Good Evening Mr President

Next stop on this adventure was the notorious city of Colkata (Kalkutta). We were not sure what to expect, but to be honest most of the area looked something like this

The first thing that happened was the biggest scam we experienced so far. Over here it is quite common with pre paid cabs, and as always we went to the office and paid (a lot more than expected) for the cab journey to our chosen guesthouse. We got our reciept and headed out to get our cab. There it all started: first of all the driver didn't speak english, so we got a guy to come and translate. Then he didn't know where it was, but he could probably find it if we gave him more money. "NO!" Then the roads didn't exist anymore, so he wouldnt drive at all. "come on!" Then the hostel didn't exist, so he would have to take us to a hostel that he knew. "for gods sake" Then the traffic was to constipated, so he would need more money. "hell no". In total this conversation (argument if you want. Lina was about to explode!) took about 30 min, and in the end we gave up and payed the stupid guy the extra money he wanted just to get going. It is safe to say this was the shittiest cab drive ever, and when we finally got in to town we were so fed up with everything that we decided to at least treat ourself with a good room for the night. So we did, and we ended up here

This place was absolutely breath taking! Its amazing how much you appreciate the small things after back packing around India for 3 weeks. A proper shower and toilet feels lifesaving, and a mini bar filled with King Fisher´s is not to despise either

It didn't take long before we got some interesting news. The president of India was on his way to the hotel! Awesome! We figured, (after 3 beers each) that this was the perfect opportunity to tell him about the horrible treatment we got earlier that day. So we dressed up, and prepared ourself to go down to the lobby and act sophisticated. (btw. did we tell you this was Indias most famous 5 star hotel?)

We went down to the lobby and found a group of people that we assumed were waiting for the president. The whole blending in thing didn't work out to well, but for once people were interested in someone other that us. We had no idea what we were waiting for, so we smiled to everyone and shook a couple of hands here and there. All of a sudden everyones attention turned to a young, quite handsome man that was walking in front of a big group of men in suits. "hey Ranveig! that must be the president!" shoulders back, boobs out! The guy did the line of greetings (including us. HaHA!) and when he disappeared, everyone else left as well! We headed satisfied back to the and went online to brag on Facebook. Just a quick search on google to make sure that it was the right guy. The result was quite shocking.

Ladys and gentlemen. May I present to you, the president of India

Such a let down!!! Back to the beer..

All in all we had an amazing night at the Oberoi Grand. Thaifood, cocktails, beers and a good laugh. That was until we got our laundry back!

"hmm, that looks fancy.."

So lesson learned the hard way: "laundry" in a five star hotel means "dry-cleaning", and "dry-cleaning" means "this will cost more than your room" witch means "budget = gone"!

After a wonderful night in the softest beds, and a heavenly breakfast we were picked up by our driver (with compliments from the president??)

It was some kind of attention we got when we rocked up at the airport in this ride. Not only were we escorted past the queues, but just before we were supposed to enter the plane, a guy came over and upgraded out seats to business class. Honesty, we still cant understand why they did all of this, but to put it this way, we wish the flight would have been longer.

Ranveig&Lina

Awesomeness!!!!