Current location...Kolkata, India

After three hours cruising at 32,000 feet you finally arrive in Kolkata (formerly called: Calcutta) or, as I like to call it 'Hunchback Central'. All of life is here: birth, passion, love, age, disease, happiness, death, and not to mention the ubiquitous noise and snarled human traffic; in all it's grotesque and wonderful forms. It's comic, it's sad, it's tragic, it's life-affirming, it's filthy, and it's wonderful! I love the smell. I love the sweat of the people on the Metro. I love the crazy Indians and their shoving, pushing, shouting, spitting, screaming, canoodling, and hand holding. The crazy man with the Rhesus Monkeys. The insolent brute at the ticket booth who barks at you flinging the ticket in your face. The pretty girl in a sari winding her hips expertly between the crowds making heads turn - yes I love her too. You feel alive here. Your senses do what they were meant to do: Your nose smells. Your eyes see. Your ears hear. Your skin feels. And your heart beats. It beats a million beats a second and skips a few too. It's all real. This is no tourist ghetto. This is Kolkata. This is life. Welcome!