Welcome back readers,

Today was a very exhausting yet adventurous day. We had an early start this morning, waking up at 4 am to go to mass in the Mother House set up by Saint Teresa of Calcutta and afterwards we visited her tomb. This had a big impact on all of us knowing the legacy she has left and the inspiration she has served us while living in this city for these past few days.

Luckily we were given a few hours to catch up on some much needed sleep and we then met up with our two enthusiastic tour guides, former students of St. Georges school - Bittu and Amar. Our tour today was different to yesterday as it was a walking and transport tour of the city, where we travelled on every mode of transport available throughout the city.

We started with our usual walk to the metro which we took to Esplanade train station to get our next mode - The bus. This was quite the experience as the bus was filled to the brim and we had to hold on for our lives every time the bus moved. Next we took a ferry across the River Hooghly. We had the chance to walk through the famous Howrah station, which was bustling with busy people before we walked over Howrah bridge. The Howrah bridge, being the worlds busiest bridge was both a great place to see the colourful city as well as being a route for the hundreds of people we saw transporting goods and going about their day to day lives. From the bridge we then walked through the Kolkata Flower Market again. We got to experience a tram ride which was very different to Ireland as the one we got on had a cafe shop on-board, sadly we didn't buy anything as we were already heading for coffee in the Indian Coffee House where we had our first chance to try Indian iced lattes which we all enjoyed.

Then we headed on what we agreed was our favourite mode of transport of the day - the tuk tuks. We split into small groups and speedily weaved through the packed streets, narrowly avoiding buses and taxis. Finally we got the train home, which again was an extremely different experience as the doors were completely open the whole ride. We hung on tight and before we knew it, we were back to the familiarity of Dum Dum train station. After our brief walk we were back to St Marys where we had another delicious dinner.

Thanks to our fabulous tour guides who had boundless energy, and knew the city like the back of their hands. We had a wonderful day of immersing ourselves in the bright, buzzing and beautiful culture of this city.

Signing off,
XOXO Killiney girls