FRANCE - Paris (2001)

Paris: 9.12.2001

We left Douala yesterday night after 12.30 am one hour late. Some technical problem with the plane. Our technical problem was that it was eating into our Paris transit time.
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On 3rd, on the way in to Douala, while transiting at Paris for a few hours, Ramesh and I had whiled away our time at the airport by looking at tourist maps of Paris and trying to work out whether our 'load' of visiting certain number of sites in Paris could be 'distributed' between the two transits we would make in Paris, once on 9th morning on the way to Niamey for 6 hours and once on 12th night on the way back home for around 5-6 waking hours. We had decided that we would see the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triumph on the 9th, both being close together, leaving Notre Dam, Bastille and the Louvre for the next transit. But our flight, instead of landing at 6.30 am, landed at 9.30 am at Paris, having stopped at Marseille for fuelling and correcting an engine problem. We sadly decided that it gave us too little time to go out -- 3 hours was too short, given possible traffic snarls in Paris.

We took our boarding cards and were about to pass through security when we discovered that our flight had been delayed by one hour! Delayed to allow us to go out? We made an about turn and worked our way out again through Immigration.

We had expected Paris to be cold in December but had not expected it to be 4 degC at 11.00 am! My friend Ramesh was wearing a T-shirt and said he had "another thick one, no worry." Before we could properly look around, one private taxi offered us a very good deal to see Eiffel and the Arc and come back to the airport, within 2 hours. He looked so Indian that finally I addressed a question to him in Hindi. He looked blank for a moment, then said: "Tamil teri maa?" I almost passed out. It turned out that Ratnam (his name) was from Sri Lanka and he and Ramesh kept on prattling away in Tamil after that.

We reached the Arc in 30 mins and spent some time taking pictures. It was bitterly cold and the tourists, considerable in number, were wrapped up like eskimos. I'd given the jacket to Ramesh and had put on a half-sleeve and a full-sleeve pullover together, which was okay for the body, but our hands and ears kept going numb every 5 mins.
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.We drove across to the Eiffel which was heavily crowded -- there was no chance of going up. It's massive all right, but from close up it seemed just like a steel structure -- not much romance in it. All the open spaces around were now inhabited and getting a full and clear view was well-nigh impossible. Anyway, standing bang below the Eiffel Tower and looking into the structure from inside was something I had never imagined I'd do, so it had its own thrill.........
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We spent a couple of minutes on the bridge on the Siene opposite the tower. Barges and pleasure-boats were plying on the river, carrying tourists aand families out on a Sunday. The river was bordered by avenues, now bare of trees, and was crossed time and again by bridges.
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.We drove back along another route, passing through the poshest section of Paris where buildings and whole apartments-floors were owned by tycoons -- Arab and otherwise. The French architecture had been retained in most areas and we passed through very narrow residential lanes which were reminiscent of Madrid. We would have loved to have stopped at one of the many roadside cafes and have some coffe, but time was not on our side, and our driver had to pick up another passenger, an American lady. So we drove through the streets of Paris, visually soaking up the sun-washed pavements and shop-fronts, Parisians strolling about on a late Sunday morning. Paris, the city of dreams .........
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We returned to the airport and waited another 2 hours for our flight to Niamey to depart. The initial planning to squeeze in Paris on the 9th itself, our disappointment at the delay, and the final good fortune of a cheap taxi and traffic-free streets that made our plan come true, had left an overall 'upper' feeling that refused to go away inspite of our tiredness.

Our flight landed at Niamey at 8.40 pm, an hour late. One of our customers had come to meet us and we drove to Sofitel through the lightly populated streets of a seemingly peaceful city.

Paris: 12-13.12.2001

Tired.

.Early rising the last two days at 5.00 am, coupled with only 4 hours of sleep last night has taken its toll. This is now the second-last leg the the 4-legged travel home from Niamey.
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We left Niamey yesterday at 7.00 am and flew to Casablanca, Morocco, on a transit stop of 4 hours before proceeding to Paris. How I wished we could just pop out for an hour for a peek at this historic town. The weather was cloudy and rainy, so the aerial view of the town was not very clear, but the countryside, changing gradually from barren rocks to the tilled fields jostling each other in patterened brown patches, gave the appearance of seasoned Moroccan leather, for which this region is said to be famous.

The official languages seemed to be Arabic and French, with the population mostly Muslims. The local people dress very much like Mauritanians, but there seemed to be a fairly high population of goras, which, of course, could be a temporary influx from Paris. The airport was quite posh, with the duty-free shops stocking the latest in electronics.

.Talking of Moroccan leather, after our faux pas at Niamey regarding the gloves, we thought we would be sure to get good leather gloves at the Casablanca airport. But there was no sign of any leather products whatsoever!

.Incidentally, travelling ex-Niamey is a problem in a few instances. At Casablanca, the person doing the final checks before we entered the flight had to scrutinise my passport for a long time since he could find no reference to my having arrived from Miami! I couldn't have imagined two places more apart in polarity!

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Our flight into Paris was delayed by 40-45 mins and we landed at 9.00 am. Given the short number of hours in Paris, we had honed our plans to split-second during the flight, going from Plan A to Plan B to Plan C in quick succession as each one failed (landing thump on its back) after a totally unexpected parameter exploded in our face, catching us unawares. I'd already mentioned about the 3-hour delay on the first transit. Here are a few more examples:

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Plan A: At Niamey, we'll check in our bags up to the destination, keeping only a small bag with essentials, so that we do not waste time going to hotel from airport, and can go straight to town to see night lights and illuminations.

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What happened: Niamey check-in counter refused to book my bags since there were too many transits. So we carried all our bags, had to go to the hotel first (went to the wrong hotel as well) and could take the airport bus to Arc de Triumph at only 11.00 pm (last bus), reaching there at 11.45 pm. The illumination ws available upto midnight ony, but while it was there, it was b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l. The streets were also decked up and literally 'lit up like a Christmas tree' in expectation of the occasion. All shops were closed, except restaurants, so gloves were still missing (airport shops had also closed at 9.00 pm), but I could buy a cap from a shop, which gave protection to the head at least. Otherwise on my upper body I had a vest, a full-sleeved T-shirt, a full-sleeved shirt, a short pullover and a full pullover. Below -- track-bottoms beneath jeans. On feet -- two pairs of socks. After we had partaken a dinner of pizza and espresso at a cafe, our body also gained the necessary warmth and a walk along chilly streets (Champ Elysees -- the main road leading to Arc de Triumph) was a very nice experience. Even with shops closed, the number of people walking on the streets at 1.00 am was amazingly high! There were bunches of people still walking into warm restaurants from the 0 degC weather outside, possibly fresh from a movie or the last 3-hour show of Lido, the most famous cabaret in town. At the cafe where we were having dinner, we could see a fair mixture of looks -- Caucasian, dark and Oriental..

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.The winter weather in Paris really emcourages people to dress it up. Standard of dressing seems very high - must cost a packet to keep up. We were feeling quite un-dressed in comparison!

After around half-an-hour of wandering and window-shopping for Christmas extravaganza, our enthusiasm also reached the level of the temperature and we caught a taxi to take us back. Taxi is quite costly and a 20-min ride back cost us FF 260 (around $40). In fact, for regular tourists, all-day train passes are available for just FF 150.

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Plan B: We went to sleep at 2.00 am. Next day we had to report at the check-in by 12.00 noon latest. The fact that Paris traffic was notoriously heavy at the best of times and susceptible to suddesn snarls, necessitated that we stooped sightseeing by 10.30 am latest and came back. We wanted to see the Bastille, Notre Dam, Louvre, Pantheon and whatever else came by the way. We also wanted to enetr the Louvre and go on top of the Eiffel tower, each of which could occupy well over an hour, and both of which opened only after 9.00 am. We took the hard decision of not enetering the Louvre. Moreover, we'd get up real early, like 5.00 am, reach airport by 6.00 am, reach city by coach by 7.00 am, see the Louvre and Bastille from outside by 8.00 am, reach Eiffel by 8.30 am, go up by 9.00 am when the counters opened, be down by 10.00 am, see some nearby sights by the Seine till 10.30 am, and start back. In fact, although an overnight stay on paper, we had precious little time.

