Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside mainland China. Mainly work brought people from China to other parts of the world. And a mass settlement happened in many countries and Chinatown is very lively in many places.

Although I have visited a few in South East Asia didn’t know one existed in India until very recently. Happened to visit Kolkata and while reading through some interesting things to do, found the only Chinatown in India is infact in Kolkata.

Tiretta Bazaar and Tangra are two Chinatowns in Kolkata. Tiretta Bazaar is known as the old Chinatown market. This place was once home to 20,000 ethinic Chinese Indian community. Slowly the population relocated to Tangra which is the new Chinatown.

Most interesting part about our visit was the morning breakfast at Tiretta Bazaar. Authentic Chinese food being served on the road side shops. Need to reach little early to taste these delicacies, as they operate from 5.30 am until they sell out around 8-8.30am.

My favourite Chinese food being dumblings (momo) and fish ball soup, we got to taste some authentic stuff there. What amazed us was the crowd, so early in the morning people were queuing up to get their share of Chinese breakfast.

Some other items available were noodles, non veg paw, wanton, sausage, fried chicken like Satay, etc

There are some well known Chinese monasteries/temples in Kolkata. We happened to visit few of them.

The churches in Tiretta Bazaar has Chinese connections as well, one can find the Chinese writings and gods been displayed.

We visited some places around Tiretta and then decided to go to Tangra to explore the new Chinatown area.

Took a stroll in the streets of Tangra. The walls and houses were painted with some Chinese drawings and colorful lanterns displayed almost everywhere. Walked into a Chinese temple to offer some prayers and had a chat with the priest.

Visited a Chinese Kali temple, locals said Chinese offerings are given to the deity everyday.

We went a day before the local body election, could see lot of Indians of Chinese origin seriously preparing for the voting next day.

Then went to a restaurant and ordered for noodle soup and visited few shops to get Chinese prayer items.

Later on went to a Chinese monastery and a Japanese Buddhist monastery. Although the way prayer is recited is different the goal of Buddhism remains the same and they follow the same methodology mostly.

Lama ji(head priest) told us lot about the Japanese monastery and where all in India it’s coming up. Got to know one is coming up near my hometown as well.