MOZAMBIQUE - Maputo (2000)

Maputo: 24.10.2000

We reached this picturesque place yesterday afternoon, around 3.00 pm. It was a long trip from Cairo which we left by the 10.00 pm flight. From Cairo to Nairobi and then to Johannesburg from where we hopped to Maputo. For Ravi, both the airports of Nairobi and Jo'burg were new and Jo'burg especially is a very jazzy airport, full of duty-free shops, stocking the best quality material, be it knick-knacks, designer clothing, music or diamonds. We went around quickly and identified things to be picked up at leisure on the way back, when we'd have a 4-hr break at Jo'burg.

Yesterday afternoon we were too tired to hit the market and comb for customers. However, the sight of the place was quite rejuvinating. It was a Portugese city at one time, a tourist resort by profession, and the settlers had obviously left an inheritence of smiling indolence and a laid-back attitude towards life in general. One could see the shadow of Goa in every nook and cranny. Our Hotel Cardoso was located by the side of a bay and the view from the open-air restaurant in the backyard of the hotel was quite spectacular. So while Ravi took a nap, I sat there and washed the sun down with a couple of beers.........

We took a walk around in the evening, although the hotel people said that it was not very safe after dark, and negotiated with a taxi for the driving around tomorrow. Then we took off for a ride on the same cab. Like most tourist places, this place also shuts down early and at six-thirty most of the shops were closed. We saw a few open restaurants but decided to have dinner at the hotel. So we picked up some provisions (like a few beers) and came back. By eight we were through with our recreation and were ready for dinner. There could not be a more extreme contrast after the night-life at Cairo! But we did not mind, as it had been quite strenuous.

Today we took off at 8.30 am and by around 4.00 pm we were through with meeting customers. The city seemed fairly big (after all Mozambique is a biggish country) but most of the big consumer shops were in a single locality. In the course of our wanderings, we managed to take in a few sights like a beautiful cathedral, a house made of steel and the Municipal building. But the best of the lot was lunch at a small cafe, where we had fried red-fish and rice, accompanied by a couple of shots of Amrula. It is a cream liquior and quite nice. The cafe was decorated with a number of woodwork carvings and paintings typical of Maputo. There was a huge pinning-board where clients seemed to have stuck small sketches which they had drawn while waiting for their order to be served! Ravi, a music fan, picked up a couple of cassettes of traditional Mozambique music from the music vendors squatting outside, with the help of one of the ladies in the cafe.........

We had asked the driver Isaac to take us to someplace where we could buy some cheap artifacts. He took us to the artists' display house, which was a small cottage located right by the sea -- it was a beautiful spot. We bought some small stuff (because by now we were worried about the spending, especially with Jo'burg still to go) and came back to the hotel.

Apart from us, all the guests at the hotel seemd to be goras, either on business or for pleasure (mostly). They were really enjoying themselves and were quite loud and boisterous at the dinner-tables. For the second night in succession, we went for dinner by 9.00 pm. One of the customers we had tried to meet landed up just then. He turned out to be a Bengali working for a company there for the last two years -- fairly young, maybe around 26. In Maputo there are 10-12 Bengali families and they do have get-togethers at puja-times, although it is on a very small scale. I wrote a 'Best Diwali wishes' for the association on a paper and gave him.

Maputo: 25.10.2000

We left Maputo by the 6.30 am flight to Jo'burg. As expected of a laid-back place, although we (as well as other passengers) had all arrived by 5.00 am, there was no sign of the staff till about 5.20 am!

We spent a lot of time (and a lot of money) at Jo'burg and finished off all our purchases there itself, including Amrula, leaving nothing (hopefully) for Nairobi airport. Ravi had his eye on a four-foot high wooden giraffe, which he finally decided was too unweildly and went for an ostrich egg instead. This, of course, leaving aside the sundry other purchases. I picked up an unusual picture of African figures made out of a collage of butterfly wings!
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.Nairobi was a short transit and I boarded the Muscat flight while Ravi went off to Dubai. On 24th itself I had learnt that 26th was a holiday instead of 25th as was announced earlier, so I was getting a well-deserved rest for 2 days. There's a Diwali party at home tonight, so life's full of action.

Reached home finally at 1.30 am.

LINK TO MAPUTO ALBUM

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EGYPT - Cairo (2000)

Cairo: 16.10.2000

It's a great feeling landing in one of the richest cities in terms of cultural heritage. The Cairo we see on film is typically very busy streets with small shops at every corner and all Egyptians out to gyp you in every bargain. There IS an old souq like that of course, but as we drove to Sheraton from the airport at 9.00am in the morning, we passed through a huge modern city, chock-a-block with tall buildings and umpteen flyovers. It seemed almost like Mumbai without the jostling crowds! I was very impressed. Khartoum was definitely a small village before this. In fact, when I told one of our customers about this observation, he was shocked that I could even make the comparison: "Johannesburg, okay," he said. "But Khartoum! La, la..."

During the day, meeting customers and travelling through the streets, the city came through almost like home. The spread of regular shops and hawkers, the 'bindaas' people walking on the streets, the Calcutta-style driving -- all encouraged us to just take a walk in the streets, soaking in the bright sun and enjoying the 24-27 degC weather at this time of the year.

Cairo has a population of around 15 million, with maybe another 2 million floating (Egypt is 65 million). So it's a metro all right. Commuting modes include cars, buses, subways and trams! Yes trams -- I was thrilled to see them. There are ferries for crossing the Nile in a comfortable manner as well. The river flows right through the city and looks much more beautiful than it did at Khartoum. We have a good view of it from the 19th floor of our hotel and at night the lights on the river, as well as over the rest of Cairo, sparkle like diamonds at a candle-lit dinner. There are around ten bridges crossing the Nile and we crossed the water many times during the day.

Egyptians are in general a friendly, garrulous and 'drama-baaz' lot. But the city itself is very safe and tourist-friendly. There is a lot of European influence and people are dressed in the heights of fashion. This is one African country where there is money to spend and, as our customer said, shades of Jo'burg are there in the hotels and shopping plazas.

We worked throughout the day till 6 pm. Here people work 11.00 am to 10.00 pm in general, and only after around 9.00 pm, the evening is said to start. We went for dinner to an Italian restaurant decorated with wood-panelling, old pistols, anchors, ship's wheel and so on. The food was superb and in spite of this being the first day of the week, it was full. We left at 11.30 pm and there was not much of diminishing of cars on the road. We went to the university campus, which is huge, for some pictures, and got dropped after 12.00 pm.

Cairo/Alexandria: 17.10.2000

Quite a long working day today.

Planning time is very difficult here. To start with, people come to office between 10.00-12.00, and if we land up somewhere in between, we have to wait for an hour or so. Then there is no hurrying the business discussionl. After all the enquiries about families and weather, there will be at least an hour spent on how bad the business scene is, how regressive the economic policies and custom rules, how unscrupulous the competitors, how stingy the customers, and how ignorant suppliers like us to all these vagaries. If we are able to deal with three customers to there satisfaction, that is a very efficient day. Most days we are skipping lunch, or having something like pastries, and on all days dinner is outside. Time taken to complete meetings is also extended by the heavy Cairo traffic, the spread of the city, and consequently the considerable time that it takes to go from one place to another.

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Today we planned to go to Alexandria, a port on the Mediterranean, around 3 hours away by rail. We thought we'd leave by 2 pm and reach by 5 pm, still giving us an hour of daylight to let us see this beautiful city, after which we would meet our customers for 2 hours, leave by 8.00 pm, and be back at Cairo by 11.00 pm latest. But as usual, our morning customers delayed us so much that we could reach Alexandria only after dark and had to meet our customer immediately, a meeting that carried on to dinner and finished at 11.30 pm. The fleeting impression I had of Alexandria was that of a laid back city with a mixture of the modern and the ancient with the latest cars vying with horse-drawn carriages and trams (again!). In fact, here the trams criss-cross the city, unlike in Cairo where it is only in the suburbs and they are very long with three bogies.

We had gone to Alexandria by train, which was in this case a very well-maintained AC chair-car. Both the Cairo and Alexandria stations are quite big. The countryside is very much like 'graam bangla' -- green fields, cows, cottages. The tenement buildings near the stations have the typical semi-dilapidated look with clothing hanging outside.

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The days are passing quite fast and there is hardly any time for sight-seeing. We have reserved Sunday for the famous Cairo museum and the Pyramids of Giza. Plus the souq has to be visited to buy some take-aways. Hopefully, at least these will come through.

I forgot to mention the dinner at Alexandria. This port city is famous for sea-food and our customer took us for dinner to a roadside 'dhaba' sort of place which is his favourite sea-food joint. We chose the fish we wanted from a pile of iced fish and had a super dinner of grilled fish, lobsters (a heaped plate) and squid 'pakoras' (another heaped plate). I was having squid for the first time and quite liked it in the fried form.