.What happened: We ran a little late reaching the Opera (from where we'd walk to the Louvre) on account of heavy traffic. But that was not what was worrying us now. At 7.30 am, walking to the Louvre, we found it was still pitch-dark! Paris night was still going strong. We wandered outside a deserted and freezing Louvre, gazing up at an overcast sky, waiting for the doubtful dawn that would allow us to take pictures.

.Plan C: We planned no more. We hailed a cab (difficult in Paris actually), told the driver to take us to the Bastille, Pantheon and Notre Dam in any order he liked, then to drop ua back at the Louvre. Then we sat back and relaxed ..... The air was still cold but we were somewhat used to it by now. It was only when walking on the street with the stiff breeze snapping at us, that we realised that at 9.00 am, it was actually colder than at midnight! Taking photos was taking its own toll on numb fingers -- in fact, feeling the shutter was sometimes a problem. But now we saw all the sights in style, although there still wasn't enought ime to enter inside Louvre. Next time Insha Allah........

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Paris streets are really lovely sights. Very clean, of course. Most buildings still have that old-world look -- stone facades, big wooden doors, small wrought-iron balconies. In the Opera area, cafes stuck their awnings into the streets and some early breakfasters were at it, although sitting inddors in this weather. Some couples were warming their faces with a kiss and some old men were walking their dogs. And the traffic was heavy, heavy, heavy ..... Big powerful bikes and scooters with fancy stylings zoomed and weaved to the front and roller-skates and cyclists tried the same near the kerb. The sun broke through the clouds at around 10.00 am and some shops decided to open up........

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The city is also very well-oriented towards handling tourists. Even a casual visitor to the city will get enough literature at the airport itself to arm himself with information regarding things to see and how to reach them. There are coaches plying from the airport to 6-7 points in the city (what excellent coaches!) and their departure points from that huge Charles de Galle airport are defined with perfect accuracy. In fact, we were able to return from the city also by this coach which, though not free, is considerably cheaper than a taxi. There is train or metro also available with cheap day-passes. There are double-decker open-top buses doing a 40-point circular route, which will be the ideal thing in summer for the one-day visitor. The behaviour of the Frenchmen is also very cordial and helpful in matters of giving directions and the like. However, there is no doubt that it is a costly city to visit and to live in.......

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The rest of our journey back is going on schedule. The AF flight from Paris left an hour late, but since I have a connecting flight with a 3-hour gap, it is okay. I found myself sharing the seat number with an old man, so I changed my seat, but in the process, lost my AVML to him -- the guy ate it before anybody could realise the mix-up! So the stewardess made up a veg dinner 'specially for me' consisting of grapes, orange, kiwi, yoghurt (sour), boiled beans, boiled carrots, an alu-tikki and some leafy vegetables I couldn't identify. So I'm going home full of beans!

LINK TO PARIS ALBUM

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NIGER - Niamey (2002)

Niamey: 10.12.2002

We had scheduled two full days of work at Niamey. Since this is a predominantly Muslim country (unlike Cameroun, which is predominantly Christian), we had expected that during this restrictive month of Ramadan, we would need two days to do one day's work. At the end of the first day, we were wondering what to do tomorrow.
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Niger is a Sahara country, like Mauritania. Except for a bottom strip of greenery where the Niger river flows, the rest of the country is pure desert with the major part of the 10 million population nestling in the southern half. This was a French colony as well, with literacy and economic development at quite low levels. People do speak a little English. They are very peaceful, almost resigned, with not much of aggression that is visible in the other French colonies. It was after a long time that we felt safe walking in the evening in an African city.......
.The city is small and dusty, quite sandy at places, with the looks of a Deulti or Mecheda rail station in Bengal. Old second-hand cars rattle along the streets, adding layers of dust on the goods displayed in the shops alongside. There are no crowds and here, unlike in Cameroun, people are seen to be sitting around waiting for things to happen. There are beggars, mostly children.

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By 3.00 pm we had finished our total work, except for one guy who would be available only tomorrow. We had lunch at - hold your breath - a Chinese restaurant. We had had some apprehension that being Ramadan, eating joints would not be open, but such was apparently not the case. In any case, there are a lot of Nigerian businessmen in Niger as well, who are mostly Christians. But overall, the town was quite uninteresting and would have given Noukchott of Mauritania a run for its money in this aspect.......

.In the evening we took a walk, generally talked sitting by the pool, had an early dinner at the hotel of legume soup and sphagetti neopolitine, watched French TV for some time, read and decided to get up tomorrow as late as possible.
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How to spend another day, which meant 12-14 waking hours? We were quite worried actually.

Niamey: 11.12.2002

Today is a low-activity day. However, after a long gap I was able to do meditation in the morning. Too much of new experiences made concentration difficult but one must keep up the good work.

Before proceeding, let me just recount a Cameroun incident. In Douala, we visited our biggest customer Sylvester, a Nigerian settled in Cameroun, who was in the process of 'transfer', ie shifting to his own new house. He was living in a sort of Bombay chawl building, which is quite upper-middle class here, mind you. He now proudly took us to his new mansion, three-storeyed, with the ground floor dedicated to office and warehouse and the two floors above to residence. The taste of Africans in housing, as in most things, is very inconsistent. They go through a very difficult process actually. The basic need-level is really quite low. He is quite happy with rough wall-finishes and slanted tile-settings and aluminium tube-bars on the balcony instead of decorative grills. But since he wants to exhibit his aspirations, he collects opinions from people and his own memories of whatever has impressed him, and puts in wood-panelling on the ceiling of an otherwise concrete room, world-class tiles (brightly coloured), jazzy sofa-sets (some 20 in number), view-cams for security purposes and of course, three times the number of rooms ("with bath, see!") than his family needs. This guy's house was a labyrinth of passages and rooms. When we asked him who designed this marvel, he modestly said: "I".

On the top floor there were two interesting situations. Out of the 3 rooms, only one had AC. "My room", he said. No AC in the others? we asked. He shook his head: "In Africa, women and children do not need AC." It sounded like it had been promulgamated by the ancient Hutus. The biggest room was his and the next one his wife's. The third one? we asked. "That's the tenant's", he explained. We dared not ask further why his wife's bedroom should be the one in the middle!

Anyway, back to Niamey. Apart from two meetings in the morning, we were free and we asked our customer to take us sight-seeing. He was extremely troubled by this request and, after a lot of agitated consultation with colleagues, offered to take us to the handicrafts village and then - maybe the zoo? We agreed to both but first we wanted to buy some warm gloves and a scarf for attacking the Parisian night, which may well be below zero. "Gloves?" asked the poor fellow, quite dazed. Some clothes-shop, we suggested, where warm clothes are available. "Well", he said:"This eez cold weather, see? And I need only T-shirt. No warm clothes in Niamey!" What do people do when they go to Paris? "They borrow", he said firmly.

Still, being a very accommodating chap, he took us to the biggest supermarket in Niamey, all decked up for Christmas, where, in the clothes section, we became objects of public attention when the sales lady diffidently offered us pink woolen mittens three sizes too small for us and evidently meant for the upmarket Niamey lady venturing into Parisian society in winter (and not inclined to 'borrow'). Going by the decayed look of the mittens, no such lady had ventured for quite some time.

Temporarily shelving our sartorial objectives (much to the relief of out hosts) we visited the artisan village. There was a good display of leatherwear and silverware, and I bought something for Panna.

The zoo then, to fill up the time till lunch. It was actually a decent-sized zoo, but very ill-maintained. As the zoo guide said: "We don't get to eat much - can the animals?" One bad-tempered chimpanzee splashed us with water, otherwise it was a dry run.......

We drove through the market area, which was already crowded with Ramadan shopping. One lady driver in front of us had her bag flicked out of the open window, but people caught the thief and returned the bag. We could see stalls selling food (including fried locusts!!) and meat (piles of it). Generally the mood was festive.

LINK TO NIGER ALBUM

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CAMEROUN - Yaounde/Douala (2001)

Yaounde: 5.12.2001

In this trip, we (ie Ramesh and I) were visiting two countries -- Cameroun and Niger, both in West Africa. As usual, connectivity between Dubai and these places is a problem and on the penultimate day, we ended up flying Air France all the way and transitting Paris three times and Casablanca once. Out of this extended journey, the silver lining seemed to be an overnight halt (forced) at Paris, which would enable us to see a bit of the city.

