Where In The World Is Evan?

Having stepped off the plane, collected our bags and left the airport, there was no denying that we’d entered somewhere very strange. Row after row of archaic looking ‘Ambassador’ taxis flanked the squat, diminutive airport. A taxi driver waved and motioned for us to enter his anachronistic vehicle. As we approached another man can running up, screaming abuse at the cabbie, and motioning us towards another taxi. Having already bought a fixed price ticket we weren’t that fussed, so we got in and set off into town. The dilapidated outskirts of Calcutta reminded me fondly of Kathmandu, and as Alex and I gawked out the windows we speculated on how long it would be before we encountered a cow blocking traffic.

Arriving at Sudder Street, the chief backpacker slum of Calcutta, everything looked filthy, cramped and decaying. As the hostel we’d chosen from the LP was full, we wandered a few meters up the street and checked into a dorm at a hostel with a rather incongruous hammer-and-sickle flag hanging above its door–The Paragon. After dropping off our bags and stepping back into the courtyard, to light a cigarette, the first thing I noticed were the missing posters plastered to the walls. It seems that even today Calcutta can be something of a black hole, as every now and then a tourist simply disappears forever.

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