Cairo: 18.10.2000

We had lunch at a small supermarket today and I tried out a chicken tawouk, which is grilled chicken fillets -- an Egyptian dish. It was served with rice. Excellent!

Today's highlight was a visit to the souq 'Khan-el-Khalili'. It's an amazing place - a maze of shops of all shapes and sizes, selling take-aways, jewelry, clothes, not only for tourists but for local Egyptians as well. But obviously the major focus is tourists. The place comes alive mainly at night, when the narrow passages are thronged with people and shop-keepers try to pull you into their shops! There are a number of stonework and silver shops, from one of which Ravi bought a lapis lazuli stone. Both this as well as the turquoise are very popular here among ornament-makers. I bought some hand-paintings on papyrus (which is far better than commercial prints on banana paper), negotiated down from 15 pounds to 7 pounds per piece! I also bought a ladies dress called 'galebia' -- a full-length cotton dress with beautiful papyrus work.

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In the narrow passages of the souq, people have set up restaurants and placed small tea-tables -- nothing but a big metal plate on a stand with a couple of small stools -- where people were generally sitting, having 'chai' or turkish coffee, and smoking sweet-smelling tobacco from 'sheesh', which is structurally same as the Indian 'albola'. The passage was so crowded that it was difficult to take a picture.

We had dinner in the souq at a small joint, five people squeezed into one corner, and were served Egyptian traditional food in a traditional way. The traditional food was mainly vegetarian -- kuboos with beans preparation, brinjal fry, egg-bhujiya, and crunchy veg chops (filafils). These were accompanied by some white chutneys with herbs which were very tasty (Egyptian cooking is not at all spicy; they prefer herbs). The kuboos is kept on the table and everybody takes food from the common plates.

We came out of the gullis to a courtyard outside at around 12.00 in the night. There were about a hundred small tables and chairs set up by the teashops. People were arriving all the time, often with big families, and immediately more tables and chairs would appear, spreading outward. Waiter-boys would come up puffing a sheesh to get it going and place it near the smoker. There would a number of small peddlers selling tissue ( a form of begging), plus serious peddlers with ornaments, carpets, stuffed animals etc would be moving around. A woman would suddenly appear, holding a small pot with burning coals and aromatic crystals (the pot hanging from a wire in her hand) and whirl the pot so near your face that you'll feel like ducking. If no 'baksheesh', she'll to drop the pot between your legs!

The best part was the number of singers going around with banjos and drums, who would sit at your table and sing for money. Between 12.00 and 1.30, while we were there, our companions called three sets of singers (the first solo with a violin-type instrument and the other two as pairs). They have very good voices and the tune & beat are very catchy.

The souq is open through the night. There is a very big mosque next to it and people often do their 4.00 am prayers and then leave, or come for prayers and stay on. It's literally vibrating with life all night through.

Cairo/Tanta: 19.10.2000

This morning I spent a couple of hours at the Egyptian museum. The collection is great, very well-preserved, and catalogued. One can see items and statues right from the Old Kingdom (around 2500 BC) to the latest Greco-Roman (100 BC). The whole place would take around 5-6 hours to see properly. I could not see the Mummy Room, but spent an hour with Tutankhamen, where almost a whole floor has been devoted to items found from his tomb as well as the coffins and body jewellery. The jewellery, mostly in gold with inlaid precious stones and coloured in various hues (red and blue being the favourite), show very fine craftsmanship. The handles of two knives found in his chamber have engravings that have to be seen to be believed! I saw the famous mask or head-covering of Tut that was laid over the head and shoulders of the mummy and weighed a solid 11 kg! The Egyptians apparently did not believe in 'Rest in peace'. Two of the three coffins were also there (the outer wooden one with the mummy inside is still in the tomb), with the inner one made of solid gold.

When I went through the Old and Middle Kingdom section (Tut is actually New Kingdom - the last king or pharaoh), I also found very good work in wood. They were also famous for working on stone monolith (single piece) statues and there are some that are twenty feet high.

There was quite a crowd in the museum today (mostly Europeans) with the tourist season just starting. Guides taking the groups around were shouting at the tops of their voices and I could simultaneously hear lectures in English, German, french, Spanish (I think) and Arabic. One or two guides had accosted me outside but I had politely declined. Cost apart, I did not have enough time for lectures and stories, having only 2 hours to walk through the place. In fact, with a guide it would have been far more enjoyable as the amount of myths, beliefs and traditions or folklore attached to the exhibits is quite a lot and beyond the scope of the small tags attached to the exhibits.

Mind you, guiding is a serious profession here and all guides have to study history, geography and archeology for anywhere between two to four years, appear for an examination held by the Ministry of Culture, and only then obtain the licence for a guide or a tour operator. So what they tell you, whether on a museum tour or in front of the pyramids, has quite a lot of depth and they are willing to tell much more than the standard package if you have the interest and the time. They are quite proud of their 5000 year heritage and find Indians quite the 'brother' on that count.

That afternoon we had lunch with a client at his house in Tanta where we had intended to conduct some business but it ended as a purely social affair. We had lunch at 5.00 pm and the tea and coffee and "something else please?" carried on till 8.00 pm. We were supposed to meet somebody else at 7.00 pm and had to keep on ringing him up and telling him that we were still held up. Egyptians have absolutely no idea of the value of time. Whenever we would tell these chappies please drop us back at the hotel, we were already late by an hour, they would get very concerned and say "Yes, yes, we will go now!", but physically nothing would move! In fact, we just about got back, had a bath, poured a peg - and our next guest landed up at 9.00 pm. We made him sit with us while we cheered ourselves up - young chap of 26, doesn't drink, chain-smokes, Lebanese by birth, born in Cairo, but has no official nationality and no passport. He's very sentimental about the lack of belongingness and has decided to become a millionnaire instead! Owns a yacht, goes fishing on the Red Sea and hunts deer in the desert. Extremely street-smart. At midnight we went to a roadside fast-food joint and had a bun-sandwich of chicken-liver. Ravi and Hesham had sandwiches of 'gambhari' (shrimp) which is extremely popular here. Must be cheap. Went to sleep at 1.30 am.

Cairo: 20.10.2000

Today, while going to a customer's place, we took a ride on Cairo's metro or subway. It's five years old but very impressive in terms of size of stations, cleanliness and frequency of trains, which is almost one in two minutes. Today was Friday, a holiday for offices and for a lot of shops, but there was still a fair number of people travelling. Cheap too, at Rs 5/- a ticket.

We had gone to Hesham's shop and had a pizza lunch there. In the afternoon he took me to Khan-el-Khalili once again and I bought some knick-knacks. We returned to the hotel at 7.30 pm sharp, since the customer who took us for lunch yesterday wanted to take us out for dinner again (big show-off!). We reached the poolside restaurant directly at Hotel Semiramis but our host landed up only at 9.30 pm. Held up by traffic apparently. Possibly true in this case, because today and tomorrow the Arab summit meetings were being held in Cairo. I tell you, something like this happens on many of my tours. In Mauritius, it was Vajpayee's visit, in Arusha it was the Burundi peace accord, and now this!

Anyway, this evening was one of the most peaceful evenings we had had till now -- no drinking and wrapped up by 11.30 pm. There was one lady beltings out famous Arabic and Egyptian numbers and our hosts seemed quite entertained. In the end, one of the hosts sang an Arabic song (with translation) and Ravi sang some Hindi songs for them (at the table, not at the mike). They all liked the meaning of the lyrics.

Tonight had actually been slated as belly-dancing night, but because a senior brother with his son also decided to attend the dinner, they decided to keep it a sober affair.

Tomorrow we have to go to Tanta, where these guys are based, for actual order-discussion, which will of course be followed by lunch. Tanta is 1.5 hours away.

Cairo: 21.10.2000

We were in Tanta from 2.00 pm to 8.00 pm. We were, as usual supposed to meet Hesham at 7.00 pm, so we had pleaded with the Tanta chappies to drop us back by 5.00 pm, which would give us 2 hours time to catch our breath. What bloody breath! Marathon runners breathe oxygen in easy-chairs compared to us.

Hesham landed up at the hotel by 9.30 pm. Tonight was 'falooka night'. A falooka is a small sailboat with a canopy and some benches to sit on. An uncle and a friend of Hesham's also joined us with a bagful of beer! That 2-hour falooka ride up and down the Nile was really beautiful. The Nile flows slowly enough and the breeze is stiff enough (also chilly) to enable upstream sailing quite fast. The city lights on the riverbanks, barely 200 yards away, give enough illumination without disturbing the beauty of the dark river. The sky was perfectly clear. Lying on the small deck in front, with my sight soaring upward past the majestically taut sail, I could see Cassiopia flying amongst the millions of dotted star. Pharaohs must have sailed down the Nile like this -- maybe not in falookas -- but enjoying the clear and balmy air.

