Hell yeah, here I am. Happy as a little girl with pigtails!
The truth is I'm looking nothing like a little girl with pigtails. After some rough nights in Varanasi, a long train trip + the lack of washing, I resemble a sweaty, oily bum a lot more. Lucky for the Spanish dude next to me, the fan is blowing hard - hopefully blowing the smell of my bad BO away from his nostrils. :)

But! Happy - and why?! I'm here, in the Calcutta that my parents visited so many years ago. That's one part of it. Another, major part, is that tomorrow evening I'm going to a Jethro Tull concert just out of town! How coool is that?! I'm extremely excited - even as I write, I know half of you haven't got a clue what Jethro Tull is, but I'm still bursting! (I also need to go to the toilet though - that could be another reason for the bursting feeling). Jethro Tull is a seventies rock band - coolest ever (next to Led Zep) because of Ian Anderson, the main singer. He sings AND plays the flute - it's wicked! Go on YouTube and search, I know you'll love it.

I spent about an hour trying to find a decent cheap room in town. This was not to happen, and instead I found a very small room with shared bathroom/toilet for 200Rs. It's what you pay for a coke at home, but here it's outrageous - the rooms I've checked out today have all been worth about 75-100Rs, so... YEah well, who gives a shit anyway. I'm here and ready for the concert.

Tonight, I'm joining a guy from Eastern Europe to some dinner. We met in Varanasi and talked about places to go in India. By chance, we ended up meeting in an internetcafe (where I'm sitting right now) and now we're probably getting slightly tiddly over some cheap Indian beers and some good Bengali food. :) Life's not so bad, not bad at all.

Oh, and my bag is now 'bearable'! Arriving in Varanasi I could hardly walk with all the kgs on my back - then I sent a 13.5kg package home, and now I can move again. Do hope it gets home safe though - a lot of Xmas presents were in that box (most of them for myself, but still!). :)

Okay, can't write much more, since I really don't know anything. I'm planning on hanging out in Kolkata for a couple of days of three, then head up to Darjeeling - trek a bit, enjoy the views of Mount Everest and the 3rd highest mountain next to it - and then finally maybe take the plane from Kolkata-Delhi and head back home to DK. Sounds like a plan, right? Hope so, it's all I've got.

All the best everybody. Keep them messages a'coming, they're life savers! :)

Simon E