Top Things to do in Kolkata || India Travel Vlog

[Music] to the Far East of India right on the border of Bangladesh is the former capital of the British East India Kolkata after a month of traveling Central India Kolkata felt like a completely different country Regal architecture bright Yellow Cabs and antique tram line and tree-lined avenues with hazy Skies made me feel like I was on the set of an old film but despite its British influence there was still hectic colorful markets that reminded me of the India that I love I had two days to spontaneously wander the metropolis and here's how it went oh good afternoon welcome to Calcutta India I've just kind of made my way all the way to the east side of India from Delhi just doing like a little bit of an Overland trip so this is like my last stop here before heading to Bangladesh and Kolkata was once the capital of the British East India Trading Company and so there's a bunch of old kind of British style architecture and it's a pretty big city of about 4.5 million people and some cool markets there's it's right along a river here so I only have about a day and a half to kind of explore the city so there's a couple things I want to show you here but we're going to start off in the New Market which is kind of in the heart of this kind of busy chaotic downtown here and it's this big red Warehouse shaped building there's a lot of like Market stalls a lot of crazy stuff going on the streets so start here [Music] all right we're going to start by heading into some of like the little back alleys of this little market so let's go check it out [Music] [Music] that was an interesting first part of the market it was just kind of like this dark warehouse and there was like a bunch of vegetable stands but it was actually pretty quiet maybe it was like a siesta or it's like Friday prayer time and now we're back on the Main Street here we're gonna check out more of the markets [Music] [Music] [Music] dude just come out of the Kolkata New Market and all throughout there there's just like a bunch of different fabric stores there's some jewelry uh there was like a bunch of like little candy and little trinket shop but it had this like this very local feel like barely seen any tourists here and then we've come out back to the main street and there's just a bunch of shops all along here and what's interesting about Kolkata is that you know it's a little bit hectic and a little bit crazy but it just seems a little bit more cleaner and sanitized and organized than most places you don't have like all the tuck tucks you have these old like kind of classy Yellow Cabs everywhere on the streets it just has kind of like a cool unique look to it and yeah it's pretty hectic pretty crazy out here but just seems a little bit more organized than some of the rest of parts of India but yeah we're just gonna kind of walk through this old part of town still and just enjoy some of the markets and enjoy some of the energy here in Kolkata [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign foreign [Music] so we've just left some of the crazy older streets of Kolkata kind of in the center of the town there and right next to the crazy Center there's this massive Park called Maiden Park which is this huge Park it's right along the river but it's one of the biggest Parks here in West Bengal it's a couple square miles and there's a bunch of sports Fields there's a cricket ground there's some statues there's a lot of just like open green area and then way on the other side of the park there's the Victoria Memorial Building so we're kind of heading through Maiden Park to that main Memorial Garden which has some nice Colonial architecture [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] so we've just walked about a mile through um that big open Maiden park that's right along the river and you can see a little bit of the Kolkata Skyline off in the distance and we've made it to the Victoria Memorial Garden and right in the center of the Victoria Memorial Garden is the Victoria Memorial building which is the largest marble Stone built for a monarch in the world and it was built to honor Queen Victoria when this was the capital of the British Empire and it was completed in about the 1920s but when India gots independence from Great Britain in about 1947 this has actually since become a bit of a museum to the independence of India so it's only about 20 rupees which is about like 25 cents to just walk around the outside of the gardens here and you have these nice beautiful trees nice Lush vegetation and it's actually just starting to sprinkle a little bit so we just have this nice even hazy light as we're walking around the gardens getting views of the building here and it's about 500 Rupees to enter into the museum so I'm not gonna bother doing that but if you want to that's about six or seven bucks to enter the museum to see some of the history of the Indian independence so let's uh just walk around there's some statues there's some beautiful trees there's some ponds throughout this Victoria Memorial Garden so let's go check it out foreign [Music] that was pretty much the Victoria Memorial Garden beautiful just open space and the architecture is just so beautiful it's this massive marble building beautiful Dome nice statue on top and just yeah really relaxing Park here like it doesn't feel like India and it I mean it has a very British history in this building we're heading west here and there's Saint Paul's Anglican Church here and we only have about like half an hour before it gets dark so we'll just show you this church a couple of the other buildings here and yeah so let's go check it out oh [Music] just across the street from the Victoria Memorial Garden is the Saint Paul's Anglican cathedral which was built in the late 1800s it's this beautiful white church with these amazing spiers and it's weird to be here in Indian and seeing such like a big prominent church because we've been seeing so many Hindu temples and mosques and stuff throughout so yeah but very beautiful elegant building you could actually see the Steep of it from the Victoria Memorial Garden and it's just this beautiful tower that has like a clock tower with these awesome spiers it's a just 10 Rupees to enter as a visitor so let's uh head in and see what the church looks like on the inside [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] that was the Saint Paul's Anglican cathedral there is like beautiful stained glass but it was kind of dark this afternoon