We gave some gin-mixture to the Egyptian helmsman, a young lad of twenty, and he promptly named himself Captain Cocktail and started acrobatics sitting on the tiller. He would sail the boat quite close to the riverbank and then turn quickly, tilting the boat like a motorbike, to our conternation and his great delight.

We told Hesham that we wanted to bring our families for a Nile Cruise and he promised to get the info for us.

Cairo: 22.10.2000

Today was Sunday and I had targetted to see the pyramids and the sphinx at least on a guided tour. I talked to a tour operator, whose number I had picked up yesterday, and told her that I wanted a car and a guide in half-an-hour for a 4-5 hours sightseeing of the ruins of Memphis, the Saqqara pyramid and the Giza pyramids with Sphinx. She told me that a one-day notice was needed to organise this and why don't I take it tomorrow.

I explained to her that I was here only for today and could she help out? After some hunting around 'outside', she finally sent me a small coach with driver and English-speaking guide and we were off around 11.30 am to see the ruins of Memphis, the Saqqara pyramid and the pyramids of Giza. Since I was alone in the coach, this would cost me $70/-. Well, this might be my once-in-a-lifetime visit to Egypt, so I didn't argue.

This portion of the Nile settlement is what is called the Old Kingdom, and this is where pyramid-building first commenced. The later dynasties of Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom (ending with Tut-Ankh-Amen) moved upstream to Upper Egypt, to Luxol and Aswan, for example. The capital of the Old Kingdom was Memphis, on the west bank of the Nile. The Egyptians had a very well-developed philosophy of death and resurrection, which is why they used to bury their dead with his favourite wordly possessions to help him cross the river of death to meet Osiris for the Judgement, after which the soul will come back to the body again. The west bank of the Nile was reserved for the dead and all cities were usually on the east bank. Memphis was an exception and was built on the west bank to provide a natural protection against Syrian invaders from the north-east side of Egypt. However, a major flood in the Nile is said to have submerged the city which was later discovered through the finding of a lot of coins which showed the presence of a major trading area. Most of the architecture had been destroyed in silt-submersion and a few of the excavations have been preserved in an open-air Memphis museum at the site. These include a 'stile' or tablet with inscriptions on 'Rules for visitors' to the city, an alabaster sphinx whose period is not known as it carries no cartouche or royal seal, a stone sarcophagus or coffin, and various small statues. However the most impressive statues are two ten-feet high ones of Ramses II, as well as a massive unfinished statue of his, that are carved from lime stone and carry a fair degree of detail of the dress of that period. Ramses II was said to be a very vain man and after he became king, he destroyed the statues of all earlier kings of Memphis. Moreover his statues are always quite muscular and the standard false beard attached to his face was straight instead of curved, indicating he had ordered all these made while he was alive. In the horizontal big statue, which, if the legs were finished, would have been around 30ft high, the carving details are very good indeed, including nails on fingers.

After Memphis, we visited the Saqqara Step pyramid nearby, which was built for the tomb of King Djoser and was the first proper pyramid attempted in Egypt. Till then, be it king or nobleman, they had their burial chambers deep under the ground and had on top a flat structure made of mud-bricks or inferior limestone called 'mastaba' or a bench. The same had been the case for Djoser, when the innovative architect Imhotep came to his court and decided that the structure needs to be taller since it could not be seen beyond the walls of the Great Court, on the north side of which the tomb was located. So he kept extending the base layers and raising the structure with limestone bricks till he was satisfied with its height, and the first pyramid was born, reaching a height of 62 metres. This pyramid had elaborate inner passages and chambers which have now collapsed.

Imhotep also experimented with the first free-standing pillars of Egypt, the structure of which was copied from the structure of the papyrus stem. These pillars are found in the entrance passage to the great court. But his knowledge of pillars was so shaky (joke unintended) that each pillar was attached by a low strong wall to walls of the chamber.

This is the start of the season and I found bus-loads of European tourists everywhere with their guides giving very loud lectures. I think that together with their other papers, the guides must have been tested for their lung-power as well!

Today was a very clear day. From the Saqqara site, we could see the 'bent pyramid' as well as the Giza pyramids very faintly in the distance. This view of all the three sets of pyramids together, showing the evolution of pyramids through the Old Kingdom, is usually difficult to see.

From Saqqara, we proceeded to Giza, the site of the three famous pyramids and of the Sphinx. I have found that in all these cases of visiting historical structures, they are suddenly upon us without giving any hint of their hugeness. I mean, I knew that the pyramids were big, but the cars unload you almost at the foot of the biggest pyramid and you get a crick in the neck suddenly looking up a height of 140 metres! This consisits of around 200 layers of limestone blocks, each block weighing anywhere between 2.5 to 15 tonnes. Here I am talking of the biggest pyramid, that of Khafu. The other two pyramids, that of Khafra and Memkaura, are smaller. All the blocks are now bare but there was a smooth coating initially which has now been weathered away.

The pyramids had been subject to marauder's attacks. Mamoon of Syria had apparently tried to break into the biggest pyramid and accidentally discovered the passage. He had cleaned out everything except a 2-inch high statue! The inner passages and chambers were open to visitors, but the day's quota was already full, much to my relief. The idea of walking half-bent along a passage 150 metres long in order to reach an empty burial chamber did not appeal to me much.

The guide was giving me a lecture on the pyramids -- the Egyptian version. As per him, neither did ETs build the pyramids, nor were slaves employed under inhuman conditions. Every year, for around 3 months, the Nile would flood all the surrounding land and work in the fields would be at a standstill. During those times, the Pharaohs would ask the peasants to help build the pyramids, which they would willingly do. This way the Pharaoh would reduce discontent and the people would also have some income. This is also the reason why it took so long to build the pyramids.

The other interesting fact I learnt was that to get the blocks up, pulled on wooden sledges with the ground lubricated with milk, a huge ramp had been built around the pyramid. Apparently, building this ramp took as much effort as building the pyramid itself.

I had always imagined the pyramids and sphinx to be somewhere in the middle of the desert, to be reached by camels and all. In fact, till around 20 years ago, it was like that. But gradually the city has grown to within 200 yards of the structures. When I saw the sphinx, I was quite shocked to see the sphinx gazing upon a row of houses barely 100 yards away. I am sure he can see into all the bedrooms! This being the start of the tourist season, the place was already crowded with busloads of tourists elbowing each other around the statues and temples. There was a place called 'Panorama Point' from where all three pyramids can be phographed in one shot and the area resembled 'rather mela' more than anything else. There was a fair mixture of white, black and yellow skin-colours........

On the way back, we stopped at the Papyrus Institute and saw a demonstration of how paper is made from papyrus. Papyrus is still made nowadays for making artistic drawings for tourists, and the peeled-off skins are used for weaving baskets etc. The place also had a good display of drawings on papyrus. The quality was very good but the price was also very steep. the guides must be getting a commission out of every sale made to customers brought in by them.

I was finally back by 4.30 pm and quite tired. We left the hotel by 7.00 pm and Hesham picked us up. Ravi wanted to buy some Egyptian crackers for the coming Diwali at home and Hesham took us to a market where they were selling crackers and sparklers in the open. To our amusement, we found half the stuff was from Sivakasi! The crackers they make in Egypt are a bit different because they do not have wicks. We went to have dinner at a fast-food joint and even then, managed to reach the airport by 8.00 pm, two hours before departure time. Ravi said he had never been this early to the airport in Cairo before this.

It's a long journey ahead. We will reach Nairobi tomorrow morning at 6.00 am, and then go on to Johannesburg, from where we will jump to Maputo, reaching at 2.30 am. Ooof!

LINK TO EGYPT ALBUM

SUDAN - Khartoum (2000)

Khartoum: 14.10.2000

Sitting in Room 713 of the Hilton at night 9.30 pm. It's been a long day. We reached here at 1.30 at night and managed to catch some sleep till 7.00 am. Then it was up and away to a working day.

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Throughout the day, Sudan emerged in a typical pattern of a big and potentially rich African country still waiting to awaken. The country is rich in agriculture and petroleum. It rains here 9 months in a year at some places and the Nile flows right through, irrigating the fertile plains. Sudan should be in a position to export foodstuff, and they do export fruit as well as livestock, but the people do not get to eat in the villages. Sudan is ravaged by civil war that drains away tremendous amount of money. The North has been fighting the South ever since the British left these colonies 45 years ago. They say that the Brits left this hatred as a legacy, as they had left communal hatred among Indians as a legacy, for them to fight and destroy each other after the rulers departed.

.In the last ten years in particular, apparently a lot of national money has been piped out and all development is at a standstill. The Sudanese dinar, that used to buy USD 2.50, now sells 250 to the dollar! In the last one year, with oil exploration having taken off, some money is again evident in the market.

