Cocktails and cabs in Calcutta

Back when Nat, Lyrian and I were first planning a girly long weekend out of Bangladesh, the plan was Kathmandu. And really, that’s where we should have gone. Kathmandu has everything we wanted in a weekend away – shopping, cocktails, pool-side luxury, great food, tourists, anonymity, etc.

But keen to explore new lands and meet new people, after much deliberation, we chose Calcutta. It’s not that we didn’t enjoy the trip, it just wasn’t Kathmandu.

Crammed with dilapidated colonial era buildings, big old yellow taxis (that speed through the city as though a race track – oddly, the direction of the one-way traffic changing at 2pm every day), the easy availability of alcohol (every hour is happy hour!) and bacon (god bless Hindu’s) and relative anonymity (thanks to a booming tourist industry), Calcutta is a beautiful place to visit.

We managed to fit in some shopping (at New Market and a million bookstores), a visit to Mother Theresa’s Home for the Sick and Destitute (horrific the scene of torture, torment and hopelessness inside, but beautiful the men and women who so selflessly dedicate themselves to these people) and Rabindranath Tagore’s home (Bengal’s most famous poet).

Time between was spent pool-side and in restaurants and darkly lit bars sampling the best Calcutta had to offer (which it turned out consisted predominantly of cocktails – and we were determined to sample them all, several times over).

An Ode to a Girly Long Weekend in Calcutta (when you live in Bangladesh):
I love you
Mojito and Caprioska
sweet minty fresh

Gin n Sin
sour tang

Golden Margarita
Peach Margarita
Apple Margarita
bitter burn

Mai Tai
you are

Singapore Sling
pop

Daiquiri
smooth
down
my
throat

Cosmopolitan
I love you.

A special shout-out to the hilarious old waiter at Flurry’s, who had us in stitches long after our meal. And to the middle-aged man who jumped in the wheelchair meant for the passenger on our plane who had a heart attack and kept us in-transit six hours longer than intended: you had us crying tears of laughter, before they became tears of utter frustration.

Calcutta, in all your beauty, you made us miss Dhaka, and for that, I am eternally grateful.