time to start blaming the hard drive manufacturer. Add to that the fact that I can't seem to shake this ridiculous cold, and that now Tadashi is beginning to come down with a cold as well; you can imagine that we're not in the best of spirits right now. But we've been catching up on our HBO and Star Movies.