.Khartoum could have been a beautiful city, but it seems to have given up half way through. Both the White Nile and the Blue Nile join at Khartoum and there is a sizeable waterfront. The stretch of corniche is extremely pleasant to walk along but there are hardly any tourist-oriented waterfront activity -- like restaurants, boat-rides, or simple secluded spots for for people to just sit and enjoy the evening. Very few people actually sit there..........

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We saw some beautiful structures like the St Thomas's Church that is more than 100 years old, and the President's Palace (the road actually runs through the grounds but photography is banned). The 'downtown' area is a crowded couple of square kilometers of upmarket shops, with too many people dawdling with nothing to do. Most of the roads are plain dusty tarmac roads, reminding me strongly of a mining town like Asansol.

The Sudanese are good-looking, dignified and generally well-educated. A large number of them go to India to study and they are fairly Indian-friendly. They mostly speak Arabic, so I was mostly smiling politely today.

.Oh yes, Sudan is a dry country -- booze is banned! What a waste of lovely riverside breeze.

Khartoum: 15.10.2000

Today we took a look at the confluence of the two Niles. The White Nile looks reddish, but the Blue Nile is definitely bluer, because when we looked at the point where the two Niles met and carried on as one, the line of separation carried on for as far as I could see..

Today we saw a bit of the upmarket localities -- villas and bungalows set in small gardens and looking quite prosperous. But the roads, rather the road-sides, are not at all well-maintained and are simply piles of the red dust that pervades this part of Africa. Apparently, there is no functioning municipal corporation at all! But there is a lot of construction activity going on and the oil exploration revenue, if managed well, should bring in a much-needed dollop of government spending into the economy..

At Khartoum, there is not much to see except the riverside, the palace and a few architectures of British times. The university has a sprawling campus -- typical brownstone. We did not get time to visit the souq at all, neither yesterday nor today. Yesrteday evening, in fact, I went down in all enthusiasm to splash around in the Hilton swimming pool. It was an open-air circular pool, around 20 m in diameter, with a maximum depth of 1.5 m. The water was cold and so full of chlorine that my eyes started burning in 5 mins. My Sudanese companions did not seem to mind. After 10 mins I gave up and returned to my room, having changed in the shivering open air. It's very very hot in summer, but right now the breeze is nice and cool..

I'd forgotten to mention the taxis here. They are mostly Toyotas, but a more dilapidated set of cars I've not seen elsewhere (even the Ladas of Addis come a close second). There's not a single one later than 1980 and they proudly display their year of manufacture by putting some sticker like '78 Corolla' on the body, like we'd put 'EFI'. Perhaps it helps them to find spares!.

On both the days that we were here, one of our big customers, Mawia, had taken us out for lunch. Lunch here is around 4.00-5.00 pm, so today I skipped dinner totally and drank some orange-carrot juice. Anyway, tomorrow we had to get up before 3.30 am to catch our flight to Cairo.

LINK TO SUDAN ALBUM

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TANZANIA - Daressalaam/Arusha/Mwanza (2000)

Dar es Salaam: 24.08.2000

One full day of travel yesterday. We left Addis by the 1.00 pm flight. As a parting shot, Sheraton Addis sent us to the airport in a black stretch limo, so we got down there feeling like Clinton and Gore!

We had a 5-hour stopover at Nairobi, Kenya, although we could not get out of the airport. Fairly large in number, these shops -- seemd like private contract and not govt-owned. On the way back as well, we have a 3-4 hour stop at Nairobi, so may pick up some souvenir knick-knacks at the time.

We landed at Dar at 10.00 pm and discovered that one of our customers was the pilot flying the plane! We reached the Sheraton at 11.00 pm, quite tired with the sitting around. This Sheraton, owned by a local minister, is not as luxurious as the Addis Sheraton, which is a 7-star. Getting quite snooty, aren't we?!

Today we visited customers in the morning. Here the shops (ie, our customers) close at 4.30 pm, so it's a short working day. While taking a break for lunch, we walked around the city, but essentially, by 5.00 pm, we were free, except for a dinner appointment.

Dar-es-Salaam is a very comfortable city to live in and to visit. Tanzania is a well governed country and quite developed in infrastructure. The city is quite safe to walk around in and the people quite friendly. The general layout, buildings, condition of roads, the general demeanour of people is very very reminiscent of an Indian city. My colleague, Easwar, kept on saying:"Just like Madras, no?" at regular inetervals. There are many Indians living here for ages; there are Indian streets (eg, Indira Gandhi street), and Swahili, the African national language, has a strong Gujrati content, I'm told. But most of the people here speak English, so communication is absolutely no problem. We used to catch taxis to go around in...........

Both Kenya and Tanzania have a fair amount of industrialisation, apart from safari tourism of course, which seems to be becoming more and more popular in Tanzania nowadays.

In the evening, we took a walk down to the port-side. The Arabian Sea is fairly blue here. We also went to a sea-side restaurant called 'Slipaway' located on a sort of pier and watched the sunset while sipping beer ('Tusker' beer from Kenya, winner of 15 gold medals and the best beer I have tasted yet). The area in which the restaurant is located is on a sort of land strip with a bay on one side and the Arabian Sea on the other. With a few restaurants and a couple of hotels scattered around the place, it seems to be a popular getaway.

One of our customers were supposed to take us out for dinner, but he phoned at 7.00 pm and said that he and his family had to attend a funeral! I don't know how such a thing could come upon them suddenly, sort of. Anyway, he was sending his son's close friend, Mr Kenil, to take us out for dinner. Mr Kenil arrived at 8.00 pm and we drove out of the Sheraton. We asked what he does for a living and he said he was the manager in an Indian restaurant called 'The Alcove', where he was taking us for dinner. We had had lunch there a few hours ago! We said no scene, we wanted to go to Hotel Sea Cliff (which is on the same peninsula where Slipaway is located). He was taken aback but promptly agreed. This hotel has a restaurant right on the sea with the wind blowing like anything (I had my new jacket on thank God!). The whole gathering of guests (jam-packed mind you) seemed to be totally white, except for us pore blacks. There was a Mr Mark belting out old numbers like 'Fernando' and people were generally freaking out. I saw quite a few thin-strap-gown-clad ladies wishing they had worn their fur-coats instead! It was practically like a gora club. We had fish-and-chips and beer. In spite of the crowd, quite a nice environ.

Talking to Kenil, we learnt that Tanganaika was a German colony at one time. Cannot make out much German (or Dutch) influence yet.

Dar es Salaam: 25.08.2000

Another working day. After lunch at the Alcove, where we found Kenil presiding, I bought some T-shirts and knick-knacks from the pavement outside. For the T-shirts, two vendors bargained between themselves and reduced prices to half!.

One of our major customers took us out in the evening, first to Slipaway again for a beer, then to Barbecue Village, an outdoor Indian joint, for dinner. Being Friday, it was fairly crowded -- almost like a wedding feast -- with children running around the paths and and slides, generally raising hell. It took us around 45 mins to get served, but food was excellent. I had a 'lobster thermidor' with chips. The lobster, shelled and deep in sauce, was served in a large oyster-shell! Mr Naushad's family had lived there for over 100 years, when Dar was just a small port with deep jungle all around, infested with wildlife. Now wildlife is found only in national parks.

Arusha: 26.08.2000

We had an early-morning flight from Dar to Kilimanjaro and landed at 7.30 am. Arusha was a 30 min drive. We had managed to obtain bookings in New Arusha Hotel (with the help of our customer Mr Ashiq Nanabhai) for only one day and night. Because of the Burundi peace agreement meeting on 28/8 to which many African heads of state including Mandela as well as Clinton were coming, availability of rooms was next to impossible. Tomorrow, being Sunday, we will go to visit the Tarangire National Park and spend the night at a lodge and come back on 28/8 to catch our afternoon flight.
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The reason why an international event, to broker a peace agreement between the warring factions of the tribes Hutus and Tutsis in Burundi, is being held in Arusha in Tanzania is that Arusha has been appointed an international peace court for this region (The Hague is the original place). But it seems whatever are the peace terms they are going to impose on Burundi, they are not going to be happy about it and more violence will follow the meeting.
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Arusha is the safari centre of Tanzania. Some of the parks like Serengeti can, of course, be accessed from Kenya as well. Basically there are five parks that people visit in Tanzania -- Arusha, Tarangire, Manyara, Ngorongoro and Serengeti (Serengeti is called Masi Mara as it crosses into Kenya). Arusha park is the smallest and closest. The most impressive are Ngorongo and Serengeti. Ngorongoro is actually an extinct volcanic crater which is a natural wildlife sanctuary including tribes living there. At first we thought we will go there, but it is a 5-hour drive over very rough roads -- very difficult to visit and return the same day. Serengeti, the other famous park, with mile after mile of rolling grasslands, is even farther away. So Mr Ashiq made arrangements for visiting Tarangire, where a lot of wildlife migration is going on right now and viewing animals will be easy..

