Flower Market

The Howrah Bridge was the only way across the Houghly River and is similar in size to Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia. It is considered the busiest bridge in the world and everything from pedestrians to bullock carts to push carts to automobiles to bicycles cross every day.

Buyers and sellers are constantly running through the narrow lanes of the Flower Market with humungous loads on their heads. Watch every footstep, where you walk, what’s coming at you, piles of animal and human excrement.

This 125-year old flower market was gutted by a devastating fire in 2008. The Kolkata Flower Market is eastern India’s largest flower market with hundreds of stalls and people sitting on the ground. Approximately 2,000 flower growers from the surrounding areas come daily to sell and during wedding seasons and festivals, probably double that number. Garlands of Marigolds in bright yellow and orange carried on arms, heads and piled into heaps on the ground, women stringing flowers selling it, unloading trucks and unpacking a gazillion bags and boxes of flowers. Marigold garlands are used in Hindu festivals, decorate the gods, and placed around visitors’ necks in India. Over all a beautiful experience that too if a person is really fond of flowers.