How to travel India by steamboat

‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’. Nowhere is this so true as in the streets of Calcutta, departing point of our cruise. The legacy of Mother Teresa has placed a stigma on the ancient capital of the British Raj, now forever considered a city of the dying and destitute. Unsurprisingly, Calcutta does not feature all that much in tourist guides, which is a mistake, because from my experience, it is the most friendly, cultivated and humane among all of the Indian megacities. A visit should be planned sooner than later since, if nothing is done, the beautiful palaces will hardly survive another decade. They are quickly crumbling under the embrace of vegetation which has turned the city into a kind of living Angkor Wat.  

As in every major Indian city, the traffic and the pollution soon become exhausting.