Today evening he took us to the Gymkhana Club for drinks followed by dinner in an Indian restaurant. The Gymkhana Club seems to be majorly hung up on golf with the names of members who have won in championships put up on plaques. We had the local "Kilimajaro" beer, which is also quite good. The Indian restaurant was an open-air one, and they put ovens near us to help us keep warm!

Arusha: 27.08.2000

Today's highlight was our visit to Tarangire Park.

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As I said earlier, our customer Mr Ashiq had suggested Tarangire as it was easier to reach. The other parks Manyara, Ngorongoro and Serengeti have to be reached after travelling on rough roads for more than 3 hours (in case of Ngorongoro). Tarangire is easier to reach from Arusha and this Aug-Oct is said to be season time since the animals migrate to Tarangire in order to drink from the Tarangire river which runs through the park.
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Mr Ashiq and his friend Mr Rajesh picked us up in a safari Land Rover (driven by a safari guide) around 10.30 am from the New Arusha Hotel, from where we checked out at that time itself. We will spend the night at a lodge outside town. We drove there first and dropped our luggage. Mr Ashiq had packed a picnic lunch but -- we still had to buy beer!

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We spent the next 45 mins in Arusha itself hunting for beer. Finally we headed out and bought beer along the way at a small 'snake park'.
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Yesterday, incidentally, we had visited a few places that I forgot to mention. One was this 'snake park' that had around 20 varieties of snakes and alligators/crocs found in Africa. We had also visited two very big souvenir/artefact shops. One of them, called the 'Cultural Heritage', had an especially good collection of wood-carved figures in ebony as well as other knick-knacks, but the pricing was clearly aimed at the rich-rich gora tourist! But definitely a place worth seeing. The owner had even put up artificial masai village models with clay figures doing various activities.........

We reached the entrance to the park around 12.30 pm. Our hosts purchased the entry tickets, telling us to strictly remain out of sight and not to open our mouths. This was because tickets for local Tanzanians (like them) were only $1.50, whereas for foreign tourists (like us), they were $20.00. We entered the park and drove along the narrow winding safari paths beaten out of so many wheels. The vegetation inside is typically African of course, this being a natural ecology -- wide plains, either bare or covered with foot-high yellow grass, dotted with shrubs. In places a few tall trees and an occasional baobab (the famous tree of Africa) would pop out of the landscape. Visibility was very good.

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On entering the park, the driver had raised a portion of the roof, which swings up as a horizontal section supported by pipes. We're supposed to stand inside with our heads sticking out, look around and take pictures. I'd just stood up and taken a look out when the piece of roof above suddenly crashed down onto my head! Possibly it was not fixed properly. It felt like an elephant had dropped on me from a baobab tree! Luckily the piece was padded and didn't hurt my head, but my neck and back had caught the strain terribly. During the day, the pain gradually went down, but I'm sure I'll not be able to turn my head tomorrow morning.
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However, the action started immediately. One wart-hog crossed our path and stood looking at us. A hundred yards down, we saw a large herd of wildebeeste, with a few zebras as well, walking across. Seeing our vehicle, they jumped away in both directions, raising a cloud of dust. Some distance down the slope, by the Tarangire river, we saw a few elephants, but they were too far away. We drove along some distance and saw a herd of zebras crossing our path. A group of antelopes were gambolling about. Suddenly one aggressive male started chasing away all the other males, wanting to keep the whole female herd to itself. We were able to take photos of all these. We had just about seen giraffes and elephants far away when we reached the picnic spot, which is actually at the edge of a high cliff that overlooks a large stretch of riverbank below. A large number of safari vehicles had already parked there, having lunch and taking pictures of the scene below. We also took out our lunch-basket and finished our picnic lunch. There were a large number of monkeys and baboons around and one of them actually came up to us and snatched food from one of our plates.

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In the sceneray below we could see two herds of elephants, perhaps ten in number, resting and feeding. The safari trail passes close to them and a couple of vehicles had reached there and parked close to them, photographing the animals. A couple of tuskers suddenly started a mild fight between them and started moving towards the jeep, which backed away slowly. After one of the elephants gave up, the other one turned its attention to the jeep, flapping its ears and trumpeting. Luckily, after some time it got bored of the fun and moved off.

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We finished our picnic lunch and carried on down the winding safari trail. We came down to the thin river snaking through the valley, which was very green at the bottom (Incidentally, the Tarangire Park is located in the Rift Valley and the same valley apparently carries on through Africa and finally becomes the Red Sea). This Tarangire river is never dry, which is why, as dry season starts (which is now), animals migrate into Tarangire and it is full season time for visitors as well..

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As we crossed the river on to the other bank, we came upon the herd of elephants we had seen from above. There were tuskers, females and baby elephants generally standing around. We also found a couple of lone ones feeding (Later in the trail, we found more elephants that crossed the path very close to us). We carried on further, looking out over the top of the vehicle and jolting and swinging with the trail's undulations, when we almost ran into three giraffes feeding. They halted and literally looked down their noses at us. One of them had very dark patches instead of the normal brown ones and we were told by the guide that this was a 'masai giraffe', only found in Tarangire..

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We travelled in the park for another hour and saw more herds of zebras and antelopes, as well as three water bucks. We also saw a very small deer, said to be fully-grown, with some local name I forgot. We also saw birds like the guiniea-fowl and hornbills, plus a number of bright blue birds I couldn't recognise. We also saw an ostrich grazing.
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In the last half hour, we were driving slowly along a portion of the park where, we had been told when entering the park, a lioness had been seen today -- that too on a tree! As it is lions and lionesses are a rare sight in Tarangire apparently. They are found in much larger numbers in Serengeti, and to a ceratin extent Ngorongoro. But only in Tarangire could the rare climbing lioness be found. Over half-an-hour we had no luck, and had all but given up hope when our guide stopped the car and simply said: "Simba." To the right, around 30 yards away, a lioness sat on a rock. It took us some time to spot her, so well did she blend with the bushes. We anyway took a long-shot photograph and moved on, planning to come back in ten minutes to see if she came any closer. Around 100 yards down the trail, Ashiq pointed out a tree with a sloping tree-trunk just beside the trail and said that a lioness will find it easy to climb such a tree. However, the tree was empty and we drove on for ten more minutes, took a turn and came back. When we were passing the tree again, our guide once again said:"Simba." And there, standing on a branch at a distance of only 20 ft from us, was her royal majesty!

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She looked at us gravely for some time, then changed branches and lay down with two hind legs and her tail hanging in mid-air. She gave us a photo-session for around 10 mins, after which we said goodbye to her and drove off. Ashiq and Rajesh said this was the first time they had seen a lion or a lioness in Tarangire, let alone on a tree! Beginner's luck for us, I'm sure.

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We left the park after this, having seen everything except the jaguar (there are no rhinos in Tarangire). It was an exceptionally fruitful safari for Tarangire and I'd used up two rolls of film! Back in Arusha, we had tea at Ashiq's house, caught up on e-mail (Panna's father had suffered a stroke. He was a bit better, but she must be in tension), took a bath at the lodge and went out for some beer. We went to a place which was a small room with a bar and a Dev Anand film was running on Sony TV. Only Asian crowd in the place and people seemed to be determined drinkers on a Sunday. We met a few gemstone dealers (Tanzania is a major exporter of precious and semi-precious stones; a blue Tanzanite stone is found only near Arusha). Everyone seemed to know everybody and our Ashiq seemed to be quite the local dada. At around 11.00 pm, we went for dinner at 'chicken-on-a-bonnet' -- nothing but Mumbai's 'Bare Miya', ie half-chickens on open grills by the roadside with naan and salad. It was quite cold and the ovens were a welcome relief!.

We were dropped at the 'Moviara Coffee Plantation and Lodge' at midnight and groped our way to Cottage 12. The premises were so deadly quiet that it took me over an hour to fall asleep. Easwar's snoring didn't help.

Mwanza: 28.08.2000

Today is Panna's birthday. I had tried calling her from Arusha with no luck. In the morning, the lodge premises looked very beautiful, ideal for European holiday-makers (the bathings stalls had only curtains!).