I'd left Muscat on the evening of the 3rd, changing at Dubai to a flight for Paris (and being joined by Ramesh there). We landed at Paris airport at 6.00 am and caught a 10.00 am flight to Douala, the commercial capital of Cameroun. Although we saw on the net before leaving that Paris was running fairly cold at 7 degC, we were in no way prepared for the freezing temperatures in the AF flights themselves - these goras must be really cold-blooded! I still had a jacket on, but Ramesh had to contend with the thin shawls handed out in-flight.

Since I had just turned vegeterian, I was wondering what sort of fare the AVML on flight would dish up. They turned out to be quite decent, with rice, koobs and curries for the main meals and pri-bhaji for breakfast. International flights have tuned in now to the idiosynchracies of Indians, I'm sure.

We landed at Douala at 6.00 pm and were met at the airport by a local customer. We had already planned to proceed straightaway to Yaounde, the capital of Cameroun. The customer advised us to undertake this 3-1/2 hour journey by bus instead of by private taxi as the roads were not totally safe. There is no state-run public transport system and we availaed of the services of 'Guaranti' to take us to Yaounde. We slept most of the way, were met by another customer at Yaounde around 10.00 pm and were promptly taken to a Chinese dinner. We were looking quite like scallawags after 24 hours of travel and a day's growth of beard, but courtesy has to be followed! We finally checked in to Hotel Mont Febe (situated on a hill with beautiful greenery all around) at midnight.
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At first sight, Cameroun seemed to be very green, with lots of fruit trees. The view from the road of the surrounding countryside, with small houses and bunches of banana and palm-trees, was very reminiscent of the countryside of Bengal and Tamil Nadu! It's a huge country; population must be over 50 million. Having been a French colony at one time, French is the common language, although English is fairly well-understood. Most of the population is Christian, so the anticipation of Christmas is in the air and the austerities of Ramadan are observed privately by the Muslim citizens.

On the morning of the 5th, we left straightaway for Bafoussam, another town a 3-hour drive away. We spent the day there, visiting the market, and returned again at 9.00 pm. At 9.30 pm, a customer landed up on schedule and we went for dinner -- at the same Chinese joint! The day, in fact the touring till now, had been pretty tiring, although the drive to Bafoussam was very nice, through rolling greenlands and jungle stretches, all a-blossom with winter flowers. We had a hearty dinner, having had a lunch of only cake, juice and groundnuts. Our customer was feeling a little limited in hospitality, as he was not being able to ply us with liquor or load us with tasty non-veg dishes, but ultimately he and his wife more than made up the deficit in food intake.

Overall I found Camerounians very friendly and not with any hang-ups at all. Unlike other African countries where auto spare markets would be serious stretches of road doing intense business in spares, here in Yaounde and Bafoussam, auto shops would jostle among beer-bars, or the occasional 'Casino Royale', or be rapping pistons with music-system repair shops booming out ragge. A lot of bustling activity without loitering. Bubbles of 'Coiffeur' shops, even open-air, with ladies changing their hairstyles from Unspeakable-1 to Mind-zapping-3 with intense concentration! The men are jolly folks, some well-educated and qualified. We met a middle-aged man nursing a beer in a shop who, on hearing that we lived in a sheikdom, held forth for ten minutes on the evils of absolutism and how the tendency has dissolved in Britain to a benevolent system now. He compared the despotism of African governments to fiefdoms of yore and said that personal ill-wills were now being equated to the illness of the state, which was not justified. "Govt falls," he said, "but the State? The State lives on....The State is but the house, which the governing bodies come and occupy for some time, and go again ..... just as your body is just the house, which your soul occupies for some time and again goes forth --". At that point we left. Cameroun was too far a distance to travel to and listen to beer-slurred Vedanta!

Today we went around the Yaounde market which occupied us fully from 9.00 am to 6.00 pm. This is a break for writing this journal entry. We are of course expecting a customer to come and take us to dinner - hopefully not at the same Chinese place!

PS - Well, we finally went to an Italian place. Restaurants and nightclubs are very popular at Yaounde and people boogie till dawn at weekends. We declined the offer of nightclubs boogiing and had legume soup and veg pizza at L'Atlantic. Their pizza was bit of an effort actually. It was practically topping on a chapati, so thin was the crust. One whole piece, you are expected to cut it with knife and fork and eat. Very dissatisfying, eating pizza like this. May be authentic Italian, for all we know.

Douala: 6.12.2001

Today we left Youande in the morning and travelled by bus again back to Douala, reaching around 1.30 pm.

Cameroun countryside is indeed beautiful. It's not a flatland and very often our bus was travelling on single-track roads between fairly steep embankments, with tall grasses and shrubs leaning in to form overhangs. We crossed a few small rivers that feed this fertile land. When we had gone to Youande, we had crossed a big river called the Uri. People here are fairly well-fed and not unhappy with the president who has been ruling now for the last 20 years or so.

However, for a land so rich in timber, we could also see signs of systematic denudation by French companies who seem to have taken large concessions on land. Long trailers laden with timber would often block our bus and nearer to Douala we could see large patches of hillside bereft of vegetation. At this rate, in another 20 years or so, the ground will be bare.

We had left Youande in the morning in a bit of hurry on two counts. Firstly, Hotel Mont Febe was hosting some African country's summit that very day and senior officials from various countries were expected. All the roads leading up to the hotel were festooned with flags and we wanted to push off before all the roads started to get blocked. This happends to me regularly on tours - once in Mauritius and again in Arusha. Secondly, we had seen a news flash on CNN in the morning that Air France ATC staff had started a 36-hour strike. This had the potential to disrupt schedules and since we were scheduled to fly to Paris next night with a connection to Niamey, all our plans had a high chance of being jeopardised. Anyway, we finally caught the bus straightaway without checking with AF, as we thought that AF Douala may have updated news later in the day.

The bus journey by 'Guarantee Express', like earlier, was around 3 hours, and being by day, was quite enjoyable. In terms of maintenance and looks, it was more or less like 'Pallavan Transport' buses of Chennai. "Only the people are different", said Ramesh. The tickets had our names and the suitcases were stowed in the hold with luggage tags whose counterfoils were stapled to our tickets! Ultimately the bus was full-up and a lady with stocks of eatables and drinkables (a sort of Guarantee air-hostess) also boarded the bus and travelled all the way in order to provide necessary nourishment, although at a cost. Somewhere in the middle of the journey, a travelling salesman selling some red-coloured herbal concoction in bottles also boarded. First he distributed some printed material so that people could follow his pitch and then he held the captive audience spell-bound with a one-hour discourse on the hopelessness of their lives without this divine tomato ketchup and how having dollops of it regularly will clean up their bowels and their souls. So successful was he that his stock was practically sold out by the time he had answered all queries at the end of his presentation.

The travellers on the bus were, surprisingly, mostly single. I think safety-wise this mode of transport ranks high and a lot of single ladies were also travelling. Camerounian ladies are very dress and figure-concious. Dresses are uniformly bright and cut to style, with mini-skirts quite popular amongst teenagers. I think that with most African females, the ability to attract physically is a major source of security for them and their dress and behaviour is strongly oriented towards this. On the other hand, when going around the auto spare shops, we found women managing or helping in the running of business in a large number of places. Possibly they have a good head for business, but have this irritating propensity of suddenly turning coy and giggly in the middle of business discussions. Unless they sort out this schizophrenia, women's lib will take a long time to evolve in this country.

We checked with the AF office at Douala and were told that flights should be normal by tomorrow evening. Incidentally, Ramesh, my co-traveller, has a terrible track-record of things going wrong on tour. Either flights would get cancelled, or they would leave without him, or his luggage would go to another country, or he would not be allowed entry. He had already warned me before departure, but I had assured him of a stock of good-luck with me. This AF scare seemed to be Ramesh's 'devil' trying to gain an upper hand, and if things revert to normal, it may be my good-luck doing its bit. We'll see tomorrow.

