KOLKATA has had a bad press. Think of Kolkata – or Calcutta as most of us still know it – and you instantly see images of Mother Theresa, slum dwellers, squalor and beggars. In reality this is a fabulous city with some of the most glorious colonial buildings in Asia, smiling faces, superb cuisine, luxury hotels, vast green spaces and fun. Kolkata is also more relaxed and less intimidating than the other big cities of India. It is also virtually tourist free….
Darjeeling conjures up images of women in colourful saris delicately hand picking the finest tips of the tea plants. It is also where the British Raj fled to escape the heat of the Indian plains and sweltering Calcutta. The town itself is precariously spread down a steep mountain ridge in the foothills of the snow-capped Himalayas amid tea “factories” on sprawling plantations. While it has lost the charm of other colonial hill towns such as Strawberry Hill in Malaya’s Cameron Heights or…