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We were picked up at 9.30 and went to our customer's office. On the way we could see roads thronged by security people and schoolchildren in uniform, all waiting to say "Karibu" to Clinton and Mandela in particular. In one more hour, road blocks would start.
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From Ashiq's office we discovered that our Mwanza flight has been preponed to 12.30 pm instead of 4.00 pm and we had to leave almost immediately. On the way, we had to stop 3-4 times to allow arriving heads of state to pass by to the city. We caught our flight with only minutes to spare.
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Mwanza, where we landed around 1.30 pm, lies just beside Lake Victoria, said to be the second-largest lake in the world and lying in the countries of Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. To reach Mwanza from Arusha, we in fact flew over Manyara, Ngorongoro and Serengeti. Serengeti is just 2 hours from Mwanza. Our customer Bakir said only yesterday he had been hunting in Serengeti and bagged some nine animals (antelopes, waterbucks and wildebeeste). Tomorrow some friends were going hunting on a full-day trip. Did we want to join them? We were sorely tempted, but tomorrow being the only proper working day available to us in Mwanza, regetfully declined. Conscience can be a terrible thing!
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Mwanza is a mining town, not a tourist town at all. It is quite dusty, since apart from a few streets in the centre of the town, all the other roads are ungraded rough roads. A small town with very few places to go to or see, most of which we managed to see in the afternoon. Took a few shots of the sunset on the lake as well. Bakir treated me to a roadside preparation 'mishkake' prepared by Africans that are beef meatballs and fatballs in a super-tasty gravy which is very low on masala. Poor fellow Bakir was practically at a loss as to how to entertain guys who refused to go hunting deer!......

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I asked him whether Mwanza was a safe city so he related how one morning he opened his roadside window and found blacks beating up an Asian on the opposite footpath. Nobody was coming to help - "So I took out my gun and went bang, bang at them and they ran away." Bakir owns two hunting rifles and a pistol ("for safety at night") and is going to buy a Magnum 375 for buffalo. He's only 28, mind you!
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We had dinner at a lakeside restaurant. We had returned to the hotel for an hour or so in the interim. Bakir is a staunch Muslim and in a roundabout way he had told us that he cannot even sit at a table with drinkers. We had taken the hint and before going out for dinner, had polished off a couple of pegs of Bacardi rum that I had been lugging around since Dubai. Consequently, the magical atmosphere of the seaside restaurant Sea Rock had been infinitely enhanced! Bakir diffidently suggested that we can try 'ogale' and curry, which is the standard afternoon meal for Africans in Tanzania. Ogale is made out of millet, heavily boiled and drained, so that it becomes a solid lump like supertight halwa without oil. It can be pinched or cut into small pieces, dipped in curry, which is a tasty gravy with or without solid meat inside, and eaten. The Africans roll a small ball, make a hole with their thumb, dip it in curry and eat it one morsel at a time. It was quite palatable with a tasty chicken curry, actually. Bakir said that when in the bush, he prefers this ogale, whereas his African friends prefer rice!......

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Bakir's family is very rich and he personally is very fond of hunting. He had bought one Land Cruiser pick-up and converted it to an open hunting car, which he says is the only one in Mwanza. Otherwise they normally shoot through windows which is difficult, he says, because you can view only one side. In a chase, especially, an open car is the only way. He buys permits for hunting only soft game, i.e. antelopes, deer etc. He has not hunted a buffalo since he doesn't have a gun yet. But buffalo is dangerous, he says, since, if you do not kill him with the first shot, "his blood becomes hot and he cannot feel any other shot. He will charge like a blind man." But even hunting deer can be thrilling if, like in the earlier days, you chase the deer. Nowadays, "too much deer". You can park close by and pow, pow -- two are down. There is one mad friend of his with a Nissan Patrol, who still chases antelopes at 120 kmph over rough grounds of Serengeti and will not shoot till he is at 10 ft distance. If the game turns, he will also take that turn at 120 speed, almost throwing everyone out.

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What do you do with the killed animals, I asked him. He said they strip the carcass on the ground, throw away the intestines and cut the body into 5 pieces -- four legs and chest. Then they put it into a gunny-bag ("your Toyota gunny-bag!"), and stow it at the back and go for the next animal. The Africans also take the heart and the tongue ("which they say is very sweet -- I don't know."). If they are staying overnight in the open, they cook some of the game meat, although they always carry some food in case no game is shot that day. "It's great fun," he said. "We don't sleep the whole night. Just sit and joke and come back in the morning at 10.00 am." This time, that is after the hunting two days ago, he'd asked one of his friends working in a fishery factory to pack the game meat into insulated packets. We found him distributing them to friends all over town. He offered us as well, but since we had a flight route with two changes and long breaks, we declined, being sure they will spoil.

Mwanza: 29.08.2000

Today was mostly a working day. The hotel where we are staying has a restaurant where the Indian cooking is very good. In fact, in Mwanza there are a lot of Indians.

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I had asked Bakir, when he was talking of his hunting trips, how much does it cost for a safari into Serengati. He said that the fuel itself is around $100 per day, if hunting, so a normal drive, including car charges, will be around the same. Entry is $25 per head per day. If a lodge room for two is taken, it costs $100 in season, maybe $50 off-season. People who undertake a week's safari through Serengeti, Ngorongoro and Manyara into Arusha, end up spending around $1000 per head.

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We went to view the sunset from a plot of land Bakir has bought. The path up was very rough, but as we climbed to the top of the small hill, we saw beautiful houses with gorgeous views of the lake. There were huge boulders all around and we were told that they have to break a lot of boulders to get a flat foundation for a house. One unique villa has a boulder in the middle of the living room! The location is so good that the builder asks which room needs the lake sunrise view and which needs the lake sunset view!........

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Bakir took us to Hotel Tilapia for dinner (incidentally, 'tilapia' is a very typical sea-fish here, which we tried yesterday as fish-and-chips, but it did not seem like the Indian tilapia). This hotel has a Japanese restaurant and we were treated to a full ten-course meal! It was great cooking and was done right in front of us. In fact, the table is actually a massive hot-plate with 2-foot wooden extrusions on two sides on which diners are served food, course by course, with the chef telling with which of the sauces it is supposed to be eaten. In fact, we took a break after 5 courses then continued again, ending after one hour of eating. Bakir said usually they eat for over two hours, with 3-4 breaks and so there is no overloading. The dishes were as follows and they are charged to you whether you eat them or not:.

1. Salad
2. Potato pancake (with onion sauce please)
3. Fried prawn (with soya sauce please)
4. Fish fillet (with peanut sauce please)
5. Diced chicken (--do--)
6. Fried beef (--do--)
7. Fried rice
8. Fried vegetables (we didn't take)
9. Sweets (we didn't take)
10. Fruit salad

Since they are all cooked with very little oil they are not heavy at all. After dinner, Bakir took us on a ride over very rough roads, which settled our stomachs excellently.

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Tomorrow noon we fly off to Nairobi where we have to wait till midnight to catch our connection to Dubai. At Dubai, we sleep on chairs till 8.00 am on 31st to catch our Muscat flight. No further exciting things are in the offing, I suppose, so here I end my diary for this tour.

LINK TO TANZANIA ALBUM

ETHIOPIA - Addis Ababa (2000)

Addis Ababa: 20.08.2000

Ethiopia - the land of kings.

It took us 27 hours to reach here from Muscat, with a break in Dubai. The Dubai break did not turn out as expected, though. As we landed at 10.00 pm at Dubai, Ethiopian Airline staff were supposed to meet us and arrange a transit visa for staying at a hotel at their cost. But till 11.30 pm there was no sign of those chappies.So we spent the night at the airport hotel (which is inside the airport) and caught the 8.00 am morning flight to Addis.

The new Dubai airport building is really something. Escalators and walkways take care of the physical strain to a great degree. But the departure 'space' (it's hardly a 'lounge' or an 'area') now has a full floor of duty-free shops, one floor of departure gates (some 24 of them) with a big food court, and two floors of 5-star hotel rooms. It cost us $100 to take a room for 6 hours. However, it is an extremely friendly place and there is no 'tension' of immigration and customs. It's a world-class airport really.

We have booked into the Sheraton at Addis, which is a 7-star. It's a massive beautiful hotel. We had lunch at the Indian restaurant and the cooking was very good...........

Addis weather now is like that of a hill station -- below 20 degC and drizzling on and off -- lovely! We had coffee by the poolside in the evening. It was quite chilly and the hot coffee (2 cups) was extremely welcome. Ethiopia is famous for its black coffee and it will be worthwhile taking home a few packets.

We had dinner with a customer, Samuel, at a Chinese joint. Most Ethiopians speak good English and are quite well-educated. Addis has high schools (Community, British, American and Canadian) as well as engineering colleges and medical colleges although good students try and go abroad for study. "Indian education is also cheap and good", said Samuel.

Ethiopians are quite a good-looking race. They have sharp features, are lighter-skinned and mostly have straighter hair. Many ladies look quite Indian. This being a Sunday, the restaurants at the Sheraton were quite well-attended. Quite trendy in dress too -- although minis were limited, I think, because the weather did not co-operate!

Most of the population here are Christians. Incidentally, they follow a different calendar. The year 2001 will start for them on 10th Sep. Samuel said Christ was supposed to have been born in 7 AD and they reset their clocks accordingly. Their Christmas is on 12th Jan!

A very safe city too, it seems. There is a very big 'souq' where good bargains can be had.

The local language is called 'amharic' and has some similarities with Italian or Greek (Mr Samuel is not sure which, but I don't know how one can confuse the two). Ethiopia was an Italian colony I believe, so Italian is more likely.

