And then there were four....

Here we are still in Calcutta, waiting and generally being bums. Brittany left us yesterday and has flown off to meet her mother in Austria so we are back to the 4 of us again.
It's nice enough to hang out here. It seems a little strange but the busiest "restaurant" in the area we are staying is a streetside shop with one shelf and a single "camping stove" cooking meals one at a time. We were commenting the other day how we would never have guessed that we'd be enjoying our breakfast sitting on the side of a road that looks as grungy as any you'd find downtown at home. Savannah still claims she'd be afraid to walk around downtown at home but we're perfectly comfortable out here. Speaking of home, and I don't want to sound too cruel, but I must admit it is a bit of an advantage coming from Vancouver because I feel immune to beggars. The biggest thing here is all the women with little kids begging for food to feed their baby. As much as this sounds like a reasonable request it is actually a scam most of the time so you have to be pretty "heartless" to tell them to go away. Being from Vancouver it's easy to do.
I think the girls are having more fun here than me though. Most days are shopping, shopping, shopping. They have so many new sets of clothes now I'm starting to wonder if they've completely forgotten what size bag they have to carry everything around in. I have been reading mostly, having finished 3 Dan Brown books in the last 4 days. The Da Vinci Code is the best one.... I am comfortably sitting here living on less than $3/day so I'm not complaining too much.
Yesterday we made another pilgrammage of sorts, this time to see Mother Teresa's tomb. Remarkable woman that one was. They are still working hard over there at her charity too. Everyone in Calcutta speaks very highly of her whenever she's mentioned. The center of Calcutta is very interesting as there is so much British influence everywhere. The old style cars make you feel like you've gone back in time as well. Unfortunately there is a bit of camera paranoia here as nobody will let you take pictures of buildings and stuff. We couldn't even take a picture inside a modern shopping mall that we went into! Hopefully this is not an India wide trend. The people however, love being photographed and think the girls look great in their new local outfits.
We have finally organized the next stage of our travels and will be leaving Calcutta on Sunday, heading south.
Ammon
PS. There are a few pictures up from India now too.