Day 13: Nellore to Ongale

Day 13

We remembered passing some temple looking stuff on the way into town and decided to get up really early to get the sunrise.

The Hayward's 5000 has turned out to be a poor choice before bed. It makes you feel like you drank a 40 of Olde English. Since OE is one of my brands I work on for Miller, I'd know just how unpleasant that is. This was similar.

Getting up at 5am to drive a rickshaw out to remote India isn't a hangover cure, but it had to do.

We found an large archway leading to a temple city of Padarupalle, just off the highway. The archway was really ornate with golded statues on it. The best is that it was in a remote location with limited gawker potential.

Lights and cameras could draw a crowd on a mountain top. All you have to do is start to set up and people crawl out from under rocks, I swear. You start to feel like what it must be like to be a celebrity. We virtually are anywhere we go here. People crowd around and want to shake you hand and ask you questions. I feel like Brad Pitt. At least people aren't quoting clips from one of my movies to me.

We struggled to figure out just the right set up for the archway and ended up with a panaramic shot of the rickshaw and Michael under one side. The set up took too much time and the new morning golden orb came up and behind a smog bank before we could even get one shot off. Dang.

The clouds and sky were still nice so me managed to get something. Not as nice as the sunrise itself, but dawn nonetheless.

From Nellore we traveled north to Ongale. We have a good system down were we shoot in the morning or afternoon coupled with 3-4 hours of driving. At this clip we'll have loads of stuff photographed and still be making the 150km per day that each major city seems to be spaced apart.

We noticed on the map that there might be a lighthouse near the coast just off the highway. I a suitable looking dirt road we made a turn and headed towards the water. The "road" took us right through a small village and the looks we got were stunning. Stunned might be a better term.

After a kilometer of dirt road our way suddenly turned to asphalt. There was an abanodoned looking cemetary and some cows milling about. We eventually came upon an old Baptist Missionary outpost and then the road turned back to red dirt. The high desert dirt here looks like the prairie west of Austin, Texas.

Our dirt road took us over a canal and into another town. The folks here hadn't seen the likes of us in quite a while. They were stopping in their tracks to watch us past.

We made it to the light house only to discover the compound was locked a big sign said No Photos. We took the hint and back-tracked through the village.

Michael thought it might be nice to get a remote shot there so we stopped and set up shop in front of a makeshift restaurant. There was a thatched roofed porch with a pay phone nearby that looked good and also a hand illustrated sign in front of the restaurant. The text was in Telugu but the picture was of a man getting his leg chewed by a stray dog. We think it was to discourage the locals from throwing scraps to the mutts.

The whole town came out to see what was up. Well the men that is. And the 60 odd children. We ended up giving away some polaroids and making folks happy. It made the shoot really easy. The kids really got into it, hamming it up for the camera. Michael was a natural with getting them all to participate. In the end we made some good friends and I gave a ride to 20 or so of the local urchins hanging from my rickshaw.

The local big-whig tried to invite us to his home for some homemade whiskey. Fearing blindness or getting a case of the "jake-walk" blues (google it), we gracefully promised on our next time through town.

It made for a good afternoon.

From there we took to Ongale as fast as we could.

Ongale is a crowded city and we struggled as usual to find a place. We finally settled on a Hotel Mourya. I mean settled in all forms of the word. Hotel Mourya was the best of the worst. We'd stayed in dirtier.

We usually enter the room quickly size it up, all saying, "this is not so bad." After killing all the things that are moving in various corners, we clean up and get some dinner. Tonight was no exception.

Everyone was dead from the early morning shoot, so they crashed.

I went out for another late night walk as I like to do. I didn't bring my camera this time for some reason. I'm still regretting it.

The night time is the best time for walking around. There aren't many street lights to speak of and people can't really see you. No mobbing happens as a result. The streets are lit from the open store fronts and headlights from the thousands of vehicles swarming around. You can get right up and close to all the action, petting cows, dodging dogs and hopping over burning trash.

There is always 10 feet of dusting dirt, debry and sleeping animals between the asphalt of the road and the steps over the sewage into stores. Most roads are covered with people with carts selling stuff too. Bikes will be piled with bananas, mangoes, coconuts that they will be chopping the tops off with machetes so you can drink the milk. Guys with carts will have a little fire going on a metal plate and will be roasting corn cobs directly on the embers. This is corn and banana country. People will be crowded around carts cooking all sorts of interesting smelling stuff. Rotis, vadas, naans, chappatis all being made fresh. Nuts being roasted with spices and served hot in a newspaper cone. Men will be squating on the ground or sitting on make shift benches eating rice masala off banana leaves.

The little stores are 3-sided openings, all not much more then 8 feet wide with a small counter streetside. At night they roll down metal grates and over the front. There are little convenience like stores selling basics, matches, cigarettes and drinks. There are also every kind of store imaginable from pharmacies, tire repair shops, mechanics, butchers, cloth, plastic pails, rice or religious stores.

Every so often you come across a store that looks like it landed right there from a mall. Glass front, gleeming lights, wide front full of electronics. It's disconcerting to see these shops next to everything else. It especially weird to go into a clean, modern store having to step over rubble, burning trash and navigate sleeping bulls and chittering monkeys.