July 1: The Journey south

We left Ongole in the morning and arrived in Chennai around 1pm, after a quick ride in a rickshaw we arrived at our hotel. July 1st turned out to be an interesting day to arrive in Chennai as the USS Nimitz also arrived that morning to much fanfare as well as protests. The protests concerned both the possibility of the Nimitz having nuclear weapons and it returning from Iraq. The city seemed very happy about it and there were articles in the state newspaper the next day about some of the seamen helping orphanages and boys homes. We took a quick trip to the city museum and felt like we had gone back to the museums of the 1930s. There were snakes in formaldehyde and lots of latin names. It was a strange atmosphere and Jenneli and I enjoyed it. After a quick dinner of yummy pizza and cake we headed to back to the hotel to sleep.

The big party!

Saturday we invited all our favorite Ongole people over for a small americanesc party. Bryan supplied a cache of chili that he had brought from Texas and we augmented it with some food from the near by KB Restaurant. Everyone enjoyed themselves and it was quite a success. Unfortunately there was some miscommunication and instead of thinking we were going to have a party, uncle (our landlord) thought he would be hosting us for dinner. So we got auntie and Uncle to have some of our chili but they wanted us to keep our stomachs hungry so we could join them for food after the party. Which we did, Jenneli and I were full the entire next day. Bindu was the life of the party and kept every laughing and smiling! Everyone had a great time and hopefully we’ll be able to have another party for everyone.

A little local Ongole bar

Of coarse Ongole has some nice western style bars in some of the hotels and fancier restaurants but I wanted to show you what the smaller local bars look like. You may notice some red stains on the walls, though they could be blood it is probably just the beetle nut juice that Indians like to chew and spit. It stains their teeth as well as the walls red.




The beer is Royal Challenge and though there are several to choose from this is my favorite. Though the more popular King Fisher beer is also good. This beer costs slightly less than $2 and you can get fried snacks for 30 cents. Most Indians favor water and whiskey/gin/brandy with some club soda or 7 up. India has tried to outlaw beer a number of times and recently has just decided to tax it heavily. I believe I read that it has a 300% tax on it, though I could be wrong about that.