The Salvation Army Guest House provided me a cheap and comfortable dormitory bed during my stay in Calcutta. It is located on Sudder Street in the heart of Calcutta.

Calcutta November 29–December 5th:    I flew from Kathmandu to Calcutta, India on November 29th for another culture shock almost as big as when I first crossed the Afghan border. I had lived most of my life in South Dakota which has a population density of only 5 people per square mile and had just finished two weeks in the Himalayas where the population density was even less than South Dakota. From the moment I stepped out of the Calcutta airport, I felt all the cultural and personal implications of being transported into the center of a huge city with a population density of 77,000 people per square mile! The culture shock was made worse by the fact that I was targeted by every hawker outside the Calcutta airport who was trying to offer me a cab or a hotel or ganga, etc. I had purchased two bottles of premium scotch whiskey at the Duty Free shop in the Kathmandu airport (on my credit card, of course) which I pulled out of my bag and was mobbed by Indian guys offering to buy it for Rupees–I made a very nice profit and avoided the necessity of going to a bank to exchange a traveler’s cheque.   A traveler in Nepal had mentioned to me that the Salvation Army Guest House on Sudder Street in the heart of Calcutta is a safe place that has clean but spartan accommodations for the equivalent of a dollar a day.  I tried to figure out how to get to Sudder Street but it was simply impossible to sort out all the details–finding a map, locating Sudder Street, figuring out how many bus changes it would take to get there, and then finding a bus that wasn’t filled with people including people sitting on the roof. Feeling prosperous with my duty-free liquor rupees, I took one of the only taxis of my entire trip.

The poverty I witnessed through the window of my taxi was truly shocking–noise, smells, beggars tapping on my window whenever the cab stopped at a light, and the suffering of disease and homelessness. When the cab finally let me out on Sudder Street, I realized that I was staying in the absolute heart of Calcutta’s poverty. I made my way to the entrance of the Salvation Army Guest House and was so relieved to escape through the doors to the relatively clean and orderly reception area. I checked in, was shown a bunk bed in a large room that had about 25 bunk beds in it, and the rules were explained to me–no drugs, no alcohol, no loitering during the day, and the process for obtaining meals.

My only “to dos” in Calcutta were obtaining a visa for Thailand and selling the Yashica 35mm camera and telephoto lense that I had with me the entire trip. I had learned earlier in Dehli that used 35mm cameras were in high demand in India. Consequently, I factored in the money I might get for my camera into my budget for the end of my trip. By Calcutta, I was basically broke other than I had already booked and paid for my ticket home from Bangkok to San Franciso via Manilla. I made my way to one of Calcutta’s bazaars with my camera hanging around my neck. Offers came from many stall owners and once the amount got up to my target, I sat down in a shop to negotiate the final sale. I am embarrassed to admit that I fell for one of the many scams Indian stall owners use–the guy and his “brother” offered me “choice ganga” to enjoy along with tea before we finalized the sale. They got me so stoned so fast! They had already shown me the cash price in rupees but then I stupidly admitted that I was also interested in some souvenirs to take home. They started having their buddies from other stalls bring over all kinds of cheap, gawdy Indian tourist souvenir items that started looking pretty good to me in my stoned state. In the end, I “bought” a number of souvenir’s at what turned out to be “tourist prices” with the total cost deducted from the agreed sale price for my camera. In the end, I did receive enough cash for the rest of my stay in Calcutta and part of my stay in Thailand. A consequence is that I used up my final roll of film on the trek in Nepal and don’t have any pictures of Calcutta, Thailand, or the Philippines (I have used a few relevant photos available on the internet with relevant copyright permission to fill in the gaps).

Probably the most striking observation I made in Calcutta is that literally “nothing goes to waste”–Indians reuse everything to make new things and nothing is truly “garbage”. I had first noticed this in Afghanistan, but it really became apparent in the heavily populated squalor of Calcutta. For some reason, the most striking example of this was when I happened upon a “shovel factory” just a few steps down Sudder Street from the Salvation Army Guest House. The “factory” was actually just a section of an alley behind some buildings where some poor, soot-covered men coordinated to smelt down waste scrap steel that they collected and melted over a super hot fire fueled with garbage. They then hammered out the blade-head of shovels that were run back through the fire repeatedly and, finally, scrap wood was used to make rough handles. Part of my fascination may have reflected the fact that I was stoned, but I watched them make shovels for an hour and have never forgotten just how desperate life is for some of our fellows.