We had lunch at a roadside restaurant. The first important French word I had learnt on this trip was 'legume' meaning vegeterian. "Only legume in sandwich, understand?" we'd tell the waitress sternly. Their sandwich turned out to be a footlong bread, longitudinally sliced and filled with mayonnaise and tomato/onion mixture. This, washed down with guava juice, was indeed a simple and nice meal. We had been met at the bus stand by a couple of employees of a customer, and their lunch was a sumptuous fish-and-rice affair, washed down with cold beer. Luckily they were sitting at another table.

We visited the spare parts market in the rest of the afternoon. Although Douala seemed to have a fair number of goras, we still stuck out like a sore thumb in this uniformly African environment. But in terms of security, Douala is cake-walk compared to Lagos or Nairobi.

Speaking of Lagos, the business of Cameroun is well-dominated by Nigerians, a lot of them having settled here 20-30 years earlier. Nigerians have a very strong head for business. The locals are comparatively easygoing and find it difficult on the ethical front to deal with Nigerian aggression.

Our customer, a group of three, landed up at 8.30 pm to take us to dinner - Italian again! Chinese or Italian: the cuisine here seemed to be split on a chopping block. Scanning expertly through the Italian menu (ie looking for words I knew) I settled on a 'Sphagetti Neopolitaine', which was noodles with tomato sauce.

It is a fact that this tour did wonders for my appreciation of food. On the one hand we were always eating light, so we were always quite hungry at mealtimes. Moreover, the choice of simple veg dishes made me identify and appreciate flavours and sensations I had never bothered to feel earlier. When having the 'sandwich' for lunch, the crunch of the freshly-cut onions in the mayonnaise was very satisfying. The tomato-sauce mix in the sphagetti would otherwise have passed my tongue unappreciated. But being the only condiment on the background of plain pasta, I could clearly make out its components of garlic and onion paste and a dash of something like Worcestershire sauce. It is true that enjoyment is purely a matter of expectation and of being totally aware of the sensations passing through the system at that point of time.

After some ice-cream at a parlour, we were driving back to the hotel (it was around 11.00 pm) when our driver suddenly stopped the car. I realised that it was one of those police checks where they verify identity cards and passports. I also realised that I had forgotten to carry my passport with me.

I was the last person to be asked. As soon as the policeman (MP) realised that I had no passport, he opened the door near me, told me to get down and walked me to a police van parked nearby. One of the three loacls also descended from the car and stayed with me. The others zipped back to the hotel to fetch my passport.

It was quite a dark road, although with traffic. After a while the MP asked me to get inside the van. His patience was running out, maybe with me not at all reaching for my wallet, and he prepared to take me to the police station. Stephen, the local guy standing outside, requested him to wait a little longer and told the others on mobile to hurry up. After another couple of minutes, in spite of my earnest mental discussions with him, the MP drove off with me, leaving Stephen, my only link with the local world here, out on the road. My only worry was whether these guys would know which particulat police station I would be taken to. I guess the MP told Stephen.

The police station was a barren affair, with a counter under a staircase. The other policeman on duty was asking me in broken English why I was brought here and started to write my name laboriously on a scrap of paper, maybe his idea of a booking form. Finally I wrote it for him. In the meanwhile some superior officer in local costume was passing by and asked me whether I had entered the country legally! As if many people would smuggle their way into this paradise! At that moment my passport arrived and was duly scrutinised (considerably helped by me) for the validity of my visa. The policeman on duty then wanted to see my 'Immunisation Card'! I ask you! That was also at the hotel and I had to convince him that the immigration authorities at the airport would not have let me in if I had not been carrying the card at the airport. All this in broken English and pantomime, mind you! At this point they apparently decided enough was enough (or maybe some money changed hands on the road outside) and they let me go.

Ramesh was waiting outside with the others, quite worried. Actually, harassment in a case like this can go to any extent, including a night in jail. But throughout the incident my tension-level was fairly low. Worried, yes - whether the others would know my whereabouts, whether they would be able to locate my passport in their haste, whether I'll get into some complication from which they will find it difficult to extricate me, etc. But definitely I was able to face the situation with much more equinamity than earlier and at no point did the policemen seem scary. I would like to lay the credit at the door of the kriya that I was doing regularly.

LINK TO CAMEROUN ALBUM

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UGANDA - Kampala (2001)

Kampala: 13.09.2001

We reached Entebbe last night at 11.00 pm, on schedule. Entebbe was earlier the capital of Uganda, as the Brits preferred the beaches beside Lake Victoria and the golf courses in the area. Entebbe literally means 'seat of power'. The current capital is Kampala, around 40 km from Entebbe. Our customers, the Manji family (father and son) had come to meet us and they took us to Kampala and dropped us at the Sheraton. Their kindness also included offering us coffee and keeping us awake till 2.00 am!

Kampala is not a very big city, with a population of around a million. The upkeep is quite bad though and none of the street-lights work. Roads outside the city are okay but inside they are full of potholes and very very congested. Crime rate has also climbed quite a lot, the gangs having learnt a few tricks from their Kenyan counterparts. But apparently, value of life in Uganda is lower and they will kill even for petty theft. Most businessmen keep armed guards and dogs on their premises........

Our Manji members are also a pretty influential lot. Listen to this story. Their warehouse and main offices are in the Industrial Area, where organised break-ins are very common. Now Manji heard through the grapevine that there will be a break-in at his premises very soon. He went to a 'high-up' army friend and asked him for a loan of two 'boys'. Then he dressed the soldiers in mufti and posted them along with normal guards at his warehouse. They were soon approached by the gang and told to co-operate in exchange of money, which the soldiers masquerading as watchmen accepted. They also learnt the date of the break-in. Our man Manji told the soldiers that he will pay $30/- for each corpse! Thirteen guys came to rob the warehouse that night and their van was allowed to enter the courtyard. After witnessing 10 mins of looting, the soldiers changed into uniform, uncovered a machine gun in the upper story and blew apart 10 of them. One guy was still alive and begged for mercy but the soldiers executed him for the thirty dollars. One escaped unhurt and hanged himself. One escaped with a stomach-injury, but could not obtain treatment as the two soldiers had blocked all hospital admissions. He died of gangrene. The soldiers claimed the prize-money for that as well. The full police department landed up early in the morning with the bodies still around. The soldiers asked Manji whether the police were giving him trouble! Then they asked the police top-brass to carry the bodies and lay them in a straight line in front of the van for a posed photograph. They also told the police chief that this picture should jolly well be published on the front page, and it was! It's a cruel land and as Manji says: "If you aren't a bit like the mafia, you're dead!"

Aids is rampant here -- 60% of the locals have it. There are villages in Uganda completely wiped out by Aids. There are families where the head is only eight years old! Manji himself has an adopted black daughter of one of his workers who, together with his wife, died of Aids when the daughter was just one year old. She is now 15, and luckily, Aids-free........

We had lunch at an Indian restaurant where the cooking was really very good. After lunch, we were given a car and driver to see two sights that are worth seeing around here -- the Bujagoli Falls, and the source of the Nile. The falls are not high but a favourite place for 'white-water rafting'. The source of the Nile is a river starting from Lake Victoria. It is nothing spectacular, but having seen Nile at the end of its journey at Cairo and Alexandria, and in between at Khartoum, it sort of rounded off the experience by seeing it at the source as well. We watched the sun set over Lake Victoria, sitting at a restaurant aptly called Sunset Point.

LINK TO KAMPALA ALBUM

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KENYA - Nairobi/Mombasa (2001)

Nairobi: 9.09.2001

Landed at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport at 5.15 am, 30 mins before time, even before the guy from the hotel who was supposed to meet me had arrived. This was a direct flight from Muscat that left at 1.30 am, so I could get a fair amount of shut-eye on the flight.

.The check-in counter person at Muscat was a sample. I asked him to assign me to a reclinable, non-emergency door seat, if possible with leg-space. He scrutinised the monitor keenly, nodded and booked me a non-reclinable, emergency-door seat with absolutely no leg-space! Luckily, the sort of seat I wanted was free in the row behind, so I quietly shifted there and had a good nap.

