Day 7 - 17th February

Today was as action packed as ever - a tour of the public transport in Kolkata! 

However first of all, we were all up at the crack of dawn to go to mass in the Mother House. We managed to drag ourselves out of bed at 4:30am, and struggled onto the bus at 5 for the 45 minute trip, most of us spent asleep. The mass was really nice, and we all received two blessed medals from a lovely sister from Cork! After raiding the Mother Teresa shop beside the Mother Home, and then trekked onto the bus for the long trip home, which most of us again, spent deep asleep. As soon as we arrived home, we all collapsed into bed and conked for the next few hours, which was well needed! 

By around 12 most of us had woken up, and we had lunch at 1:30, and then left for our tour of Kolkata with Mr. Jim. First off, we had our daily, hectic walk to DumDum Metro Station, and took the metro 3 stops, where we were packed onto tuk tuks! These were such a laugh, and the ride down to the river was almost over too quickly!

Next order of business was to get on the ferry, which was a far more relaxing journey than the tuk tuks, it was really nice to get a view of the city from the river. We got off after crossing, and then headed to Howrah Station, the biggest train station in Kolkata. It has 29 platforms, and is used by 1 million people everyday coming in and out of the city. Although reserved tickets can be booked on the trains (3 months in advance!), it was heartbreaking to see how many people were crammed into each carriage, and so many were even hanging out the side of the doors! Mr. Jim also took us to some of the tunnels where Lion was filmed!

We then left the station, walked back over the bridge where Lisa got her fortune told...yet the fortune teller spoke all in Bengali, and so without a translator present, Lisa's fortune remains a mystery to us all. 

We got the bus to the Indian Coffee House, where a group of students started the resistance movement back in the 1940s which hasn't changed at all over the years, including the waiters uniforms! Unfortunately it didn't open until 5, so we got a another bus, and then a tram back to the coffee house to fill the time. We enjoyed a refreshing "cold coffee" there, which was packed with sugar! 

We left at around 5:45, and to our shock a pick-up truck was waiting outside to bring us to the train station! 13 of us squished into the back and enjoyed the short journey to Sealadh Station.

Finally, we got a suburban train back to Dum Dum, and despite how packed it was, the open doors meant there was a nice breeze. 

Although we had such a fun time on all these different modes of transport, it was heartbreaking to see the sheer amount of people begging, homeless, and having to live on the streets of Kolkata. It really reminded us all how lucky we to go home every night to food and a warm bed. 

Even though we had a really good weekend, we're all dying to return to St. George's for our last few days in Kolkata!