Aladdin in Calcutta

Wednesday 7^th of March 2017 and I was in bed at 2 o'clock, the alarm set to go off at 8 o'clock. Before going to bed I checked out birding sites for Kolkata. And I might go to the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanical Garden commonly known as the Shibpur Botanical Garden in the afternoon. I found this excellent web page “Chirp Chirp! Top Birdwatching Places In Kolkata” Highly recommended if you have plans to come to Calcutta for some bird watching.

My room

My room

In the restaurant for breakfast

I was dead tired when my alarm went off at 8, but I have a full day ahead of me so I had to get out of bed. I finished the Pepsi MAX I had started earlier this morning. I was in the restaurant at 9 thirty for breakfast, well, there was nothing to be impressed by so I had tea and toast for breakfast. I had some home fried HERB potatoes that was good, except that the potato was very spicy.

I was back in my room to study the “Chirp Chirp! Top Birdwatching Places In Kolkata” and I took some notes in my mobile phone and I went down to get a taxi.

I was lucky, I got my favourite car, the Hindustan Ambassador. Calcutta is the last place where you can ride this beautiful car as they are banned in the rest of India due to exhaust regulations.

Premier Padmini

Premier Padmini was an automobile manufactured in India from 1964 to 2000, although the "Padmini" name was not used until 1967 - the earlier cars were sold as the "Fiat 1100 Delight".

The car is popularly called “Fiat” Premier Automobiles Limited, the erstwhile flagship company of India's Walchand group, assembled Fiat's 1100-series cars from the 1950s until 1997. Within the very limited Indian market, and especially in comparison with its main competitor the Hindustan Ambassador, the Padmini was considered quite sporting.

Premier manufactured it at their Kurla, Mumbai plant until they sold a majority stake to Fiat Spa in September 1997.

First sold as the Fiat 1100 Delight, the 1100D was preceded in the Indian market by the Fiat 1100-103. It was also briefly sold as the Premier President (only for the 1973 model year) until it finally settled down as the Premier Padmini.

Hindustan Ambassador

I could not see any Hindustan Ambassador in Bombay this time. I saw a few white painted Hindustan Ambassador in Bombay. One driver told me that they were gone from the street sin Bombay.

The Hindustan Ambassador is a car manufactured by Hindustan Motors of India. It has been in production since 1958 with few modifications or changes and is based on the Morris Oxford III model, first made by the Morris Motors Limited at Cowley, Oxford in the United Kingdom from 1956 to 1959.

Sale of Ambassador taxis had been banned since April 1, 2011, a year after BS IV norms were rolled out in 11 Indian cities, including Kolkata.
Bharat stage emission standards are emission standards instituted by the Government of India to regulate the output of air pollutants from internal combustion engine equipment, including motor vehicles.

The standards and the timeline for implementation are set by the Central Pollution Control Board under the Ministry of Environment & Forests.

At present the company is in an extremely challenging situation with plummeting sales and loss of ₨ 29.96 crore (approx. US$5.6 million as of October 2012) in 2011-12.The company could only sell around 2500 cars in 2011.

Despite its British origins, the Ambassador is considered as a definitive Indian car and is fondly called “The dinosaur on Indian roads”. The automobile is manufactured by Hindustan Motors at its Uttarpara plant near Kolkata, West Bengal. Some prominent Indian politicians, such as Sonia Gandhi, use the Hindustan Ambassador.

From Wikipedia

Flagging down a Hindustan Ambassador

Flagging down a Hindustan Ambassador

I’m in the taxi

Stopping at the ATM

We left the hotel around 12 o'clock and we had to stop at an ATM to get some Indian cash and we were soon on our way through a busy Kolkata. A lot of traffic and a lot of noise, a terrible noise. The daily life passed by outside the car window. People were doing laundry and taking showers on the road sides.

We had to cross The Hooghly River to reach the Botanical Garden. It took us 1 hour ++ to reach the bridge and I was very happy when I could see the bridge. Finally a feeling of “we're going somewhere” Passing through Kolkata and it was like we were not moving. But here we are, time to cross the river and we will soon be at the Botanical Garden.

