The evil rats-with-wings that were sharing our room last night went on to have a primitive, avian orgy above our heads as we tried to sleep in the Calcutta gloom. Needless to say, the new day today brought new accommodation with it.

Our new digs are spartan and grimy, but they're at least housed in a crumbly, atmospheric building apparently left behind by the British. It seems that I like to take my grime with a side-serving of faded romance :)

Calcutta is a weird introduction to India in certain respects - and for that, I'm grateful.

Everything you can lay your hands on about that 'first day experience' in India seems to involve arriving at Delhi airport in the middle of the night. It's always hot, there's always a press of people, and the touts and the taxi-wallahs are always sharks.

Calcutta, on the other hand, has been a more perverse beginning. It's cold and grey here - unseasonably, according to the newspapers. As we tentatively tried to explore the crammed streets on our first day, a downpour of biblical proportions engulfed us. All at once, the city swathed itself in acres of tarpaulin and the steam from the chai-wallahs' beaten-up kettles condensed in the air. We wandered about amidst all this, huddled under our enormous army-green ponchos.

The tourist scene here doesn't seem to dominate as it might in places like Agra. Really, there are only enough of us to converge on one small section of one small street - Sudder St - and that's it.

Venturing away from Sudder St by using the Metro or walking around other areas of the city is a guarantee that you'll be shamelessly stared at, but rarely hassled. This has surprised me - to be frank, I thought it was going to be one huge hassle-fest from the moment we woke up 'til the moment we went to sleep. Instead, I keep saying things like, 'No, no - just looking!' while I'm browsing at street stalls, only to have the seller say, 'Okay. Yes.' and turn back to his other concerns. Incroyable!

Here, as in China, the press of people can actually be your saviour, as traders decide that hounding after one or two ignorant foreigners isn't worth their while, and decide to keep their focus on the locals.

I imagine this will NOT be the case in Agra, Varanasi etc ...

Something I wasn't expecting is the number of long-term Westerners who clearly live in Calcutta. They have a quite a presence in the traveller cafes of Sudder St, and they're kind of intruiguing.

Yesterday, one longtermer - a woman wearing a salwar-kameez and brandishing her New York Bronx accent like a weapon - was all revved up with nowhere to go. Like a hyperactive baseball fan, she was ricochetting around the cafe, calling out to other longtermers, ordering tea with fresh ginger and making plans on her mobile for what time she needed to be 'at the orphanage'.

It has surprised me, in fact, how many of these Westerners have mobiles. Although in other respects, everyone looks like the 1970s hippie ideal, they soon whip out their tiny silver mobles to make arrangements with - it's kind of incongruous, but very much 'Welcome to India - 2005-style.'

As we were eating (hardboiled eggs and plain toast), the regular newspaper seller wandered in. He's very persistent, and adopts a technique most mornings which seems to involve him willing you to buy his wares. As he approached a British longtermer, the guy waved him away, crying out in dramatic (and facetious) fashion: 'My guru says 'no newspapers' - what can I do?!'