Addis Ababa: 21.08.2000

The morning dawned bright and sunny, which was good for us as we had to walk around quite a bit today. I'm told that the maximum temperature is summer in Addis is only 25 degC! We saw a bit of the city roads and buildings today, but for a capital city, Addis did not impress heavily. There's one six-lane highway but most of the other roads are fairly narrow. Open drains and dug-up dirt spoil the looks of a city which would have been quite pleasant-looking otherwise. Very few tourists come to Addis in fact and beautification has obviously taken a back seat.

However, the plus point of this land is its people. They are polite and friendly and in most part educated enough to speak English well. Crime rate is also far lower than other African countries like Kenya and Nigeria. By the same token, they are less hard-headed as businessmen.

We had taken a cab while coming back to the hotel for lunch. The cab-driver was an elderly man (like an old Eddy Murphy). I suddenly noticed that he had a book on the dashboard that he had pagemarked and put away when we got on. The title was "In Search of Excellence". Many management graduates have not read the book, I'm sure! He said he's just finished "Long Walk to Freedom" by Mandela. "A very inspiring book", he said. "His life is like that of Gandhi -- dedicated to others." Hearing we were from India, he said he had spent about 10 weeks there in 1983 and had visited Madras, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Thirrupoor, Ahmedabad and some more places he'd forgotten. On holiday? "Goodness no," he said. "I was part of a team of four invited by the Khadi Commission to study weaving technology in India and help transfer it here." We reached our hotel before we could learn more about this off-beat cab-driver.

Today in the hurry-burry of getting ready, we had missed breakfast and passed the morning having lemon tea and 'makiato' in succession. Makiato is 2 spoons of sugar topped with 1/2 cup of milk and finished with 1cm of coffee -- unstirred. We'd done a fair bit of walking. Crossing the streets took a lot of dodging as traffic rules were altogether absent. The vehicles, all ancient, also have scant regard for paintwork. The taxis were very old Ladas and Fiats -- I've never ridden, even in India, vehicles which were rattlebones to such a degree.

One of our customers, Zarihoun, took us to dinner at a restaurant that specialises in fish. We had for company his fiancee Tighist and friend Efram. The fishes were fairly big fresh-water fish grilled a-la-Mahesh style. But the main meal was something called 'Injera', a typical Ethiopian dish, like a very big flat 'aapam' of Kerala, more sour in taste as the mix is kept aside for 4 days, and served chilled with lots of toppings of lentils, potatos, chutneys, saag and so on. The guests share the same dish. Today the toppings were vegetarian since our hosts were on fast. During the fast period of 2 weeks, they can take only fish in the non-veg category! The injera is made out of a cereal called 'thef' (similar to millet) which grows only in Ethiopia and in some parts of Russia.

Addis Ababa: 22.08.2000

Today Zarihoun and Efram took us to the 'markato',which is nothing but a massive sprawling marketplace, said to be the biggest in Africa. It's a mixture of Gariahat and Burrabazaar -- small lanes, rows and rows of small shops, people milling around just passing time and beggars in all shapes and sizes. Apart from seeing the place, we both bought jackets to combat the cold in our last evening here as well as in upcoming Tanzania. A lot of negotiation brought the price down from Birr 320 to Birr 180 each -- and our two local friends were no help in the bargaining.

Ethiopia seemed to be a cheap country in general (It is also a rich, poorly-managed, and consequently an extremely poor country). We had breakfast in the morning at a small "Cafe and Pastry Shop" and a breakfast of scrambled eggs, buns and makiato cost only 6-7 Birrs. Share taxis charge 1 Birr ($0.12), buses 25 cents, petrol costs 4 Birrs per litre ($0.50 or RO 0.200 - only double of Oman). But as usual, there is a lot of unemployment and begging with children in arms is a common sight. And it is a big country with a population of 60 million people.

We were driving to a church as a sight to see. Yesterday their fast had ended and today there was to be a special ceremony at this church of the Virgin Mary. The church was built a little into the mountains at the edge of town and a narrow winding road, on which two cars could barely cross each other, led up to it. A continuous stream of people were walking slowly up the sloping winding road. The crowded sky with the dark green mountainous slopes provided a dramatic backdrop for the figures of Ethiopian ladies dressed in colourful long skirts with a thin cotton white cloth wrapped around the head and upper body. Outside the church, it was a virtual fairground with cars parked all around the place and rows of sellers displaying thin yellow candlesticks for offering to the Virgin Mother. The church was like a pagoda with a verandah all around and inspite of the crowd, there was absolutely no loud noises. The mood was terribly sad and sombre, with only a drone of people mumbling their personal prayers with their heads touching the ground or the church wall. Occasionally there was a sound of sobbing as some poor lady unburdened her sorrows and disappointments. It was more like a temple, with everyone in communion with their personal Gods..........

On the way back Zarihoun pointed out various structures of interest like the Pope's residence ("Does he have time to come here?" I asked amazed. "No,no! Ethiopia's Pope", replied Zarihoun), the Supreme Court, University, and two towers called "4 kilos" and "6 kilos" to celebrate defeating the Italians, who had occupied the area which has now seceded to Eritrea, and tried to occupy the rest of Ethiopia a number of times ("Eleven times", said Zarihoun."But we threw them back across the sea to their Italy!"). But the architecture is unarguably in Italian style and their language has some Italian influence.

Tomorrow we travel to Tanzania and expect to reach Dar-es-Salaam at night.

LINK TO ETHIOPIA ALBUM

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MAURITIUS - Port Louis/Blue Bay (2000)

Port Louis: 7.03.2000

We landed here at 3.00 pm, the timing here and Oman/Dubai being the same. It's 4 hours flying time from Jo'burg. We obtained visa on arrival and booked the best hotel in Port Louis, which is the capital, for one day right at the airport itself.

Port Louis is "right across" the island from the airport, but our taxi crossed over in 50 mins flat. The hotel is on the waterfront, with a backyard restaurant that has tables scattered all around the water's edge. the waterfront is lined by shops and various restaurants, including Indian and Chinese.

We had decided to spend 2-3 days at this hotel first because the business district was all at Port Louis, after which we could think of shifting to a beach-side hotel. We were trying to find out where the auto shops are. Nobody in the hotel knew, but the town is so small that we decided we could walk around and find them! We took a map and walked around for 2 hours and covered a third of the town practically. There is a casino bang opposite our hotel, so we tried our luck at the slot machines. I lost 200 Mauritian rupees ($8) and Manihar won 200!............

We liked the town immensely. Mauritius is a French town and like other French Dominion cities I have seen, viz. Libreville and Abidjan, the place was clean and smart, the people very friendly, the pace quite laid back and the streets much much safer than Jo'burg. We were walking around in deserted streets and did not feel half as nervous as we had felt in the Carlton Centre in Jo'burg in the midst of a crowd of blacks.

There are a lot of people of Indian origin here. The driver who drove us to the hotel spoke a bit of Hindi. For snack while walking around, we had a couple of masala dosas with sambar and coconut chutney, no less authentic than Awal in Muscat!

Port Louis: 8.03.2000

This was working day here for us, meeting prospective customers. One of them took us for lunch to the best Indian restaurant in town, called the "Curry Poule", meaning curry leaves! Food was excellent (There is another joint called "Kela Patta").

Here offices and shops close at 4.00 pm. What a place man! We walked around a bit after lunch. The shops are fairly well spread-out and all major brands are here. Among Indian companies, Maruti and Tata have outlets, and we saw Bank of Baroda, LIC and New India Assurance buildings. The economy of Mauritius stands on sugar cane, tourism and textiles. They make a lot of clothing for big brands and Mauritius-made clothing is quite cheap. We paid a visit to the general bazaar which, apart from vegetables and fish, has a lot of clothing and tourist souvenirs in general. We bought a few odds and ends.

More than half the Mauritians here are of Indian origin. They are mostly Muslims. There are some Pakistani Muslims here as well. But the current generation (most of them are here for 3 generations) do not know which part of India they are from, and they speak very little Hindi. At home, it is usually French or Creole, the local language (Creole is a mixture of French and Bhojpuri!). However, Hindi movies are very popular here and the ratings of Shah Rukh and Aishwariya are especially high! Currently, in a movie complex next to the hotel, 'Pukar', 'Badal', 'Kaho na Pyar Hai' etc are running. Must be subtitled in French.

Apart from Indians, a lot of Chinese folk live here, who have also been around for 3 generations. There is a proper Chinatown as well.

We had walked around a lot today and I had a chilled beer sitting on the waterfront -- superb! They have cruise for tourists (maybe 2 hours) from the port and I saw the cruise boat come in. In the evening we spent some time at the casino again. There must be at least 50 slot machines in the place, with a BMW prize for the jackpot. Plus there are other gaming tables on the top floor.

