KOLKATA, INDIA. TUESDAY MAY 25 2010, 2145 HRS. DAY 58.
- Om Krim Kalikaye Namah Om, Jai Ma, Jai Maha Kali! -

Namaste. Last night in India. After many excellent meals, many cups of chai, after the maximum temperature records being broken here, it's now time to leave the second most populated country in the world behind. Earlier during this trip I decided it wouldn't be the last time in my life I'd visit Thailand. And by the irony of fate, karma, or joss, already tomorrow morning P'Chang is flying to Bangkok! So my return turned out to be much sooner than expected, and gladly so!

During the month I've spent in Kolkata I've done and seen many peculiar things: from having tragicomical experiences with Indian… ahem... "massage" to witnessing animal sacrifices and extreme poverty. Not to mention reaching the limits of my sanity because of the temperature, and due to the fact that the only toilet / shower I've been having was a hideous dungeon with constant remains of human feces and its stench perfuming the air, thus enhancing ie. the tooth-brushing experience.

My view of India must be very narrow, since I spent all this time in Kolkata. Centuries ago, Calcutta was an important city for the British East India Trading Company. It is from here where the finest opium in the world was being smuggled through the stormy seas into places such as Macao and Hong Kong. Opium traded for silver, silver traded for silk and tea. The colonisation has of course left its permanent mark here, and as in the case of Cambodia - with the French colonisation - I don't know what to think of it. "The truth has many faces," as the old Chinese wisdom says.

To be honest, I really don't even know what to think of India. The Indian way of life seems so different that it has left me not very little confused. Some romanticized ideas I've had of India have collapsed, but in exchange I've really gotten a whole new perspective to many things. I think this month in India will open up to me even more with time.

Enough with that and back to the future. During my time in India, Bangkok had turned into a war zone... the same streets where I spent my days in Bangkok few weeks ago were in flames last week, people getting shot, people dying. Now the situation is more stable, but at the same time the 'peace' is very, very delicate, and the danger of a civil war is still there. And it's possible that the situation could get worse again quickly, and the possibility of single grenade attacks etc. exists. The foreign ministery is informing that any traveling to Thailand, especially to Bangkok, should be avoided. But those of you who know me, know that those kind of things will not change my mind if I want to go there. And I do. Thai massage and O-liáng, here I come!