The latest IPod’s and Macs were there in full force.

One interesting local Thailand clothing brand we found was the "Andaman Factory". In Thailand you will find many outrageous T-shirt logos and this company has formalized and started full production of those. Sample logos would be like “I am a bad boy", “No Money No Honey", “F**K You, I do not need any more friends", etc.

Internet in Calcutta
One can always get wired/wireless access in hotels and cyber-cafes. In our case we were staying at our parent's apartment. This posed a problem because we needed net access like in Monterey, but we have no proof of residence, everything is on Arijit's Dad's name (bills etc).

We were told that the Indian government's Broadband service was the best overall but they take like months to complete the installation, instead we were asked to try the local ISP. After like several phone calls and also a personal visit, & still given the run-around, Arijit blew his cool. He asked the staff to close shop and declare holidays. They did not like his tone of voice and decided to hang up stating that Arijit was making them nervous (ha-ha). Finally a Calcutta Univ. faculty who had been to Monterey/NPS several times helped us out and we managed to get a wireless card that provides half-ass broadband using the mobile phone network. To accomplish this we had to get a car/driver, negotiate horrendous holiday crowds and go to another part of Calcutta. What would have taken like 2 hours to complete took like the whole evening, and interestingly we were sitting in traffic jams most of the time.


Mobile Phone Access in India
Decades before 911 India have been facing the onslaught of the terrorism. India is flanked on two sides by Pakistan and Bangladesh, both unfriendly neighbors and also hotbed for extremist activities with official blessings. The latest tactic adopted is to use cell phones for detonation.


So the Indian government strictly monitors each phone sold. These phones are all unlocked so you can pick a provider, and they run using a SIM card. We had the phone but to buy the SIM card we needed to provide residence proof and an ID. Luckily Sangita had her Indian driver's license with her and that was a big help, they decided to go easy on the proof of residence so long as we stated our local Calcutta address.