Kevin Tiller

I left my room sprox 8am. I guess there are 2 schools of thought – if on the run I need to ve oyt by 5am I should get up early as “practise” or the other reasoning that I should get some rest now as I won’t get any on the run. I am doing the latter and in any case I am on holiday.

For some bizarre reason I ordered banana pancake for breakfast. I NEVER order pancakes anywhere. Also 2 lemon ginger honey whilst I wrote some of my diary.

I had decided to walk to Mother Teresa’s couple of buildings on AHC Bose Rd which looked close enough to walk to.  It was although it still felt a long way – I saw a thermometer reading 33C at 9.30am. It’s like a gorilla’s armpit here – hot, sweaty, oppressive with no chance if escape (unless you find some aircon somewhere). I was impressed by my route finding sills as was not even remotely unsure of the direction. There was a church, and another building and finally “the motherhouse” all along the same stretch of road. The motherhouse had her tomb and small museum which was totally fascinating. I am aware that there is bith good & bad said about her but to not be impressed is just silly – as a person she was head, shoulders & more above most people’s dreams let alone realities. I walked back via a very circuitous route. Also bought a book from a bookshop on Mother Teresa and posted it home along with a book on Dharavi that I’d bought previously. 

I had a rest for a bit then dropped off some laundry. For the afternoon I’d planned to go to the yoga studio where Bikram trained and was mentored. It’s on the web and seemed like an interesting off the beaten track thing to do. It was. I couldn’t get a taxi driver that could read or understand addresses. In the end he called and got the address in bengali. We eventually found it in a quiet area (Bishnu Ghosh studio) and I took some photos. No specific mention if bikram although there are some old photos of him on the wall. Lots of ild & fascinating puctures all over almost like a museum. I thought it was all pretty cool. I spoke to the woman who tajes private classes and she told me the open times (not for a few hours so I left).

Outside I caught a cab to Khalighat temple which was also very interesting.  A “priest” / guide hooked himself onto me and gave ne a very interesting tour. Despite being hindu there slaughtered 60 giats that morning – glad I missed that byt you could still see the remainder. They also believe the name Calcutta was a mis-pronunciation if Khalighat.

I then caught the metro to the Maidan and Park area – lots of couples canoodling in the quietest most peaceful place in town.

Back at the hotel I had a 2hr siesta and saw sone of the BBC World news on tv.

In the evening I went to eat at a restaurant that went oast earlier however it was super spicy and tgat put me off. I bought a bit-size desert at the sweet shop next door. You can’t come to India and not try one.

Travelking around by yourself is hard. You can’t be out and about on your feet for more than 12hrs a day as its so tiring especially if walking. Sitting in a hotel room is a bit sad. So going oyt to cafes is a cheapish relaxing pastime – people watching, diary-writing etc.

I webt straight to bed aporox 10pm – I am quite a plain & simple bloke really. Nothing fancy.