Along The Hooghly To Dum Dum

I walk out of Howrah station and take a pre-paid taxi from the stand outside; I pay 65 Rupees for the trip by Ambassador across town to Sudder Street, but half-way there the driver starts repeating: "Sudder Street - 30 Rupee. Sudder Street 30 Rupee". I lean forward and point to the driver's chit in my left hand - 'Do not pay the driver more money' it says below the fare and destination.

"Don't mess me around," I tell the driver. "Take me to Sudder Street. Now. Or this" - I switch the chit to my right hand and dangle it out of the open back window - "goes out here". Without a copy of the chit to submit to the office he will not be paid for the journey; his eyes dart nervously between the road ahead and his wing-mirror where he can see the piece of paper fluttering in the slipstream outside the Ambassador.

I take a small, bare room at the optimistically named Plaza Hotel; there is a broken air-conditioning unit hanging out of the window, and a haphazardly wired hot-water geyser in the toilet cubicle. A family of big, grey and black crows has made their home in the rusted tangle of a disused fire escape that leans against the outside wall, and lizards dart out of a whole in the bedroom wall in search of insects and spiders. I sleep for a couple of hours, then bucket-shower, shave and change my shirt. I take my map and set out for Thomas Cook on AJC Bose Road to change some money. It is hot and humid as I walk down Chowringhee Road and turn left at the junction. I am looking for The Chitrakoot Building at number 230; I walk for more than an hour - covering a couple of mile in the staggering heat - but still can't find it. I flag down a rickshaw and show him my map; we set off in the direction I have come from and find the building back near the start of my walk. Kolkata is the only city in India with human-drawn rickshaws. The barefoot wallahs jog along the streets with their wooden-wheeled carts -the passengers leaning slightly forward to maintain balance - and are tough, ravaged looking individuals; I feel a sense of guilt, as if I am perpetrating an almost slave-like abuse of another human being. Without my Rupees the wallah would be that much poorer, and my moral stance would be of no benefit to anyone but myself and my fragile conscience.

Thomas Cook is no longer in The Chitrakoot Building; they have moved to Shakespeare Sarani. When I find the office, the exchange desk is closed and will not re-open until the morning: I have wasted half the day.

Kolkata is a surprise. In parts, it reminds me of my time in the Slovakian city of Kosice: there are trams - far older and more decrepit than those in central Europe - and there is a dancing fountain in Maidan Park, an incredibly kitsch monument to tastelessness that completely overwhelms the quiet Slovakian version. And then there is the familiar hammer and sickle motif - almost eradicated in post-Soviet European states but seen everywhere in communist governed West Bengal. Where streets and roads in Slovakia and Hungary have been renamed to honour the heroes of their struggle for independence, those in Kolkata celebrate a history some in the West would rather forget: Lenin Sarani, Red Road and Ho Chi Minh Sarani - where, ironically, you will find the American Consulate. Other streets still echo of the Raj - which came into being on the banks of the River Hooghly after the British establishment finally removed the East India Company's remit to govern the country. Crumbling and flaking colonial buildings still line Middleton Row and Russel Street, Albert Road and Park Lane. The vast, white Victoria Memorial in dominates Maidan Park and Kolkotans still speak of the monarchy with affection. Everywhere there is Mother Theresa, but I cannot find the GPO building and the site of the Black Hole of Calcutta that it houses.

I do something I have not done since leaving Hungary: I take a ride on the underground. There is only one North-South line serving the city, and I buy a ticket to the terminus at Dum Dum, where - during the Boer War - a local factory produced the notorious exploding bullet that carries its name. The system is Russian designed - as is the Budapest Metro - and tries to emulate the efficiency of its central European counterpart with limited success: there are no automated ticket machines, no escalators and no maps; the staff are slow, lazy and disinterested, the trains dirty and ill-maintained. It is, however, far quicker than negotiating the chaotic traffic above, and therefore a popular means of transport for middle-class Kolkatans. I catch a local train on the Circular Railway from Dum Dum Junction as far as Eden Park. The lines loops down through the suburbs to the East bank of the Hooghly before swinging north to Sealdah station, the single track operated by an electric multiple unit that would look quite at home on a Surrey commuter service but for the bright purple and orange paintwork. I walk over to the Esplanade Bus stand and take a rickshaw back to Sudder Street; the sun is sinking over the city and the worst of the heat backing-off. I find the Super Pub Bar on the corner of Mirza Ghalib Street and order a Kingfisher to drink in the cool semi-darkness; there is a mix of Indian men with bottles of Hayward's Super Strong beer and spaced-out, hippy type Korean travellers at the tables near me. I avoid eye contact with the Indians and ignore the high-pitched gable of the Koreans as they take macro-focused pictures of their plates of food with expensive looking digital cameras. My grueling train journey is catching up with me, and I can just manage to walk down the street to the Blue Sky Cafe for a plate of Hakka noodles before I have to go back to the Plaza and bed. I barely notice the crows cawing on the fire escape outside, and even the tickle of a tiny lizard skimming across my fingers can't prevent me from falling into a deep sleep.