.Nairobi has a year-round temperate climate and when I landed in a short-sleeved shirt, the meter read 14 degC! Getting out of the airport in the half-light, I almost expected to see Cyrus and his safari-jeep. It was very nostalgic. Later during the day, our major customer again took us up to the Rift Valley view point.
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After checking in to Hotel New Stanley at 6.30 am, I slept soundly till 10.00 am. It was a Sunday, so there wouldn't be much work anyway. Easwar was already in the hotel and we breakfasted at 11.00 am (almost like a Friday in Muscat!). Our man Dinkar Patel picked us up and took us to the Premier Club for lunch. The Premier Club is one of the oldest and can even be called 'Patel Club' since practically all the people I met were Patels! A cricket match was in progress, part of a league that runs from May to January every year. In Kenya, all months are cricketable months, except Feb-April, which is the rainy season..

The weather was beautiful. Deep blue sky with white clouds and a green field below with players in white dress -- it was really a peaceful scene. All the onlookers (some fifteen of them) kept on shouting encouragement to the batsmen. The general mood was that of a bunch of kids on an outing. Although all the dialogues were in Gujrati, the energy and volume of it drove home the point. Tusker beer was being consumed in great quantities and my intention of drinking a Coke (or 'soda', as it is called here) caused general consternation. People asked me solicitously if I was all right and, hearing I had given up drinking a month ago, explained that it did not count as 'giving up' till a year had passed -- and one Tusker did not matter anyway. I still got my Coke, after half-an-hour's delay, as they were simply not geared up for such weird demands!

.We had a lunch of rice, vegetables, fish and chicken (all cooked Kenya style, they said) around 3.30 pm. A friend of Dinkar's, Vijay by name, took us to see the Rift Valley from a view point. I had seen it when we came on that Masai Mara package, but this was a different location and we saw the valley from another point of view, so to speak. It was quite chilly and there was a lot of haze, so the volcanic mountains beyond the valley seemed unclear in the distance........

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On the way out, we had passed the Satya Sai Centre in Nairobi, so we stopped on the way back for a look. Outside India, Kenya is the only country visited by Satya Sai Baba and he seems to have a big following here. The centre was quite spacious.
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We had dinner with Ashok and his family at a place called 'Open House'. On weekends, all eating joints are packed, crime wave or no crime wave. Ashok carried on his beer-drinking which had started from 11.30 am and which now finished at 9.30 pm, with a small gap in the middle when he had gone home to collect his family!

Nairobi: 10.09.2001

Today was a working day and we hit the auto market after an initial period of Uganda-visa-applying and ticket-reconfirming. The auto market is one of the most dangerous areas in Nairobi. As it is, while inside the car, all windows have to be kept rolled up and the doors locked. On that street, Kirinyaga road, going from one shop to another is also fraught with danger. We deposited all our valuables in the first shop, peeked out, memorised the location of the next target shop and launched ourselves out of the doorway, head down and walking at full speed. Whooooo ..... made it!

One customer (a local black) lost his watch when he was driving with his arm sticking out of the window. Another day, when he had stopped at a signal, a man came up, shoved a lump of shit under his nose and said: "Give Ksh 1000/- (USD 12/-) or I smear your face with this." He had hurriedly paid up.

Because of the bad law-and-order situation and new commercial strictures being imposed, a significant part of the business community is trying to migrate to Canada or USA.

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We finished our working day with Dinkar at 5.00 pm, after which he took us to see the Swaminarayan temple. Built on the lines of the one in Gandhinagar, it's quite imposing and has beautiful architecture. The yellow sandstone was worked in India, as were the mahagony wood-carvings. The temple also has a one-floor exhibition on Hinduism, which was also quite facinating.

We made a visit to the 'Village Market', which is an extremely hep and upmarket supermarket and plaza spread around a landscaped theme area. We had a game of bowling at an alley (first time) and tied for second place. Not bad for a beginner. The first place was grabbed by another beginner -- Easwar!

We went for dinner to Nakumatt Plaza, one of a chain of department stores with a kebab joint attached. Being Monday, it was a bit deserted. When we left at 9.30 pm, the city seemed to be sleeping already. As a matter of fact, our hosts had been trying to enter some dining joint right from 7.30 pm onward and only on account of our strong objection to "dining at tea-time" did they take us around for an hour, killing time. Throughout dinner, they kept yawning mightily. Apparently their usual bedtime is 8.30 pm.

Nairobi: 11.09.2001

In the morning, we visited one of our customers, Mr Kirit Patel, President of the Premier Claub, and chairman of the Premier School. Would be less than 50, and very smart. However, that day we found him rather agitated. While driving his Merc to work, he had forgotten to lock the doors and, as the car was stuck at a traffic signal, four black youths opened the front doors, roughed him up a little, grabbed his wallet which had 22000 shillings ($300) and two credit cards, his mobile phone and his jacket, and cooly walked off. A hundred people watched this but did not help. He was on the phone to card companies in order to minimise further loss as much as possible.

We had lunch by oursleves (for once) and went to the market for around an hour and returned at 3.30 pm to the room to face the smoking tower of the World Trade Centre after the first plane had hit!! As I watched in horrified facination, the second plane hit the other tower, and my plan of catching a short nap went up in smoke, so to say....

From 6.00 pm onward, we had one visitor after another, with Kiritbhai landing up at 8.30 pm to take us out for dinner. We went to China Plate, an upmarket Chinese joint where at one time people used to wait outside for 30 mins to get a table. Tonight, only two other tables were occupied. The food was superb -- chilly prawn, chicken-in-a-foil, ocra fry, veg rolls, cashew manchurian for starters. In fact, at our earnest request, the main courses were practically scrapped.

Kiritbhai gave us the nasty news that Nairobi airport had closed down due to security reasons and our departure to Mombasa next morning would be a non-starter. Till midnight we could not get a confirmation either way and went to sleep dreaming of flight cancellations and complicated revised schedules.

Mombasa: 12.09.2001

By the grace of God and George Bush, our flight to Mombasa left bang on time. This was critical as we were leaving Mombasa same evening for Entebbe via Nairobi.

Mombasa is an island half-surrounded by the mainland and connected to it in three ways -- a causeway to the airport, a bridge to the north and a ferry-service to the south. Population is just short of a million. It's a peacefule place, not as crime-ridden as Nairobi and with a warmer sea-side climate........

It's such a small place that our work was over by noon. Our customer Shahid took us to Hotel White Sands for a beer, a beautiful beachside property. The sea is the same colour as the sea at Mauritius -- aquamarine blue with greenish shades. The water is very placid as a barrier of reef around a mile from the shore forces the waves to crash apart against its coral walls. This being the start of the hot season (ie off-season), the crowd was thin, but mostly European. Mombasa, although quite far from Europe and as such costly to travel to, is still popular amongst holiday-makers on account of its pristine beaches, good hotels, watersports and the happy-faced English-speaking locals.

We had lunch at Shahid's home, which was a welcome change from the hotel fare. Shahid's father, still active in the business, was a very interesting character. Having grown up in Masai territory (his father was a station-master at some remote railway station in the jungle) he had many stories to tell regarding the Masai, especially about their fortitude and their ability to bear pain. He related an incident as to how on a hunt with his father, they had come across a Masai who had been mauled by a lion. His entrails were exposed and he was sitting by the roadside, cooly holding it all in with his hand. They bundled him onto their jeep and rushed towards the nearest hospital. Suddenly the man shouted to them to stop, hopped off, hobbled to a roadside bar, bought a beer and swigged it and climbed back again. He was out of the hospital after a day, in fact.

After lunch, we went for a round of the city. We saw the Mombasa Port (the new port; the old port is not being used for shipping now). We then drove to the Old Mombasa area, which was the original Mombasa locality before it grew to the current size (a bit like Old Muscat). The small port with an iron gate is still there from which small cargo-boats and 'dhow-cruises' operate. The streets are so narrow that one car can barely pass, so naturally they are all one-way. Old buildings lean towards one another and peddlers sit by the roadside, squeezed by passing cars, selling fruits and vegetables. The oldest and safest quarter in town, they say........

The ferry-crossing at the south side was also something to see from afar. Hordes of people were streaming onto the ferry like ants. It's free for people and 50 shillings per vehicle -- very cheap.

Communication systems are very bad in Kenya. We wanted to fax 10 pages to our office and went hunting for PCOs. It was really funny. The PCO attendant's face would light up at seeing 10 pages but on hearing "Oman", he'd look blank. Comprehension would dawn hearing "Dubai", but then he would sadly shake his head, saying: "Sorry, only up to Tanzania." What was that supposed to mean? Was it a fax or a bus-service? The third PCO added the comment: "No money, man!", which we finally realised referred to his balance on some prepaid system they would be having. The fourth booth, possibly more prosperous, agreed to send at the rate of 250 shillings ($3/-) per page, but in spite of lot of trying, could not connect. So we came back with our communication still unsent.

