New travelling companions - Boda Gaya

We arrived in Kolkata on Saturday afternoon and our taxi driver was waiting to take us back to the Lytton hotel. Oh it was hot, we had arrived just after noon and was certainly glad of the taxis air con, luxury. We were lucky enough to be assigned the same room we previously had and all our laundry from our previous jaunt to the Sunderbans was waiting for us, crisply folded and ironed.., wonderful!

We had another walk round Kolkata, more street food and had a drink at what was the Old Grand cinema which was now a restaurant and much smaller cinema. There is some association with Charlie Chaplin and Kolkata, as the cinema had many pictures of him and I had spotted a Charlie Chaplin Square on the way to the cinema. Besides the photos of Charlie there were many others from the golden age of Hollywood as well as 2 enormous screen projectors.

Feeling refreshed from our drinks we carried on our walk around Kolkata, trying to avoid the hundreds of salesmen who walk the streets waiting to pounce on tourists, cheerily asking ".....where are you from, UK, I love UK, beautiful county; where do you want to go, I will walk with you, you come to my store first.........etc, etc; to be honest they were beginning to be a pain, I know they have to make a living but you cant walk two steps without being hassled.

On Sunday we met our travelling companions for the next 2 weeks; some had been to India once or twice before, some were veterans and some were here for their first visit. They seemed a good bunch and I'm sure it wouldn't be too long before we all jell. Our guide is a young man called Yadu who is, around 30, from the city of Jaipur, he would be taking us on our trip across India.

We were all herded into a coach for our hustle-free trip around the city, we did stop at the Vitoria memorial, a beautiful marble building full of exhibitions of the design and build of the building, various artefacts of Victoria including a piano she once used! There were beautiful paintings, mainly oil from all centuries picturing landscapes and important moguls. The gardens were incredible neat, just like an

english park with lots of flowers.

We learnt about Mother Teresa and all the good works that she carried out and the work that continues to day in her orphanage; there are so many good causes to give to in India, you could be giving money every day; our guide has warned us that we shouldn't give money to the street beggars we see as it just enlarges the problems..., once you do give money the word gets out and you are soon surrounded; its very hard when you have a mother asking for food for a baby, not to feel sorry and want to help them out.

The next day we were heading off to Boda Gaya, this is probably one of the most important sites in the world for Buddhists; Buda is said to have received 'enlightenment' under a tree. The tree has been replaced many times and followers like to take a leaf home with them. After spending 7 days under the tree he carried on meditating and praying before going out to friends to teach his findings; his friends went on to become disciples and preach the word of Buddhism. Though there is only 1% of Indians that are Buddhists, thousands of people from around the world come to take part in prayers and ceremonies to their Buda.

The entire complex is consists of a temple, beautiful gardens, many shrines and of course the main draw the small inner temple where there is a statue of the Buddha; the line was so long there really wasn't much time to look around but you could tell it was a very spiritual place.