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...........
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.
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.
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