so you weren't getting like that nice of light coming through the stained glass in the front and then the ceilings were kind of it was just kind of a very basic just ceiling and then they had all these fans kind of coming down it wasn't the most elegant or beautiful of churches but again from the outside a very elegant looking Cathedral so anyways that's about it for the first afternoon here in Kolkata I have another full day tomorrow where I'm looking forward to just checking out some more of the streets there's like an old tram one of the only tram systems that runs through India that kind of takes you through town and then yeah I want to check out a little bit of the river and some of the other old interesting architecture here in Calcutta so yeah we'll see you guys tomorrow please good morning guys it's my second day here in Kolkata and I'm staying kind of like in this like downtown central area and it's right near Park Street which is one of the main thoroughfares that kind of cuts through the city here and it has a lot of nice hotels restaurants uh cafes there's tons of like really nice coffee shops and it just has this like quiet feel there's a lot of trees a lot of greenery and yeah it's just like a little bit more of a nice modern like less chaotic India that I've been used to the last couple days so it's a nice just kind of relaxing place to just get a coffee and just hang out a bit so yeah let's just kind of like walk around this Park Street here and then yeah eventually we'll make it over to the tram and see what else there is to do here in Kolkata so let's explore [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] it was just nice to like be in nice coffee shops it's been a while since I've had some good espresso so and I just can't get over that this is India it does not feel like the India that I've known the last couple weeks here it's just so much quieter and they just have these beautiful colorful Yellow Cabs they're just going down these tree-lined streets so anyways just turned off Park Street here and I'm gonna try to find one of the tram lines that goes through Kolkata foreign [Music] just left the old Central town here and the streets have gotten a little bit grungier a little bit crazier and then there's the rail system here but I was looking it up real quick and if I Calcutta tram system was built in like the late 1800s so it's been around for over 100 years and there used to be 37 tram lines running all throughout the city but I've heard that there's only about six running now and I haven't seen any trams going up and down this line yet so I'm not sure if this is one of the lines that is running but I'm gonna just kind of follow these tracks for a little bit here along the road and hopefully we'll find a tram soon [Music] Chicago [Music] so I was just uh sitting here waiting for the tram and then I heard it crumbling down the street and I was able to like catch up to it and jump on and I have no idea where I'm going but I'm just along for the ride rumbling through the street I think it'll be really a really cool way to science here take a break from the legs not have to do the walking and you just like slowly cruise down these streets here and the tram carts they're just super old very vintage looking and yeah it'll be a fun way to just cruise around the city [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Music] for about half an hour and just it was so loud it was really fun just like cruising some of the streets here and it definitely feels a lot more like India once you leave that kind of like Park Street area there's a lot more tuck tucks a lot more traffic a lot of people walking around and so just riding the tram through all of that chaos was a really fun way to see Kolkata and Kolkata just has like there's some really nice architecture but it just feels really grungy everywhere like it feel everything just kind of feels old it feels like you're just like in a really old movie here uh with the old taxis and everything here comes another tram actually sorry another tram was just going by so I wanted to get it because the trans only come by there's only like one tram on each line so it takes about half an hour an hour to actually catch the tram but yeah it just feels like you're in an old movie here in Kolkata everything's just kind of like dirty grungy the cars are old the trams are old the buses are old and there's like this really strange color scheme of like blue and yellow there's a lot of blue and yellow on the buses the taxis the trams and everything so anyway so I had no idea where the tram was taking me but I'm still about a mile from the river here so I think I'm gonna try to head to the river that runs through Kolkata and just see what the water is like here but yeah let's walk through a little bit of this chaos I wish the tram actually took me to the water because it is a little bit crazy here but yeah let's uh walk and see what we see along the way [Music] unblock [Music] so when I first got off the tram there I was just in this crazy bustling market and it was it was more reminiscent of the India I'm used to just crazy people everywhere tough talks everywhere and just a lot of like chaos and noise um but then you just walk a couple blocks and you're just in these like quieter streets here and there's just like this really Regal architecture from the from the British era um and you have just like these beautiful mansions and there's like this massive Palace and then right here I'm just next to the high court here which just has this beautiful red kind of castle look to it but it is strange here in Kolkata where you just be walking through some crazy streets and then you've just a couple blocks later you'll find these nice quiet areas yeah so still just walking towards the river here I should be just like a quarter mile from the river now [Music] right along the river there's actually the train tracks so most of the riverfront is blocked off a little bit but I did find this uh place where you can cross the train tracks here and you can go into Millennium Park which will just be this nice little green area and hopefully we'll get some nice River views so let's go and check it out [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] just entered Millennium Park and walked around a little bit it's this really kind of run-down kids amusement park there's a bunch of these like old rides and it looks like they haven't been used for years but anyways you walk through that little amusement