Driving through Kolkata/ Calcutta

Driving through Kolkata/ Calcutta

Driving through Kolkata/ Calcutta

Driving through Kolkata/ Calcutta

Driving through Kolkata/ Calcutta

Driving through Kolkata/ Calcutta

Approaching the bridge “2nd Hooghly Bridge” over The Hooghly River

Approaching the bridge “2nd Hooghly Bridge” over The Hooghly River

Approaching the bridge “2nd Hooghly Bridge” over The Hooghly River

Approaching the bridge “2nd Hooghly Bridge” over The Hooghly River

Approaching the bridge “2nd Hooghly Bridge” over The Hooghly River

Crossing the 2nd Hooghly Bridge

We can see the old Howrah Bridge from the “new”

Howrah Bridge

is a cantilever bridge with a suspended span over the Hooghly River in West Bengal, India. Commissioned in 1943, the bridge was originally named the New Howrah Bridge, because it replaced a pontoon bridge at the same location linking the two cities of Howrah and Kolkata (Calcutta). On 14 June 1965 it was renamed Rabindra Setu after the great Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, who was the first Indian and Asian Nobel laureate. It is still popularly known as the Howrah Bridge.

The Hooghly River

(Bengali: হুগলী নদী) (Hugli; Anglicized alternatively spelled Hoogli or Hugli) or the Bhāgirathi-Hooghly, called 'Ganga' traditionally, is an approximately 260-kilometre-long distributary of the Ganga river in West Bengal, India. It splits from the Ganges as a canal in Murshidabad District at the Farakka Barrage. The town of Hugli-Chinsura, formerly Hooghly, is located on the river, in the Hooghly (district). The origins of the Hooghly name are uncertain, whether the city or the river was named first.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We crossed The Hooghly River and we had to get up on a toll road. We were passing a mosque, Masjid and there was a beautiful bird of prey sitting on top of the tower. Of course, impossible to take a picture so I asked the driver to make a U-turn. We drove back but we could not enter the small dust road to the mosque so we had to go back on the highway and the pictures didn't turned out as good as I had been hoping for.

Masjid

A mosque (/mɒsk/; from Arabic: مسجد‎, translit. masjid

Bird of Prey

Bird of Prey

So, finally, here we are at the Botanical Garden, Kolkata

We stopped on the highway but I was too stressed to get good pictures with the cars swishing by. We made a U-turn again and we were soon reaching the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanical Garden. I paid the driver and you just need to click HERE to find out if I spotted any birds in Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanical Garden.


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OK, it has come to my knowledge that we have senior citizens visiting my web page. How hard can it be? So it's not very easy for them to see the blue coloured links to the next page.

Jiffy (also jiff)

noun [in SING.] informal a moment: we'll be back in a jiffy.

ORIGIN late 18th cent.: of unknown origin.

So as you understand, in a jiff pretty much depends on your internet.

So I put a “Next” button here and I hope that there isn't any problem to understand how to use that one. So just CLICK the “Next” button on your left hand side and you will be on the next page in a jiff!

Marunong ka mag-tagalog? Walang problema! Magpunta sa kabilang pahina pindutin ang “NEXT” button sa itaas

Faites vous parlez le français? Pas de problème! Pour arriver à la page suivante faites s'il vous plaît un déclic le bouton “Next” ci-dessus!

Haga usted dice el español? No hay problema! Ver la siguiente página sólo hacer clic el botón “Next” encima!

Farla parla l'italiano? Non problemi! Per vedere la prossima pagina lo scatto per favore giusto Il bottone “Next” sopra

Sprechen sie Deutsch! Kein problem! Wenn Sie die folgende Seite sehen wollen gerade klicken der Knopf “Next” oben!

คุณพูดภาษาไทยได้ไหม ไม่มีปัญหา ถ้าคุณต้องการไปหน้าถัดไป ให้กดปุ่ม “Next” ข้างบนนี้

Вы говорите по-русски? Просто нажмите синюю кнопку "Next" с левой стороны и Вы моментально переместитесь на следующую страницу!

E ni Svenskar och inte förstår Engelska så ska ni skämmas. J och Björn, med det menar jag inte att alla mina stavfel ska ältas varje gång vi träffas.

Well, the flag of Skåne, just a BONUS flag.

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