Calcutta, West Bengal - India 21

I am proud of myself today. I feel really good at my canny traveler abilities and my fraternity boy abilities. I spent the afternoon saving $36 dollars on shipping, and the evening getting a 16 year old Christian boy drunk- Quite entertaining. Not only that, following a large meal, I pulled my rickshaw-wallah to the train station.

Shipping fiasco: in a foreign country, always start with the largest post office in the city. I happened to be walking and arrived at a large post office. This may have neen a regional post office for the city, and it was used by businessmen. Notably, the PO was not the central post office in the international business district.

English was a problem. Two people in the office spoke English: the central overseer and one young guy, not involved with shipping. They didn't get the concept of book post, which India has, but they were willing to help me ship the books rather than send them air-mail. Even with filling out customs forms in triplicate, this seemed good enough for me.

I got the books wrapped in white cloth by a tailor across the street, and came back to post the item. Unfortunately, they also weren't able to help me ship something as a traveler, lacking an address in India. At this point, I realized I was talking to the wrong people.

One trip to the central post office later, I found that my 10kg of books had to be split into two 5kg packages, which then qualified for "Foreign Registered Book Post". For the address on my books, they suggested to use the post office's information and then list my hotel. There were no forms, and there was no hassle.
----
While I was waiting for the books to be repackaged, this boy, Tom, came calling. We talked about what there was to see in the city, and he suggested a few places. I asked him if he were free to show me around, and he created an elaborate itinerary. Unfortunately, we only had time for 2 places:

A conglomerate park he had never been in was the first place. For 10Rs, I bought us both admission and he got to marvel at the kids of dates, and the families maybe even kissing! We also went on bumper cars, which he had never seen or tried before. The three connected parks had a good view of the riverfront, and Tom's reaction, fix my appearance so that we could pickup women, amused me, especially because the 16year-old wasn't interested in girls. As we left the park he suggested a whorehouse for our itinerary.

The second place was a bar, which Tom said was cheap and didn't charge the government required taxes. Tom had been there once before for a friend's birthday. The bar served boiled chickpeas and julienned ginger to go with the malt liquor (no beer available). I shared a 600ml bottle with Tom, and ordered a second on his intimation. After the 2nd bottle came, he said he wouldn't have any more and shortly thereafter he started to act drunk. When I was halfway finished with the second bottle and was ready to leave, he finished the bottle, just to make sure we weren't wasting good "beer".

As soon as we left the bar, he started going on about how his father would beat him and how he needed to start smoking. Score - Western Capitalist Corruption:1 Indian Puritanism:0
----
I ate dinner at a recommended restaurant, in which 26/30 patrons were Westerners. Nonetheless, the food was good, seemingly clean (they offered salad!), and not too expensive. After a college dining-hall buffet sized dinner, I grabbed my bags and left for the rail station.

Within seconds a rickshaw driver accosted me and told me to name my price. I told him 40Rs, nearly twice what the price should be, but then added the proviso: I pull. He laughed and said no. Half a block later, I was pulling the rickshaw, my luggage and Modul, the rickshaw-wallah. For the first 200m, at every obstacle he suggested that he pull.

I insisted that I pull and ran weaving through the market pulling the rickshaw driver. People pointed, laughed, shouted encouragement, and most importantly got out of my way. Stationary carts didn't do as well and I got stuck and had to back up 3times. Nonetheless, winding my way through the city, running and pulling a cart wasn't too hard work, but I think a bike-rickshaw would have been easier.

After I covered 2/3rds of the distance, I had dinner again, at which point I allowed the driver to pull me. This was good because we entered into some rather jammed truck/bus/animal traffic I don't think I would have navigated without jamming the wheels against something. At the station I gave my driver 100Rs (obviously making his day), got his name and told him he made my day. If I go back to Calcutta, I will have to take up rickshaw-wallah pulling for exercise.