I’ve decided to leave India and spend a week in the Maldives before heading to Morocco. The Maldives is a tiny cluster of islands located somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean, to the south and west of India. It’s remote, beautiful, idyllic, and ridiculously expensive – especially compared to the prices I’ve gotten accustomed to here in India. However, I know that if I want to spend any time at one of those “resort-y island places” I need to do it now, while I still have a little wiggle room in my budget, rather than later in my trip. Also, I want to make it to Morocco in time to go to that music festival I heard about, but it’s not until later in June, and this will give me a stopover place to visit before heading to Morocco. From there, I plan to “generally head back east again.” I don’t think I’m going to go with one of those itinerary planned airline tickets. I like having the spontenaity of choosing which country to go to next – I don’t want to pick the order and which countries I want to go to now, much less the exact dates. After comparing, there wasn’t much difference between buying individually online and preplanning and sometimes changing dates. So now, I need to find a ticket to the Maldives and a resort that will only cost me one limb, rather than an arm and a leg!
Delicious Mishti Daab
Mahatma Gandhi Metro Station
So, since I have a limited amount of time left in Kolkata, my sister and I decided to spend this morning together and visit the flower market together. Thursday is the day the sisters and volunteers always take as a day off and my sister had cleared her schedule. We left in the morning to get there while the markets were still open. We knew that things usually wind down by late morning, so we hopped on an auto, the metro, and then a bus headed for Howrah Bridge – easy! The flower market is located just underneath it. (Of course, we stopped for a daab on the way!)
Flowers for Sale
Kolkata Flower Market
Vendors by the Bridge
The market was beautiful, a jumble of colors and smells and sounds, as the people called out their wares and called to one another. There were many stalls set up where people sold chains of flowers, ornate boquets, or flower arrangements. Flowers were piled up for purchase individually, in bulk. This seemed to be the place where flower vendors from all over town would come to purchase their flowers to sell for the day.
Creepy Trash Can
We weren’t hassled too much by the sellers because I think they could tell we weren’t there to purchcase anything. So (aside from a rather creepy trash can we encountered) we had a nice time walking around the market.
Ladies’ Ghat
Then we walked down along the river. There are many ghats as you go down, and we didn’t know which areas were for what. Some areas are for bathing, some are funeral ghats, some are for washing. We saw one area that had been clearly marked for ladies’ bathing, from an older era, which was interesting.
There are certain Hindu festivals here where people bring their idols, or decorated statuettes of the deities, and after having them in their homes, pandals, or altars for a time, they bring them to the river to immerse, along with prayers and festivities. Sometimes, they are just left by the river, rather than put in it. We passed many of these, in varying states of decay, which were fascinating.
Down by the River with my sister
After walking down the river quite a way, we decided to sit for a while and eat a snack. We watched some ladies doing wash, and a little boy who was catching little fish with a homemeade net in the shallows. There was a boat going by with a few boys having the time of their lives, diving off the front of the boat into the river, catching onto a raft as the boat passed by, climbing back up, and doing it all over again. The boats were clearly some sort of ferry that passed by routinely, so if one of them missed, the rest of the group would all jump down and they’d wait, swimming, for the next one. It was fun to watch. After a while, we headed back. We walked across the Howrah Bridge, bustling with life and activity. It was so busy and crowded, leading to the Howrah station entrance, one of the main hubs of Kolkata. A fascinating part of town that we enjoyed seeing, and then catching a bus to leave! We had a good morning down by the river.