Kolkata is India's third really big megacity, along with Mumbai and Delhi. Kolkata is located in eastern India and is capital of West Bengal province. Although earlier settlements existed in the area, Kolkata as a city started with the British East India company in the 1700s and it served as capital of British operations in India for much of colonial history until the capital was moved to Delhi. Kolkata was still long considered the cultural and intellectual capital of India.

Kolkata's become synonymous in modern times with squalor, poverty, and decay and is famous as the location of Mother Theresa's ministries to help the poor . Kolkata's unique poverty dates mostly to the 20th century, though, and the partition of British India into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. Bengali-speaking regions were also split on religious lines in the late 1940s and millions of Hindu refugees streamed into Kolkata from what became East Pakistan. Another large wave of refugees flooded into the city during Pakistan's civil war between east and west when Bangladesh achieved independence in the early 1970s. Top that off with Marxist policies of Communist-run governments in West Bengal that (among other things) imposed rent controls in Kolkata, and much of the housing and other buildings were left to decay by owners who could not charge enough rent to maintain their properties.

They say the Marxist craziness is pretty much over and West Bengal is becoming more like other parts of India in the 21st century. Nevertheless, Kolkata still impressed me as a particularly densely-populated, chaotic, and crowded city.

We had two nights and two full days in Kolkata before catching a night train towards Darjeeling on our last day in town . It was significantly more time to explore and see the sights than the one full day we had in Mumbai and Delhi. On the first day several of us decided to hire a driver for the day to take in some of the major sites. These included the headquarters of The Sisters of Charity (the organization Mother Theresa founded); a trio of Jain religion temples; the home museum of Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore; a walk around the Kumartuli neighborhood which specializes in making statues used in Hindu religious parades; Saint Paul's Anglican Cathedral; Kali Temple, dedicated to worship of the bloodthirsty goddess Kali; and the Victoria Memorial.

On my second day I decided to go for a long wander through Kolkata's historic center. It's filled with monumental buildings from the 19th century as well as many places of religious worship. I figured within two days in Kolkata I managed to take in churches and temples of most of the world's major religions - a mosque, a Kali Hindu temple, Jain temples, a synagogue, and churches of Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Anglican, and Armenian Christians.

Kolkata was a trip joining city meaning the end of the fourth leg (Odisha region) and beginning of the last leg (Himalayan foothills) of my circle loop of India with Dragoman. That always means saying goodbye to travel friends as they leave to go home or continue their travels and meeting new folks who will be on the next few weeks of the journey.