Finally back in India, and I expect this may be my last posting from abroad on this trip. Tomorrow evening I fly out of here and I’m feeling more like wanting to leave than wanting to stay now. The break in Dhaka at a sort of home away from home is making me want to head back. Although then again I won’t actually be ‘home’ for a while, as there’s a couple more weeks of traveling in the US before I get back.
Calcutta is providing a nice stop, even while giving me a few end of trip problems. My sandals are giving out, and the extensive walking is leaving the skin raw in a couple spots. Last night I became so upset at a taxi driver first making me wait, then trying to charge me triple the fare (on top of there being no prepaid stand at the brand-new station) that I slammed my suitcase out of the taxi and broke off a piece of it. Also of minor annoyance – pretty much all the museums and attractions in Calcutta are closed on Mondays, so I walked around a lot but didn’t get to see much.
One bright spot was breakfast at Flury’s, a classic Park Street cafe that goes back five generations (and was frequented by my friend Nabil’s father many years ago, so I’m told). I had the “All-Day Breakfast”, the first English breakfast I’ve had in almost three months, and it was incredibly good. With background music ranging from techno to doo-wop on the speakers, and a window on a busy intersection crammed with another classic Calcutta institution, the Ambassador cabs.
I have more to write on the whole experience, and a few details to fill in, but this is the last time for a while I’ll be paying for my internet access by the Rupee. (And I’ll miss it, too – $0.25 an hour is hard to beat.)

The Cherrapunjee Holiday Resort is everything it’s said to be – and I really recommend it. It’s out in the villages far from any town, and the friendly owner does a whole lot for his guests and the local tourism scene. There’s plenty to see – the waterfalls plunging all around the valley rim, the Khasi villages spread out along the resort’s ridge, and especially the unique living root bridges (and the hike on steep forest trails to get to them).
Of course, it also bills itself as “the wettest place on Earth”. Most of that rainfall comes in these months, during the monsoon, so I ought not to have been surprised by it. For the three days I stayed there it rained a fair amount each day. After a while, you begin to think of ‘not raining’ as the period when only a few drops hit the ground each minute. Although on two evenings it did actually clear up, and the heavy clouds and fog were gone long enough to reveal most of the view. When it’s raining and you want to see what’s there, there’s little choice but to head out into it and hope for the best. As a result I got soaked feet two days in a row; I had decent rain gear except for my lower legs, which I would have left bare but didn’t want to bother with the leeches. I did get to see that the market is still open even when it’s pouring, and without too many slips I made it down to see the closest living root bridge.

As nice as Guwahati was, now that I’m in Shillong, I wish I’d come sooner. It is cool, almost cold and the rain is thus far rather light. My hotel here is the first one I’ve paid for that seems worth it (despite the fact that I’m paying more since they put me in a double room). It has one of the nicest bathrooms I’ve seen in India, and an actually sort of nice view.
I might have been able to make it up here yesterday if it hadn’t taken two hours to check out of my hotel. Even though I told them in the morning I wanted to check out when I returned, nothing was prepared when I did return. At least I got to see the golden langurs out near the Umananda Mandir. Beautiful and gentle monkeys with long fluffy tails. Dying batteries meant not a single picture came out, though.
Once I left Hotel Nova (which I heartily recommend against if you ever visit Assam) I went off to a nicer place last night (Hotel Blue Moon), though even they charged me the full rate while still kicking me out early. ‘Early’ in this case meant 9 a.m., about three or four hours after sunrise, so it wasn’t so much of a problem as I tend to wake up when it’s light. It’s only early in the sense that no businesses (except a few restaurants and shops) are open yet. I was able to leave my bags there and finally get some Assam Tea, which is oddly difficult to find in Guwahati unless you know where to look — the government emporiums.
From here I’m looking to make my way into Bangladesh, overland through Dawki/Sylhet. Likely no updates until then.