India Part 1: Ziro to Kolkata - At the Fading Edges of India

 “The world is always in motion, but we notice it only when we move with it.”- Rabindranath Tagore (paraphrased from his essays)

Every picture tells a story.

After weeks drifting down through Southeast Asia, we left Laos behind and dropped back into the sheer intensity of India - a place that never eases you in gently. A hop through Bangkok en route, a packed flight to Hyderabad, and then into the familiar rhythm of Indian railways. The trains in India still feel magical to me. Hawkers pacing the carriages, chai sloshing in paper cups, and full-blown meals appearing out of nowhere. I found myself back in the doorway of the old swing-door carriages, leaning out into the warm air and watching the world blur past, hoping the train didn’t suddenly lurch and send me onto the tracks. Imagine doing that in Europe or the States  -  no chance.

We arrived at the end of the line, hauled up for the night, and went straight into the bureaucracy of applying for permits to get into Nagaland and the Ziro Valley. I asked why we even needed them; the answer was to protect the tribes that still live traditionally in those areas and to preserve their way of life.

The department processing ours was exactly what you’d expect - endless bits of paper being passed from one desk to another, stamped, clipped, checked again, and then pushed somewhere else. Everything had to be handwritten, in triplicate, and signed off by what felt like ten different officers before anyone would even look at the next form. One of those places where you realise there’s no point getting frustrated, because this is just how things are done.

 Incredible India. Beautiful country, beautiful people.

Once complete, we headed for the Ziro Valley by car. 4 hours bumping and grinding on the mountain roads. The Ziro valley sits on the other side of Bangladesh, nudging the Myanmar border. It feels like the end of the earth - mountains all around, rice paddies stepping down the hillsides, and women carrying rice on their heads as though gravity worked differently for them.

The initial demure appearance only tells half a story. Look closely at their faces.

One thing that stayed with me emotionally was the older Apatani women with their facial tattoos - a tradition only halted in the 1970s by government order. It was devastating to think women in the 20th century would undergo such pain to uphold a custom, and equally sad that it vanished so abruptly.

It reminded me how quickly things change out here, and how easy it is to miss it if you’re just passing through.

Posted separately - they deserve space.

The Ziro Music Festival itself was an interesting take on a festival - not great, but a joy to be part of.  With accommodation taken for the festival, and as we didn’t have anything booked, we were eventually invited into a homestay. An old timber house, where everything was cooked on an open fire inside, with no chimney. Smoke clung to the rafters and to our clothes. Hage, our hostess and her friend introduced us to Hage’s mum, who welcomed us with the warmth only people with very little seem able to offer so freely.

The house we stayed in and cooking inside with ventilation for the smoke.

Ziro was quiet, remote, and fading at the edges-exactly the kind of place you miss if you’re always in a hurry.

Kolkata  -  Durga Puja and the Weight of Contrasts

Next stop: Kolkata (Calcutta as it was). It was Durga Puja  - the festival celebrating the goddess Durga’s victory over evil - and Kolkata is its beating heart. Shrines everywhere, some simple, some staggeringly ornate. Coming straight out of the quiet hills into this tidal wave of colour and noise felt like being dropped into a different world overnight.

The Shrines. Absolutely all over town.

Our hotel sat in Salt Lake City, a part of Kolkata; it was colonial-looking and grand, but surrounded by slum areas. The contrast couldn’t have been starker. Inside: polished marble floors and well-dressed families who had travelled to celebrate the festival. Outside, people scraped by selling chewing tobacco, cheap chocolate bars, whatever kept life ticking over.

And the last one, the Grand Hotel, we stayed in and everyone in their finery, not 100m from the slum to the hotel front door.

Seeing it side by side like that really raised several questions for me. The people in the streets, though, were the most engaging, wanting to talk, laughing easily, proud of their neighbourhood during festival week. Wonderful.

India is a country of extremes.  No doubt about that. 

Bangladesh  -  A Weekend in Dhaka

After days in Kolkata’s festival storm, we had a couple of free days before heading back toward Delhi, so we hopped over to Bangladesh-a short flight and a weekend there presented us with a completely different kind of chaos.  India is poor; Bangladesh is worse.The streets were stacked with rickshaws - petrol, electric, bicycle, and some still pulled by hand by barefoot men for a few Rupees.

What struck me wasn’t just the poverty but the pride in the rickshaws themselves - bright colours, careful patterns, each one its own moving artwork.

It was chaos again, but a different flavour to Kolkata—less spectacle, more grit, and a surprising amount of dignity woven through it.

One evening, we took a bicycle rickshaw for a few hundred metres, simply so I could pay the driver far more than the fare. Cheap for us, critical for him - and frankly, it helped me waddle home after a huge chicken biryani.

We were invisible without our truck - just two foreigners with white skin moving through it all. What I didn’t expect was how friendly the rickshaw drivers were with each other. When the traffic jammed - and it often did - they’d chat across handlebars as though they were lifelong friends. Once again, we were brought back down to earth by the simple way people look out for each other, even when they have nothing.

We also started spotting how many men had their hair or beards dyed bright orange - a marker of having completed the Hajj. Once you know, the whole place suddenly feels more colourful and rooted in something deeper. Pity the same effort didn’t make its way into the cooking. The food had none of that care or vibrance, just cheap ingredients thrown together. Pretty dire to be honest.

Leaving Dhaka, I couldn’t shake the sense that hardship and pride often live in the same space -you don’t see that combination much in the West.  Stepping off the plane back into India only reinforced it. This place can knock you sideways in seconds. But in the noise and colour and grit, I kept realising how fast things change, and how easy it is to miss them if you’re not paying attention. Maybe that’s why we travel this way - to catch those moments before they slip past for good. What I didn’t know then was that the next stop would leave its own mark on me, quietly and unexpectedly.

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