We left Mombasa at 7.30 pm and landed at Nairobi at 8.30 pm. The next leg would be to Entebbe at 10.00 pm, reaching at 11.00 pm tonight.

LINK TO MOMBASA ALBUM

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MAURITANIA - Noukchott (2001)

Noukchott: 13.04.2001

We landed in Mauritania today at 3.00 pm local time via Madrid and Paris, a total travel time of 18 hours (hotel-to-hotel). Bits of sleep on flights have left the brain a bit woozy.

We had expected one of our customers to pick us up from the airport, but he did not appear. We spent some time waiting for him, plunged again into Africa from Europe -- children begging for frnacs, half the arcade shops closed and a bunch of dangerous-looking drivers soliciting us continuously. Finally, we called the hotel where he had booked us and they sent a pick-up.

Noukchott is a bare city. The whole country anyway has desert clime, being the western end of Sahara and the sand was everywhere. The roads are black strips on sandy stretches, buildings (usually sand-coloured) are far between with no pretensions at architecture and vegetation is very low. The men wear a traditional flowing robe and a head-dress that covers their mouth as well and they look ready to jump on to a camel and ride into a sandstorm. People from the northern part are fair and from the southern part dark. Also there is a fair lot of Senegalese and Mali people settled here who do most of the low-skilled jobs.........

After checking into the Mercure, which was a real let-down compared to the Mercure at Muscat or elsewhere, we tried to catch either of our two major customers but they were both uncatchable. So we had a free evening, so to say. We took a taxi around the city and I found that I had seldom seen a more depressing capital city. Absolute no life. We told the taxi-driver to go to the souq. Every souq he took us to was a cluster of some 10 kirana shops. We could not see any big brand outlets, let alone supermarkets. Finally we found a modern-styled Chinese joint (from the outside) and also went and had coffee and sandwiches in a mod cafe run by a French-origin Mauritanian, which was mainly filled with high-life Mauritanians, I think. The chicken-sandwich, by the way, was exactly like those made at Tarboosh in Qurm. Anyway, I'd hate to live here. Some sprinkling of whites with families were also visible, maybe settled here for generations........

The economy of Mauritania depends on fishing and they are a major exporter to European countries. There is also a bit of iron mining and export. Recently, oil has been discovered off-shore and Mauritanians are pretty upbeat about the future economy. There's tourism as well, for those who want to travel into the Sahara.

Today's tenperature was at 20 degC with a cloudy sky -- quite pleasant. People were using the hotel pool. but a couple of days ago it was 46 degC, we were told.


Tomorrow night we go back, after having visited the market during the day. For me, four flights (Noukchott-Paris-Zurich-Dubai-Muscat), a 20-hour travel coming up.


Noukchott: 14.04.2001

Well, today's entry is a small correction statement in that we saw a bit of the posh area of Noukchott, recently developed. The area has typical villa architecture but right at the edge of town, where the rear view would be miles and miles of sand dunes.

Noticed a few interesting things here:

1. Since the soil is very sandy, wherever they want to firm it up, like the driveway into some premises, they have spread thousands of sea-shells which have packed the sand under them (there is some ground below the sand) and give the same effect as that of a gravelled area, I suppose.


2. The other interesting thing was that the urinals in our hotel toilettes in the foyer are filled to the brim with ice-cubes! Haven't yet figured out exactly why.


3. Our big customer is building a big house for himself and his family. The 2-tiered house has 19 rooms, 7 of which are bath-rooms. Full of coloured tiles, including the ceiling, and dark-tinted walls. The dado and ceiling liners are in gold and silver. The place is a mild monstrosity.


4. There are white Mauritanians (ie, quite fair) and dark Mauritanians. Plus there are lots of people from Mali and Senegal doing manual and clerical jobs. We could see that only the white or fair Mauritanians were owners - possibly they carry the blood of the French occupiers who have handed down their properties along this fair line.

LINK TO NOUKCHOTT ALBUM

CANARY ISLANDS - Las Palmas/Tenerife/Playa de Ingleis (2001)

Las Palmas: 9.04.2001

We landed here yesterday at 10.30 pm and reached the Hotel Melias by around 11.00 pm. This hotel is in the northern commercial end of the island, whereas most of the tourist beaches, so to say, are on the south side. But our rooms on the 4th floor faced the sea and the roar was a steady background music.

Today morning, on our first working day, we asked the hotel receptionist to arrange an interpreter for us, as the language spoken here was Spanish as well. We finally got Fernando, who also agreed to take us around in his car, for an additional consideration. He was a young chap below 30, a native of Mexico City, half-Spanish and half-Mexican, who had come here 1.5 years ago to do his MBA in night classes. We found later that his wife was the receptionist at our hotel, to whom Rashid had initially said that on phone Fernando did not sound very impressive, so could she look for someone else! But he finally became very enthusiastic about our selling and would sometimes do the selling himself, without waiting for Rashid to give the English input.

We went around the city fairly thoroughly during the day. Grand Canaria has a population of around 800,000 out of which 500,000 is in the capital Las Palmas. It is a small city but has all the trappings of a latest European town. The commercial areas are full of high-profile shops (including sex-shops) and the main roads are wide with walk-ways, like in Madrid. However, all the side roads are narrow and chock-full of parked cars. The amount of cars is quite high compared to the width of roads and the only way the authorities can keep the cars moving is to declare 70% of them as one-way. We would invariably find a parking space at least two blocks away and walk to our destinations. Most of the cars are European -- Volkswagen (lots of Germans here), Citroen, Renault etc -- and a bit of Japanese, mainly Toyota. But usually they are small and medium-sized cars, mostly the three-door variety, which is expected seeing the dearth of parking space on the roads. Card-paying underground parking areas are also available in spots........

This place is definitely warmer than Madrid, around 25-27 degC during the day, which would at the most go up to 28-29 degC, we were told. Still, with a cool breeze, walking around was no effort at all. Here also, roadside cafes abound, but we had lunch in a typical Spanish restaurant. Fernando recommended a menu of fish soup for starters (very nice, including molluscs) followed by a fish in mixed sauce ('charni' fish, fillet of), washed down with white wine (Spanish and very good) with bread on the side. People relax from 1.30 pm to 4.00 pm for lunch, so we also relaxed.

We went to some surrounding towns after lunch. Most of the towns are beside the sea and the highway hugs the coastline, though the beaches are few and far between in this northern part of the island where we were travelling. Even inside Las Palmas, we could catch glimpses of the beach at the end of alleys while walking down a street parallel to the coast.

We finished the day by 8.00 pm, with a lot of sunlight still left to go. There was a long esplanade or paved walkway behind our hotel bounding the beach with shops and restaurants, on which we walked for some time. The beach had lots of Europeans having their last dip and kids kicking football around. It was getting a bit chilly by now but it didn't seem to affect the goras. Even at 10.00 pm, we could see them playing around on the beach which was lit by floodlights throughout the night........

On the walkway, we had noticed a shop selling 'saris' and went to investigate. The owner was a Sindhi who had been here for 40 years and was a Spanish citizen now. He loved it here, he said; all the conveniences without the hustle. Around 2000 Indians lived here, 99% of whom were Sindhis. Otherwise people here were mostly Spanish of course, Germans, retired Brits, some Chinese and a dollop of people settled from Latin America. Very few blacks. He told us to seriously think about opening an auto shop here!

We had dinner at an 'Indian' restaurant run by Spanish folk. Mutton roll was very good and we also had chicken curry (this tasted funny) with rice. We were a bit tired, so decided to ditch the idea of hitting some night-club or other which is usually open after midnight. Tomorrow we were to go to Tenerife island by ferry-boat which would carry Fernando's car as well, since we found that it was difficult to get rent-a-cars there.

