Deb had to head back home, so it was just Aaron and me for the rest of the day. We took an Uber to the Millennium Park. Next to the park, the State Bank of India building stood out – it was huge, but the colour of the building was striking. While clicking snaps, we spotted an eagle perched on the topmost floor’s window sills- as if surveying the city below. The eagle looked majestic, and its colour almost blended with the building’s colour.
The park was beside the Hooghly River; it had two zones – you had to buy separate tickets for each zone; one side seemed to be for kids and families, while the other was filled with couples.
Beside the park was a hotel called the Floatel – a hotel on a ship. This was our actual intended destination – we wanted to see it ever since we discovered it online while searching for places to stay. You had to walk across a small bridge to get to the hotel. We didn’t really have any plan but made one on the fly. Since it was a hotel, there had to be a restaurant – we enquired and took the stairs up. It was 3:45 pm, but people were still enjoying the lunch buffet indoors in the restaurant. We didn’t want the buffet, so we ordered a cup of tea and enjoyed that while watching the Hooghly River through the window.
“Let’s sip the tea slowly. We could see the sunset from here.”
They also had a staircase in the restaurant to get to the top of the ship. From there, we had an expansive view of the river, the city and the bridges connecting the two parts of Kolkata.
We spent an hour in the hotel enjoying the views.
The search for Chinatown
There are many cities in the world where you have a locality called Chinatown. I had heard that there’s one in Kolkata too and messaged Kshitij asking, “If Tangra is the Chinatown.” He did reply in the affirmative. Out of curiosity, we headed to Tangra, a locality in East Kolkata.
We reached the place by Uber at around 6pm. We were expecting to see many Chinese people, lanterns, Chinese nameboards etc., but there was nothing of the sort.
While walking around, we saw a Chinese lady.
“Maybe we can follow her. She may lead us to the main area.”
But the lady suddenly disappeared from our view, so we continued walking down a few lanes. We finally did see a few homes that had Chinese symbols on their doors. We also came across many buildings that seemed to be factories, which were probably run by the Chinese – the main gates to these factories had Chinese inscriptions or Chinese names. Based on some online reading, we learnt that originally, it was the Hakka Chinese who had settled in Tangra – and Hakka cuisines spread around the country from here. The numbers of Chinese people, their factories and restaurants had dwindled over the years, which would explain what we saw.
We landed in the Big Boss restaurant in Tangra to wrap up day 4 with dinner.”
“Finally, we see a place in Chinatown with the lanterns,” Aaron commented.
After a light dinner, we came to the main road, hoping to get an Uber. We tried to check out a few buses to see if they would go to the Park Maidan but had no luck with any. We finally managed to get an Uber to reach our hotel by 8:45 pm. It was later that I read about a Chinese Kali temple in Tangra, and it seems that the prasad (the blessed food offered to visitors) in this temple is Chowmein.
Late at night, we were wondering if we should place an online food order – there was an Arsalan restaurant in the neighbourhood.
“We could order some rolls.”
Just when we were about to check online, a hotel staff came into the room to fix a TV remote problem. He provided an alternate remote and while testing it, he asked, “Would you like something for dinner? We have an in-room dining service.”
Looking at the options, we went for an egg roll and a chicken roll.
Now, this, I guess, was meant to be my destiny that I had to order via room service. We had the choice of ordering from any restaurant in the neighbourhood, including the famed Arsalan, but we opted for room service, something we didn’t know even existed, and the timing was perfect that the attendant had to come in just while we were thinking of ordering food and reminding us of this option! A sequence of events that could have easily taken us down a different path – an alternative reality (you’ll understand why I am harping so much about this sequence of events a little later).