After a hot 17-hour drive across NH2 in Ronen's non-AC yet funky van we arrived in Kolkata or Calcutta, the capital of West Bengal and the third most populated metropolitan in India, around 10 pm only to find out that all the budget guesthouses on Sudder Street, the backpacker area, seem to be full and the only one that had vacant rooms for us was Paragon, rightfully described by Lonely Planet as "deeply depressing" and shamelessly charging 450 Rs for a tiny, dirty (there were actual stains on the bed sheets!), rather jail-like room.