Tenerife: 10.04.2001

Today we visited the island of Tenefire, which is actually the biggest island, basically volcanic, and still having the dead volcano peak called Teide Mountain, a tourist attraction. Yesterday we had bought 3 tickets on the boat leaving at 8.30 am from a coastal town called Agaete, which was 40 mins away from Las Palmas and on the west coast, same side as Tenerife island. This would give us a shorter and cheaper crossing than going from Las Palmas, which is on the north-eastern side of Grans Canaria, all the way around.

At 8.00 am, the Agaete port was dim and chilly, with the sun waiting to rise and drive the clouds away. This was a fishing town, quite famous for its seafood restaurants. A large numbber of boats were bobbing around. Our car joined a queue of cars (one of six queues) and Fernando obtained the boarding cards........

This, incidentally, is no 'o-majhi-re' ferry. Run by Fred Olsen of Sweden, it carries 900 passengers on the upper deck and 250 cars, including loaded trucks, on the lower deck! When it finally appeared, we were staggered by the size of it! Made in catamaran style and very stable, it must have been 150-200 ft long and more than 40 ft high. We sat in the car and drove in (3 entry lanes) and drove up winding ramps directed by staff to a queued parking (ie we will drive off from here again). Then we went to the seating deck with rows and rows of aircraft-style seats (much wider cabin, of course), a restaurant and a small shopping arcade. From the time it landed, the cars inside drove out, we drove in and parked, sat upstairs and the ferry again took off -- it had taken less than 20 mins! Here, people run for carrying out routine tasks. Very very impressive.........

Tenerife's capital Santa Cruz also seemed to be built on the same lines as Las Palmas -- too much traffic and narrow side-roads. We picked up a map and yellow pages from a tourist information centre and found that our visits will take us right from north to south and from east to west. We visited four towns and had lunch at a tourist beach open-air cafe, constituting draft beer, mixed kebabs and grilled sea-perch.

Tenerife is also a well-known resort island, although we could not visit the tourist spots, which included a jungle theme park, the extinct volcano and off-the-coast points for wind-surfing and diving. These islands are an European attraction practically all the year round as the climate is always pleasant, daylight hours are long, and prices are cheap compared to the coastal spots on the Med. A lot of couples in the above-50 age-bracket could be seen toasting their bones in the warm sunshine.......

We returned to Agaete by ferry once again and then drove back to reach the hotel by 9.30 pm. It had been a long driving day for Fernando also, although he never complained. Today he had brought his wife's Citroen, a relatively new car, because he was trying to sell his 15 year old BMW and didn't want to clock up too high a mileage. A good chap, with very good English. By now, he was practically selling for us. In fact, when Rashid asked him to follow up with a couple of potential customers after we went back, he balked a little, saying that to be a selling agent (which he didn't really mind), we would need a different sort of arrangement! Anyway, after his MBA (one more year), he wanted to work here a little more for experience (maybe two years) and then go back to Mexico City and open a 'Tourism Consultancy'. He already has a printing press back there run by his sister. Quite enterprising.

Today we discovered that day-after-tomorrow (ie 12/4) everything will be closed here because from that day onward, 'Holy Week' (Easter) starts. So we lost one clear working day; a holiday sort of shoved down our throats! So we decided that tomorrow evening we will change our hotel to one in the south side of the island, which has all the tourist beaches. 'Playa de Ingleis' beach especially is very well-known. Since this was the tourist season, we anyway booked two rooms in a hotel associated to the one we were staying in now.

Since we were both very tired, we ordered sandwiches through room service and slept off.

Las Palmas: 11.04.2001

Today morning we checked out of our hotel in las Palmas by around 10.30 am and loaded our luggage on to Fernando's car. We worked during the morning, visiting the southern side customer last. After that we went to inspect the hotel we had booked by phone. It was an excellent hotel but at one end of the beach, quite private without any public action, which was not our cup of tea at all. So we drove down to the Playa de Ingleis and my, what a scene! It was a fairground, the beachfront chock-full of cafes and shops and the beach, as far as the eye could see, a forest of reclining seats and red-and-black golf umbrellas. People were sunbathing by the gallon (in terms of suntan lotion consumed)........

We took a walk along the shops and restaurants, jostling through the crowds, had some beer, bought some T-shirts and decided that the earlier hotel, 5-star or not, was a non-starter. However, it seemd doubtful whether we would get rooms anywhere near the beach. We tried our luck in the nearest big hotel (2700 rooms), which also would have been fully booked, were it not for 2 single rooms that had become available due to last-minute cancellations. We did a rugby-tackle into the rooms! Tourists had been walking almost a mile to get to this beach and here we were, hardly a couple of minutes away. Phew!

We checked in and parked our bags and promptly changed into T-shirt, shorts and sandals. Till now, in our formal office-wear, we had appeared to be unbalanced people or waitors! We sat in one of the many beach-side cafes, drinking draft beer and watching the activities on the beach. People were totally committed to enjoying themselves, although crowd-level was quite high. Rows and rows of horizontal bodies, on deck-chairs or mats/towels on the sand, bodies glistening with lotion, eyes shut against the sun, praying to God that their skins will tan and not simply blister.

By the time we finished lunch and released Fernando, it was 6.00 pm, but still sunny. Rashid went and took a dip in the sea. I could see him immersing himself six inches at a time and realised that the water was cold. I didn't go in........

In the meanwhile, couples were getting generally entwined on the beach, sort of warmingup to a night of action. Least bothered, as usual, regarding others around. Nonetheless, they would claim their particular sun-chair, or lay their mat/towel on an available strip of sand and then expect that nobody should violate that space.

We returned to our rooms at 9.00 pm and finished off half-a-bottle of scotch while watching BBC. All other channels seemed to be in Spanish or German. We went down for dinner to one of the cafes. For lunch we had had a typical Spanish dish called 'paella', basically yellow rice mixed with vegetables, fish and chicken (their version of biriyani).For dinner Rashid had a kebab while I had a steak in pepper sauce. Even their sauces are hardly spicy, let alone food. I thought Spanish cooking would be spicy -- or is it Mexican I am thinking about?

The biggest dinner crowd was at an open-air restaurant with a live band, with a couple of girls belting out popular numbers in Spanish. But most of the tourist crowd would have preferred a dinner indoor, I think, what with children falling asleep and couples not wanting to disrupt proceedings.

One thing was for sure. We were the only brown-skins in the whole circus!

Playa de Ingleis: 12.04.2001

Being a holiday (!!), we stirred around 9.00 am. Breakfast at this hotel was a huge spread and although I had resolved to have a light breakfast, I ended up having sausages and bacon and cold cuts to my heart's content.

We prepared to hit the beach and started a long walk, aiming towards the end of Playa de Ingleis beach and on to the adjoining Mas Palmas beach, a goodish 4 km away. The beach was already heavily crowded with all sun-chairs anlready booked and masses of people walking along the beach in both directions. Inside the melee, people were managing to build sand-castles and play beach football and raquetball. They groups were mostly families on a holiday. We were told later that in this crowd, Spaniards were more as the Easter holidays were longer in Spain. In any case, the airfare from Germany to here was the same as from Madrid to here (which is a domestic flight) -- around $ 160/- only. No wonder European tourists find this a cheap destination.

As usual the amount of skin on display would have covered Calcutta, I think. Around the middle stretch between Playa de Ingleis beach and Mas Palmas beach is the nudist area. This meant that nudists were restricted to this area, but that area was open to all. People without a stitch on were walking around quite casually, amongst normally dressed people too! For them, it's perhaps an expression of freedom; they don't think of it as odd. As a matter of fact, we saw as many old couples amongst the nudists as young people. There were nudist families building sand castles and bathing in the sea together. I wanted to take Rashid's picture against this background but he did not want to be committed to paper. Then he finally agreed to click me, stood facing another direction, then suddenly twisted around and took my snap, like a sharpshooter! God knows whether he got me at all........

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We were pretty tired after the 4-hour walk and took dips in the sea in turn, since there was no place to leave our stuff. Eaven at 2.00 pm, the water was coldish but quite refreshing after some time. A lot of water-sports were going on -- speedboats, towing, para-sailing etc. I enquired with the sports operator regarding the para-sailing (something I had long wanted to do but but missed in both Sun City and Mauritius) and found it was around $40/- for a 10-min air-borne time. Once in a lifetime, I thought, and forked up. He fitted me out with a life-jacket and called up the speedboat to send a rubber dinghy across. The dinghy (speed-raft which goes bumpity-bump over the waves at top speed) took me out to the speedboat and I got in. A German boy was about to go up, watched admiringly by his two sisters. While he was up, the helper fitted a harness onto me, which was a set of two slings below my thighs.

