We survived!! The first monsoon has come and gone and no one was swept away! The weird thing is...apparently getting swept away is a legitimate possibility. We found out, after getting yelled at several times, that avoiding white poles in the ground is a VERY good idea...these poles mark man-holes. It seems nice that they would mark these kinds of things for us. However, we soon discovered that not all holes are marked and if you see an area of swirling water go wayyyy around it!
The beginning of the storm started out normal enough. Laura, John and I took at trip over to the Howrah Bridge which crosses the Hoogly River...this river is sort of the Missouri River of Kolkata. Next to the river is a flower market each morning which is quite a sight to see with the sunrise! Or so we've heard...the sun wasn't exactly visible that morning. It showered on and off the whole day. Side note...one of the salesmen made a hawaiian lei out of a strand of orange flowers for the three of us and we wore these around for an hour or so before we started noticing there seemed to be a lot of people laughing at us. It turns out these flowers are actually used to decorate religious places as well as to honor the dead...hope he wasn't implying anything!
It continued to rain all day and through till the next day. Then the rain started to pick up. Buckets of rain were coming down for hours. I had been cooped up in the hotel room for the past 24hrs with a fever and it was time for me to venture out and get food/hit up the internet cafe. As I stepped out of the hotel, the street around me was quite dry and I was starting to wonder what the big deal was. I found it 3 seconds later. When I turned the corner onto Sutter St. (our friend Ebony rightly dubbed it "Flooder St"), the water was up past my knees. Taxis and auto rickshaws are stalled in the middle of the street because the water is up past the engine and the only trustworthy form of transportation are the man-pulled rickshaws, except I already feel guilty enough making them pull me on dry land so 3ft of water added to that didn't exactly ease that feeling. There is a nice layer of sewage/trash on top of the water and it's so dirty that you can't even see your feet. I prayed every time something touched my leg that it was only a plastic bag...I'm sticking with that.
But, as Pam said, while this sounds horrible, it was actually quite fun! (minus the possible diseases). Kinda like how it was always a huge thrill when you were a kid if you got to swim in your clothes...doing the forbidden is always much more fun! We'll see if I'm still saying that by the end of this trip but for now the cooler weather and excitement of it is a lot of fun!
PS-these pictures are from google...the reason for that is, I was under the impression that the flooding would be lasting longer than the 12 or so hours it was here...therefore, I did not jump on the opportunity to take pictures and the next thing I knew, the flood was gone! Darn manholes...we will try and get more pictures up soon though!
The beginning of the storm started out normal enough. Laura, John and I took at trip over to the Howrah Bridge which crosses the Hoogly River...this river is sort of the Missouri River of Kolkata. Next to the river is a flower market each morning which is quite a sight to see with the sunrise! Or so we've heard...the sun wasn't exactly visible that morning. It showered on and off the whole day. Side note...one of the salesmen made a hawaiian lei out of a strand of orange flowers for the three of us and we wore these around for an hour or so before we started noticing there seemed to be a lot of people laughing at us. It turns out these flowers are actually used to decorate religious places as well as to honor the dead...hope he wasn't implying anything!
It continued to rain all day and through till the next day. Then the rain started to pick up. Buckets of rain were coming down for hours. I had been cooped up in the hotel room for the past 24hrs with a fever and it was time for me to venture out and get food/hit up the internet cafe. As I stepped out of the hotel, the street around me was quite dry and I was starting to wonder what the big deal was. I found it 3 seconds later. When I turned the corner onto Sutter St. (our friend Ebony rightly dubbed it "Flooder St"), the water was up past my knees. Taxis and auto rickshaws are stalled in the middle of the street because the water is up past the engine and the only trustworthy form of transportation are the man-pulled rickshaws, except I already feel guilty enough making them pull me on dry land so 3ft of water added to that didn't exactly ease that feeling. There is a nice layer of sewage/trash on top of the water and it's so dirty that you can't even see your feet. I prayed every time something touched my leg that it was only a plastic bag...I'm sticking with that.
But, as Pam said, while this sounds horrible, it was actually quite fun! (minus the possible diseases). Kinda like how it was always a huge thrill when you were a kid if you got to swim in your clothes...doing the forbidden is always much more fun! We'll see if I'm still saying that by the end of this trip but for now the cooler weather and excitement of it is a lot of fun!
PS-these pictures are from google...the reason for that is, I was under the impression that the flooding would be lasting longer than the 12 or so hours it was here...therefore, I did not jump on the opportunity to take pictures and the next thing I knew, the flood was gone! Darn manholes...we will try and get more pictures up soon though!
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