Port Louis: 9.03.2000

Today was another working day. Our Chinese client again took us out for lunch. Although we may not do much business with him, he seems to be quite sold on to us. Manihar is very good at building relationships within a short span of time. This client had taken up golf about a year ago and is quite hooked to the game. Gets up at 5.00 am on a working day to put in a round of golf. He wanted to take us to his club for dinner but could not fit it in ultimately.

We had dinner at 'Tandoori Express' today, again on the waterfront. Atal Behari Vajpayee is arriving here on the 12th, to celebrate Mauritian independence day on the 15th. The Indian delegation (around 60-70 people) had already arrived and was having a party-cum-dinner at an adjoining restaurant. Free Mauritius trip for them.

Tomorrow we shall check out of this hotel and shift to some beach-side hotel near the airport. Still looking for a suitable one. Luckily for us, the weather has been sunny till now -- otherwise Dec-Apr is supposedly hurricane season here.

During this trip, the availability of e-mail facilities at the hotel and close by had helped greatly in communicating with home. It's a far cheaper mode and sending a quick mail at the end of the day is easy.

Blue Bay: 10.03.2000

Today we shifted from Hotel Labourdonnais in Port Louis on the west coast to Hotel Le Criox du Sud on the east coast. The objective was to shift to a beach hotel not too far from the airport as we had to catch a 9.00 am flight on the 12th.

On the way, while crossing the island, we stopped at a lake called the Gran Bassin (also called 'Ganga Talaab'). It is supposed to be the crater of an extinct volcano. There are 3-4 temples here, the main one being Shiva's. The lake is in the middle of nowhere, but is a very major venue during Shivratri. This time, it was on the 4th Feb. Even Indians from other neighbouring African countries land up in order to undertake this journey to the lake temple. A number of them do so on foot and it is a goodish trek. This time, the purohit said, there were 4500-5000 visitors!

We reached Le Croix du Sud (which means The Southern Cross), around 4.30 pm. The bay on which this hotel is located is called the Blue Bay. The hotel as such was very exotic, with rooms like cottages, in some cases with a room on top (a bit like our stay at the Mahabs resort). Right behind the back porch of the room, there's a bit of lawn and then a private beach. The public beaches in the north-west corner of the island stretch for long distances.

The sea is beautiful in Mauritius.

It's transparent aquamarine in colour, with the shades changing as it stretches to the horizon. The water is as clear as in an aquarium. Moreover, in most beaches here, the water is quite shallow (waist deep) for quite some distance into the sea -- so it's very safe to swim in. The beach sand is very white and coarse (like muesli!). Apart from general bathing, this hotel has free facilities for water-surfing, surf-sailing and scuba-diving, but today it was too late to try any of it. Manihar had a dip in the sea. Then we went for a walk on the road for 4-5 km to generate some appetite...........

By the time we were ready to turn back, it was already evening and darkness had fallen. But there was enough light in the sky to illuminate the small lagoons by the road with little boats bobbing up and down. Clouds had gathered and there was a stiff wind blowing. Between the village we had walked to and our hotel, there were only some passing cars for company. It was a great scene, as if from Wuthering Heights, dark and brooding, especially on top of the beer I had downed while walking!

We had an early dinner. The tariff of this hotel is 'half-board', that is including breakfast and one meal (usually dinner). We had found out before arriving that the hotel arranges a 'catamaran cruise' to a very beautiful island (L'Ile aux Cerfs) for a charge of around 1300 Mauritian rupees. Manihar could organise a reasonable rate from the hotel so that it became affordable for us. We booked ourselves for tomorrow's cruise, starting at 9.30 am.

At this hotel, I think we two were one of the very few 'non-goras' around. Apart from holiday-makers, there were a lot of transit passengers constantly flowing through. Anyway, dinner was a pukka European affair, with a starter of egg-plant with mince meat, followed by the main course of fish-and-rice. There was a dessert of pudding, mix-fruit salad, and cream-topped cherries.

Blue Bay: 11.03.2000

It was a beautiful and thoroughly enjoyable day!

We boarded the catamaran at 9.30 am from a small jetty on the beach. The catamaran is actually two long floats fitted with a platform on which a cabin is mounted. It's fitted with sails but also has outboard motors. It's a very stable craft and ideal for tourist trips in peaceful waters...........

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There were around 20-25 people on board. They were mostly elderly, vacationing gora couples, a Malayasian couple and a dark lady travelling with a gora. There were also three young girls who contributed to lowering the average age considerably!

It is a fact that most Europeans, or even Americans for that matter, find enough savings available to spend on travel only after they are 50 years of age. We had with us an old French lady from Nice who was 60, but bubbling with life. She sort of declared us to be her guardians for the trip, "in case she got lost".

The Guest Relations Officer had warned us that some sun-screen lotion protection may be needed. But we found that the hotel shop charges almost 600 Mauritian rupees for it and we propmtly decided to suffer from sun-burns instead. All the goras in the catamaran were applying it liberally.Of course, their objective is to get tanned, so clothing is as little as possible, whereas we kept our T-shirts on to avoid further blackness!

One thing is true of most goras in water spots -- whatever their size or shape, they will wear a swimsuit, to hell with everybody else. To be fair, they also try to maintain their bodies as far as possible, but even when impossible -- no problem, man!..........

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It was a sunny day, and the greenish-blue water was sparkling for miles around. A few speed-boats went by sometimes on a cruise, raising a thick white wake -- otherwise the twin white trails of the catamaran were the only whites in the sea. The waves close to the shore (our boat was hugging the coastline) were hardly breaking and it was only deep into the distant sea that we could see breakers in a long white line. There was a stiff breeze blowing and after chugging out for half-an-hour or so, the skipper put up the mainsail and cut the engines. Then it was only the slap of waves on the hull and an occasional wind-flutter from the sail-top. (Do view the album through link at bottom of post)

Drinks were being handed around and a couple of beers had made me more appreciative of my surroundings. One of the crew-members brought out a guitar and sang some popular numbers (like "Blowing in the wind") and people became a bit more animated. The Malayasian was especially into it and was clapping away to the beat.

After around an hour or so, we came to a narrow canal flowing in between the heavily-wooded coast. Here the catamaran stopped and we disembarked into a small motorboat that navigated further through jutting rocks and went almost to the foot of a thick waterfall! The view was excellent -- I hope the photos convey at least part of the grandeur of the scenes. They can never reproduce the fine mist of spray hanging in the air...........

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By the time we came back to the catamaran, lunch was ready and the smell of fish being barbecued reached us. We had a pleasant lunch of fish, pulao, potatos, salad and pudding, washed down with white wine (all food and drink was part of the cruise charges).

We reached the island, L'Ile aux Cerfs, by 12.45 and were told to return to the same jetty by 2.15. While cruising in, we had already seen people water-skiing, parasailing and pedal-boating. Even as far as a couple of hundred yards from the shore, the water was only waist-deep. Still, some places had been marked off-limits because of strong currents.

The island was not very big. As soon as we got down, we took a walk on the beach around the island to find a good spot. We went around a quarter of the island in about 15 mins. The beaches were very nice, pearly white, bounded by green casuarina trees on one side and a wonderful stretch of aquamarine on the other. Today being Saturday, the inflow of people was quite high. We walked a little to find a less crowded beach...........

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All the water-sports here cost a lot, so we simply borrowed a couple of snorkeling masks from the catamaran and tried snorkeling at shallow depths. It's a bit difficult to master the technique of breathing through a tube held in your mouth. I kept opening my lips and swallowing water! Anyway, it was good fun. Since I couldn't wear my glasses while snorkeling, and since there were a lot of things (including topless beauties) to be seen on the beach and in the water, I stopped my futile efforts and put on my power-shades again!..........

Time passed very fast on the island and soon it was time to go back. We boarded the catamaran again at 2.30 pm and were back by 4.30 pm. Same routine (except the waterfall) on the way back, with the Malayasian whooping at rhythmic points in the song. We became quite friendly (he had travelled widely in Europe) and declared Indians and Chines to be "good friends". Japan and Korea were "no, not okay". There was some excellent rum-punch served on the way back. A memorable trip.

The catamaran had carried people staying in other hotels also. Our old French friend took our leave, after giving me her address in Nice (because we were "nice people"). Manihar wanted to try wind-surfing from the hotel facilities, but they said they give the boards only to experts. On this coast, the wind is very strong. On the west coast, however, the central mountain breaks this south sea wind and there is relative calm.

We took another walk in the evening and had our dinner. We leave Muritius tomorrow morning for Jo'burg, spend around 6 hours in town (mainly collecting some stuff from Hotel Sandton) and catch the overnight flight to Dubai. I'll catch a connecting flight to Muscat, hoping to reach home by 9.30 am on the 13th.

So here ends my account of my travels in South Africa and Mauritius.

LINK TO MAURITIUS ALBUM

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