park and you get to this nice little pathway that's right along the river here and it's a really misty rainy afternoon so you're just getting a foggy view of the hoogly river here but you can see a bunch of these ferry boats and then way off here just about a mile away you can see the howla bridge just through the Mist but it's a very Misty view of the bridge so yeah let's just enjoy this little walkway along the river here [Music] and then foreign it's really misty and a little bit rainy this morning so you're not getting like great views across the river but it's kind of has this nice like mysterious feel to it anyways there's some like River sightseeing cruises but the next one isn't until five which is about two hours from now so there's actually like berries that just take you back and forth across the river here so just to get on the river here I think I'm gonna take a ferry and just see what it's like to be on the hoogly and hopefully get a little bit closer to the the howrah bridge to get some nice views of that and it's only about six rupees which is like five ten cents to do it so yeah let's uh grab a ticket and head across the river [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] to know [Music] all right guys so from New York and you are from America from America yeah yeah bye America bye India bye India okay thank you thank you bye this is about to start a video and that guy wanted to take a video of me but it happens all the time in India people wanting selfies and videos that was actually weird because it wasn't a selfie he just wanted to video me talking to the camera so anyways that was a nice little ferry ride across the river got some nice views of the water again it's this really like hazy Misty mysterious kind of day but the the ferry actually ended up taking me right to the base of Howard Bridge so we got some really nice views of the bridge as we were approaching the docks here now that I'm here I see a bunch of people like walking across the bridge so it might be kind of cool to check out the bridge and walk across that and see more of the river here but yeah for six rupees that was like an awesome like sightseeing ride along the river so yeah let's uh walk towards the bridge and check that out [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so I just realized I'm actually not in Kolkata anymore and how wrath which is just on the other side of the boogly River here and so that's why it's called the furat bridge and it's a cantilever bridge and it's the sixth longest cantilever bridge in the world and every day this bridge carries about 150 000 cars taking people from Hara to Kolkata every day so it's a very highly trafficked bridge and I'm about to walk over it [Music] [Music] so I'm just crossing the howrah bridge now back to Kolkata and it was built in the mid-1900s and it's like a very heavily trafficked bridge that crosses between very cool experience um again just I love the colors of the cabs here the blue bus is going by so many people and they just have these beautiful views looking off over the hoogly river and yeah it has like has almost like a crossing the Brooklyn Bridge kind of feel it's just like all this beautiful geometric trussing up above and just has a really cool look to it so uh yeah let's keep walking across and go back to Calcutta just as you finish crossing the Alda Bridge you down on this like really colorful flower market there's just tons of people down there it has a market feel there's a road where a lot of people are just walking there's really colorful flowers and a lot of people like selling these massive screams of flowers and it's actually like a really cool view from up here but I'm gonna head down the stairs and see what the flower market looks like from down there [Music] I've just made it down to the street of the flower market here and I have no idea what's going on but it's so colorful it's got a very like chaotic Market feel it's just like a muddy floor and then there's just a bunch of flowers on massive strings being laid out and so I don't know if people are buying in bulk and then there's like big baskets of flowers going by but if you go a little bit further down the market here it looks like there's like a lot of different types of flowers and it seems like this is just the place to get flowers but it's yeah very interesting to just be down here on the ground and just watching what's happening even though it makes no sense and very colorful and lots of different smells here I mean there's like a really pretty flower smell but then there's like a lot of like trash and dirt and stuff as well and just loud chaos I love this part of India this is really fun so yeah let's uh just walk around the market a little bit more and then we'll head out foreign [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] so that was really cool just walking and exploring the flower market I actually I heard about it but I didn't know where it was so I just kind of stumbled upon it at the end of that bridge so it's right under the howrah bridge so anyways it's getting pretty dark um so I'm gonna start heading back to the hotel so that's about it for a day and a half in Calcutta it just kind of was fun exploring the city and it was so much different than a lot of the other cities that I've experienced all throughout India it just has like a different flavor to it and it still has its like crazy chaotic Parts but there's some really nice Parts too nice cafes nice restaurants and then there's just some beautiful like old British architecture some of my favorite parts were just doing some of the public transportation here doing the tram doing the ferry and just seeing the city while moving so one last thing that I wanted to do is just jump in one of these old Yellow Cabs and I'll take it back to the hotel let's enjoy this cab ride through Kolkata [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign

Channel: The Traveling ZAM

Views: 17,362

Keywords: travel, photography, video, adventure, vlog, traveling, budget travel, travel video, adventure travel, world travel, tourism, vacation, backpacking, kolkata, calcutta, india, indian, capital, city, tour, asia, asian, south asia, the city of joy, city of joy, kolkata in 2 days, places to visit in kolkata, park street, victoria memorial, west bengal, yellow taxi, weekend trip in kolkata, kolkata itinerary, durga puja, kumartuli, 10 things to do in kolkata

Id: SYPeI1pUSNE

Length: 27min 19sec (1639 seconds)

Published: Fri May 26 2023