Calcutta

Well after train, plane, taxi, rickshaw, motorcycle, ferry, houseboat and bus, we've discovered why people lose it here: the airports.

We had an insane day yesterday/today.

The highlights:
Morning swim in the ocean.
Wood fired pizza and sandwich with homemade bread and mayo.
Oldest church in India.
Oldest synagogue in India (on the first day of Hanukkah, no less).
Found out we got to the airport 4 hours before our flight (tricky military time screwing us up. It said 9pm and I'm so used to 19:00 I thought we flew at 7 when our flight was at 9).
Very angry boyfriend.
JD tried to get a beer in the international terminal and security wouldn't let him back in without a major inquisition and talking to 5 different people.
Getting a hotel for our 12am-4am layover in Chennai.
Taxi told us there were non-AC rooms available before we went to hotel.
There were not.
Paying $26 for 3.5 hours of sleep and a shower. Totally worth it.
JD got them to bring him a beer. It was warm, and 'Commando' brand with a guy with a machine gun on the front, see picture.
Waking up our wake up call.
Taxi driver fell asleep while driving, nearly ran us into cement wall on way to terminal.
Jumped the security queue in order to very barely make the plane.
Security wouldn't give me a stamp for my carry on so I had to run back and plead with this woman.
JD was stuck in security until 3 min before the flight.
After flight, security guy wouldn't let us off the plane until we showed him our boarding passes for a sixth time.
Prepaid taxi stand in Calcutta quotes us 210r initially, then 320 when we come back after a quick coffee.

I mean. We were exasperated. But Calcutta is nice. Busy, loud, but it feels good. We had some delicious street food: fried dough with meat curry stew, grilled bread with fried egg on the side and onion and peppers, cardamom chai. Baskin Robbins.

Now we're at what seems to be a very popular hidden English hotel called Fairlawn Hotel, and every table is full of English people drinking tea, complete with embroidered tea cozies. We paid a whopping $5 for Internet, far and away the most yet, and we've somehow convinced them to hold our bags for the next 5 hours while we wander before our train tonight.