Five minutes in India and there is a man in a mask poking a gun in my face. Luckily he is a doctor and the gun measures my temperature to ensure I am not riddled with swine flu. Appears I am not and I join the immigration queue which, unlike certain other places, does not differentiate between Indians and foreigners.
Bangalore airport is new, fresh and makes Suvarnabhumi look like a corruption ridden pile in a swamp by comparison. No touts allowed at the exit, just a man with a sign with my name on it, who whisks me off onto some smart looking roads which are pretty quiet as it is around midnight (sad fact: pubs in Bangalore close at 2330).
Driving in Thailand has a very “me first” feel to it, Driving in India is equally chaotic, but it is all much more community minded, thanks to the extensive use of the car horn. The horn is used almost constantly; I am behind you, I am beside you, I have just overtaken you and I am very pleased, you have just overtaken me and I am a little pissed off. It’s car horn as conversation. At one point on our journey last night we honked at a car that was on a separate road, behind a piece of armco, just in case it decided to briefly defy gravity.
Finally to Anna’s house. Anna was something big in media in London, now she is something big in media in India; and responsible for the PR for the rally. She has a big house with seven bedrooms. I am allocated one and it is larger than the typical Jomtien studio apartment. This is the view of the garden from my balcony:
Also staying are a couple of guys from Delhi who a making a video for ESPN, and tomorrow we have two cameramen from New Zealand arriving who will be working on the same production. So that makes for a house full of media professionals, and me.
Sleep not long enough, but up this morning and, after an amazing breakfast of rice balls and vegetable soup (yummmy), out we go to the site of the rally so we can plan our shooting positions. The journey takes an hour and a half and there are at least a hundred places where I want to stop and take some photographs. This place reverberates with colour and action and life.
Sadly, there are no stops and we join a bunch of journalists and others to travel round the three rally stages. This will mean about 30 kilometres lurching around in a van, but I strike lucky. I am to travel around with Kishen who is going to share the photographing duties with me. Kishen used to be a rally driver, and the car we are to travel in used to be a rally car, and it still has all the bits. So instead of pootling around with the rest of them, Kishen lets rip and we bounce around the course in a series of power slides.
After one particularly hard landing I persuade him to let me out and then do it again.
A fun day of whizzing about, just hope we managed to locate some good shooting positions at the same time.
Long drag back home and more excellent food before heading for an early night. Tomorrow there is srutineering, sponsor shots and the official start, with the rally proper starting on Friday.
Watch this space.
Comments 🔗
2009-08-19| Billy saysOk, so you got lucky with the meet and greet and the “hotel” … down hill from here on in …