So – here we are, at our last stop in India. Another 11-hour train ride from Varanasi, we actually got here in a very pleasant manner. Waiting at the train station in Varanasi for more than 6 hours without knowing when the train would actually arrive (and on which platform) was kind of a pain. Once it did arrive – on another platform than announced, and with 5 hours 10 minutes delay – we were pleasantly surprised that we actually had the entire compartment for ourselves. We pretty much slept through, until we arrived in Kolkata around noon the next day.

The first thing we noticed was a considerably cleaner train station than the one we just left. After replenishing our energy levels with some local snacks (awesome, as usual), we headed out to the bus station, where, after asking around for a while, we actually managed to find the bus indicated to us by our Couchsurfing host.

We’d been warned about this almost 15-million-people monster Kolkata, and that this was quite something, especially the traffic. None of it was exaggerated, it turns out: It took us a good 2 hours to do the 13 kilometers to our hosts’ home. We could have literally walked…

We stayed in Kolkata for 3 days, until our flight left for Yangon, Myanmar. We did see some of the city, but surely not as much as would have been possible: After a month of traveling through India, and especially after the very intense city of Varanasi, we somehow felt really exhausted. Our exhaustion made us realize how different the country back home is from India. While we thoroughly enjoyed the amazing variety of tasty foods, and impressive landscape and nature scenes in different parts of the country, and the unforgettable hospitality of all our various hosts, the flipside of the coin really started getting to us after a month in this huge, intense country.  The dirt, the noise, the traffic, the humidity, the not-so-clean air and the constant honking around the clock – it just all started to become a little too much for us. We would not have considered any of these factors a killer by itself, but the combination and especially the fact that it never, ever, ever stops, somehow really wore us out. Maybe the senses of someone having grown up in a Swiss town, with the only constant noise maybe being the distant sound of cow-bells, are just not capable of dealing with the level of intensity of India.

Probably the most memorable experience in Kolkata is somewhat symbolic for the entire country: Our host was absolutely great. He allowed us to stay at his place, even though he was not back from a business trip until the evening of the day after. He gave us clear directions on how to get to his house, had his wife wait for us, had a large room with our private bathroom ready for us, and supplied us with tons of great tips on what to do and see in his town. Once he was back, he took time to show us some places in town we would have never found by ourselves, and told us a lot about the city and its history. His wife prepared very tasty food for us, and they both really made us feel welcome and part of their family.

A backpacker we met in Varanasi put it this way: “In India, the highs are very high, but the lows are as low as it gets.” We’re inclined to agree with him. We loved the food, the landscape and the unbeatable hospitality of the people all over the country. But the lows mentioned above really did get to us after a while, and we’re not sure we could have taken it for much longer.

All in all, India was an experience we surely will never forget. It was not at all what we expected, that’s for sure. And somehow, the saying about Varanasi seems fitting for the entire country:

“India takes no prisoners.”