Wonderful food...

Luckily the two other people on the programme, while both live in US have families from Gujurati and have been leading the culinary food journey, yesterday i sampled the most beautiful dalh, spicy, roasted bbq flavour; paratha and dosa a daily staple, the rose water icecream melt in mouth (or in cup if you don't get to it fast enough!) and the multitude of kathli roll stores around the area i am staying in, at 12 rupee a roll (18p) the bank balance is still looking pretty healthy!

Took bus yesterday to the botanic gardens crossing the great Hoogly river, bit wider than thames and as brown, river has alot of religious significance, many funeral pyres at the ghats on the river bank and ashes are scattered into the river and it is prohibited to photograh the main bridge over it. Gardens were oasis of calm and saw the largest bayan tree canopy, justifiably proud of guiness book of records claim.

In the evenings the autorickshaws come alive with flashing lights, loud music, people hanging off sides and flags and religious symbols, some of the taxis instead of standard yellow headlight have flashing, green, blue etc, suspect road safety might have something to say about that? But then they do promote road safety week with a small van doing a wheelie on the corner with signs plastered over it saying 'follow the traffic rules - road safety week 5-11 January'!