There is a small platform at the back of the boat on which the flier lands and takes off from. The parachute is attached to the boat with rope that is wound on a winch mounted at the forward end of the platform. After the flier is fitted to the harness, with the rope fully wound up and the parachute very close to the boat, the flier is clipped on, the boat picks up speed and the winch slowly pays out the rope, like feeding string to a kite (it is also called para-kiting) till the whole length of 250 metres is released. The view from the top is breathtakingly beautiful and the sight of the small boat down below, holding your lifeline so to speak, gives a very peculiar feeling. Just the sun and the orange parachute above, the blue sea all around and a long white beach at one edge.

The boatmen once slowed down the boat and the parachute dropped down till my legs and backside were skimming the water. Then it speeded up again and I was whisked up high once more. Finally the winch slowly pulled the rope in so that I gradually came close to the boat slowly from the air and did a feathertouch landing. A superb experience.

We had lunch after this (Rashid - sardines and rice, which he did not like; I - grilled breast of chicken), sent off an e-mail and went up to our rooms to try and sleep for a couple of hours since our flight was at 3.00 am and would not allow much sleep........

We did a final wandering around at 9.00 pm and enetered a bar for an hour. By 11.00 pm we retrned to the hotel to have a sandwich but discovered that they close their kitchen by 9.30 pm. We were kindly advised to go down to the beachfront and have dinner there, like all other decent tourists. Anyway, since our taxi was expected at midnight, we shelved our dinner plans for the airport.

LINK TO CANARY ISLANDS ALBUM

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SPAIN - Madrid (2001)

Madrid: 8.04.2001

This time around the touring load was lower -- just two countries, Canary Islands and Mauritius -- and we would be through in 8 days. But the routing was pretty convoluted: Muscat - Zurich - Madrid - Grand Canary, and each of the following legs equally wobbly! However, the silver lining was that we had around 8 hours of free time ar Madrid and would be able to take a peek at the same city.

I had boarded the Zurich flight from Muscat at midnight. The same flight, stopping at Dubai, picked up my colleague Rashid. Swissair seems to be a good airline; good plane and staff. In any case, I am never able to sleep much on flights. My co-passengers were practically all white, mostly Swiss and some Germans. My neighbour was a German who had come to troubleshoot for a firm in Muscat that had bought his machinery. In the end, he has not been paid for his visit, so he was quite unhappy. On top of that, he had left his coat in the departure lounge. Temperature in Zurich was said to be 4 degC and he had to go on to Stuttgart by train, so he was a fairly tense man overall.

When we landed at Zurich at 6.30 am, it was just dawn. The sky was overcast, it was drizzling and the temperature was actually 4 degC. My friend gave one last shiver and ran out of the exit.

We freshened up here and boarded the flight to Madrid at 8.30 am. I was trying to send home an e-mail from a free internet kiosk, but the hotmail box had expired and by the time I realised that and created a new one, it was time to go.........

We landed at Madrid at 10.30 am with a bracing 14 degC. From the air the countryside looked beautiful, like a painted scene. The fields, mostly polygons, are separated by white roads are either uniformly green or dusty white. The ploughing or hoeing marks on the green fields look exactly like brush-strokes on canvas.

The day was very sunny and the air slightly chilly -- an excellent combination. Our continuing flight to Canary would be in the domestic sector, so we went out through immigration and decided to leave our bags in the cloak-room. The cloakroom girl was very helpful in suggesting that the best course of action for us would be to take the bus to the centre of the city (Columbus Square) and maybe walk around the place and have lunch somewhere. So we took the bus, a huge spanking new luxury coach with luggage racks and all, better than any taxi that we could have imagined, and got dropped at Columbus Square........

Madrid is a city where the old architecture is still preserved well and also in use. Columbus Square has a huge pillar with the statue of Columbus on top and a couple of massive stone blocks with writings commemorating the discovery of America. The avenues are wide, lined with flowers and trees, and the pedestrian walking areas (pavements and promenades) are very generously allotted. Shops line the streets but were closed on account of it being a Sunday. From the main road, small side-roads (all one-way) lead off at regular inetervals, lined by tall old-fashioned buildings with huge doors and small wrought-iron railing verandahs. It's very quiet in the side streets and with very few people around today, it seemed quite possible that suddenly a Spanish gentlemen dressed in all his finery will just walk around the corner!

There were some museums -- historical and art -- within walking distance but we decided that we had no time to spend inside buildings. Each place deserves a couple of hours and in a city with 50-60 art galleries and 20 odd museums, we might as well not try. We were wondering what to do in this time available (very few people speak English, so getting local advice was next to impossible!) when we suddenly saw a double-decker with an open top, driving slowly along, the upper deck occupied by a few passengers gazing around. Bingo! This was the thing for us -- see the main sights in the city in a short time, on a sunny day with a cool breeze blowing.

It took some half-an-hour to work out where the nearest stop was ("Por favor, no comprehendo" all over the place), which was the other side of the Square. Traffic here is very organised and jaywalkers are likely to get run over. Three-lane high-speed roads, pedestrian crossings with go-no-go -- all the shine of a European capital. So we worked our way around the square to the bus stop and boarded the top of an open-top double-decker. This fleet of buses keep going around on a fixed route with stops. We did not want to get down, but people would usually get off at some place they wanted to see and again get onto another such bus that came along, on the same ticket and any time during the day. A good system.
On a Sunday morning at 1.00 pm, the bus stop was not crowded. Here the sun rises at 8.00 am and sets at 9.00 pm, so lunch is usually at around 3.00 pm. We could see that all the roadside cafes with tables and chairs spread out in the sun were still waiting for customers to come and order their coffee or tortilla or whatever. Anyway we got on paying 1600 pesos ($8/-) per head and sat high up, enjoying the breeze. We had been handed a city map with marked stops and there were headphones with every seat through which a guide's voice, matched with the movement of the bus, was available in the language of your choice. We passed the National Library, art museums, churches, the Royal Palace, Botanical Gardens and some more ten sites I have lost track of. Beautiful architecture, not only at these points, but at the street-corners and roundabouts, in arches and doorways, in pillars and water-spouts. Very very impressive. And a very clean city.
We went hunting for lunch for something typically Spanish, but were finally scared off, even from the relatively harmless 'paella' (which is a rice dish with vegetable garnishing and either chicken or shrimps on top). Finally we dived into a 'safe' Chinese joint. However, the chow-mein was like pasta and the shrimps were with shells and the tastes definitely onion-and-garlic-ish. Not much Chinese about the place apart from the waiter, who was also Madrid-born in all likelihood.

By this time (in fact while we were on the bus-top itself), we could see the 'Sunday-enjoyer' crowds on the streets, which seemed to include everybody. The roadside cafes were full of warbling couples, families were pushing prams around on the sunny sidewalks, young twosomes were smooching on benches and children were skateboarding all over the place. We also found people asleep in public parks and one girl stretched out on a sunlit bench, mildly snoring away. Making out on the grassy slopes also seemed to be quite common and a universally accepted thing. Clearly it was a h-o-l-i-d-a-y and these people were not the ones to spend it at home.

Madrid is as hep as any European metro in dress and style. However, the favourite of women with good figures (which seemd to be most of them) seemd to be skin-tight nylon tights and short tops, or fairly mini skirts. Very colourful dressing too. Full of the joy of life. A lot of men pierce their ears. Some piratical blood, maybe.

By 4.30 pm, we ran out of steam. The first-level sightseeing was over, and there was not enough time (nor energy) to get into museums and palaces. We vaguely remembered that there was a flight somewhere around 5.00 pm to Canary, which, if caught, will gain us 3 hours. We caught a bus back to the airport, collected our luggage, huffed and puffed through miles (literally!) of corridors and found the flight trundling to the runway. Anyway, we spent 3 hours unwinding in the business class lounge, to find which it took us half-an-hour in the first place.

I made a quick call home, found that booze was free in the business class lounge and organised a glass of Irish whiskey while setting out to catch up on my journal.

LINK TO MADRID ALBUM

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