Spice Island

The Spice Island of Zanzibar was our most recent destination and we found the place like no other. Like Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar is mostly muslim, in fact I think we heard that Stone Town, the main town on the Island, has 43 Mosques and 3 Churches. Historically it is known for its spices and slaves, and more currently the beaches and the maze-like narrow streets of Stone Town.

Departing from the 3 hour ferry ride, we arrived to a large crowd of obnoxious touts and taxi drivers. We wanted to get away form their obnoxious behavior, so we picked out a taxi and paid 2000 shillings for a taxi ride of about 10 blocks. The guesthouse was nothing special, but sufficed for our 2 nights. We spent the better part of the next two days navigating the narrow passage ways and taking in the tourist sites. These included the old slave market, restored bathhouse, the old fort, and the palace. The streets are simply fascinating, it really is quite like being in a maze. Quaint shops and idle men line the streets and you can hear the children in school echoing down the paths. We don't have any pictures that really capture the streets......


And the doors were amazing. (We were told that the brass, knobby looking things were originally put on these types of doors to ward off the elephants as they are very sharp. Not sure if we believe it, but a good story....the problem is, there aren't any elephants on Zanzibar!)

Next we headed for the beaches on the northern most part of the island. We found a nice guesthouse, right on the beach, and settled in for 3 nights. It rained everday, so we ploughed through a book or two and played cards. The sun was out enough for several swims and long walks as well as one dive. The dive was not spectacular, but it was nice to get under again after 6 months of no diving. I was proud of both of us as we made the dive with no complications and were able to enjoy ourselves. Often the first dive after a break is focused more on remembering basic skills that seeing anything.

This is how we spent much of the time on the beach.


Watching the sunset!

And thar she goes...


This northern part of the island is also where a large portion of the area's wooden dhows are built. We saw several new boats in different phases of contruction and watched the fisherman going out and coming daily.


On one bummer note, we had 3 set of shoes stolen from outside our room on our last night there. After 6 months in SE Asia, with no problems, I guess we were a little too trusting. For some reason we took this first encounter with theft quite hard. Not sure if it was the principle, the fact that it happened in broad daylight, the fact that we were stupid enough to leave them out in plain view for three days straight, or the fact that they were damn good shoes, and hard to replace. We couldn't take it out on the owner as he was a kind man, and visibly distressed himself. He did what he could, and we did all we could by swallowing our pride and offering to buy back our shoes if the culprit came forward or if anyone happened to 'find' them. They didn't turn up and as we padded sullen and barefoot in a thundering rainstorm through (worm-infested?) puddles into our minivan we couldn't help but look at every person's feet in hopes of spotting our beloved Chacos (have I painted a pathetic enough picture yet?). We bought some really crap flip flops in Stone Town and had blisters by the time we got to our hotel here in Dar still bemoaning our loss (but a little less so).

The ride back to Dar was on a 'speed boat'. So instead of three hours it took two and instead of costing $20, it cost $35. The slow boat went at 10:00 PM and we weren't excited about wandering through the streets of Dar at 2:00 AM. It was a fast boat, and the sea was a bit choppy....an expensive amusement park ride is about what it felt like.....puking customers and all (no, not us, but another journey with the infamous passing out of the plastic bags).

Back in Dar we finally are not staying a place with 'Jambo' in the title (Jambo means hello here, and we've stayed at Jambo Inn, Jambo Guesthouse, and Jambo Brothers). Tonight it is Safari Inn. Can't say too much great about Dar. A big city that is good for shoe shopping, ATM's and lots of stares...some friendly, some not so friendly. Found some better shoes. Keith was able to get a pair at a legitimate store, where Emily could only find a pair that fit from a street vendor....which likely means she is wearing a fellow traveler's stolen footwear! They look new, so we're hoping not.

Tomorrow we are heading south and inland via an overnight train to Mbeya. After a night there we will cross into Malawi.

African Safari in the Serengeti

Well, we've been in Africa now for over a week. Our trip over from Bangkok was seamless. About 9 hours in the air to Nairobi, 4 hours at the Nairobi airport, then one more hour to Kilimanjaro airport in Tanzania. It was morning on the flight from Nairobi and a clear day, so we were rewarded with fantastic views of Mt Kilimanjaro right out our plane window.

Kili from the plane. We won't be climbing it. Too expensive, and, hey, we probably had the best view right here!


After walking past the taxi drivers who wanted to charge us USD $50 to take us to Arusha (50km away) we found the free shuttle that got us to town in a snap. First impressions of the area, and stepping off the plane was a relief at how fresh the air felt. It was overcast, cool and not humid. Such a change from everywhere in SE Asia. Arriving into the town of Arusha we were greeted with a slightly different style of touting. Of course every westerner that comes to Arusha is looking for a safari. So as we step out of the bus, we are greeted with several business cards. Despite our pleas that we are extremely tired and in no rush to book a safari, one of the gentlemen manages to stay by our side the entire way to our hotel of choice. A very nice man, giving us loads of good advice along the way, but the heart of the matter of course is that he wants us to book safari with his company. We tell him we need a nap, and yes, we promise to come visit your office. We wake up from our nap, and he's waiting outside our hotel room! We tell, him please, give us a day to recoop, and yes, we promise to come to your office. We manage to spend the rest of the day walking around, eating, and collecting more safari operator business cards.

Our hotel was less than great, so we moved....and made a point to move early so that we could do so before Alex showed up again (our tout friend). Sure enough, we run into Alex later, and he says, "I came to your hotel this morning with a car, but you weren't there!" Talk about persistence! So we spent the rest of that second day inquiring at several different tour operators. It was hilarious. It is low season now, and we are just about the only tourists in town and thus are a very sought after couple of white faces. We would walk out of one office, and literally be ushered into the car of the next waiting company and driven to their office. Our shopping around paid off, as we ended up getting a very good deal. When you go on safari, you have the option to camp or stay in fancy lodges. Naturally, we figured we'd be camping, but with low season, the price to stay in the lodges is the same as camping. So...twist our arm, we'll stay in fancy lodges with all you can eat buffets! The most bizarre thing with all this safari shopping, is that right after we booked with our company we didn't get one more tout approach us trying to sell us safari. It's like a bulletin went out: "The couple from the US has booked safari. Stop all efforts to sell."

We highly recommend anyone thinking about going to Serengeti to do it in the low season. Low season is technically the rainy season. This means cooler temps, and beautiful, green scenery. Also with the low season you get far fewer other people driving the roads of the park looking for the same elusive leopard in the tree. Plus, it is WAY cheaper. Still an expensive outing, but we were very pleased with the price we got.

So anyway....on to safari. We chose a 5 day, 4 night trip that took in three different parks. Leaving Arusha, 5 of us plus our driver, David, piled into a well worn Land Rover and we drove about 2 hours to Lake Manyara. The Land Rovers have quite comfortable seats, everyone gets a window seat, and a completely removable roof, so you end up standing on your seat most of the time for the best view and fresh air.

On safari. Luckily, we ended up with a very cool group of people to travel with!


On the way out you pass many Masai people. These are a nomadic people whose lives revolve around their herds of cattle. Of course, now they are not as nomadic and are becoming more reliant on tourism. Yes, we had to pay to take this picture:


Of course Lake Manyara was fantastic, because it gave us our first sightings of everything. The guides must find the first day hilarious. Stop! It's an elephant! A giraffe! An impala (really pretty antelope)! Stop! A warthog! Another antelope! Stop! Stop! We have to take a picture! Even though he assured us we'd see more and see them a lot closer, it didn't matter. The first of anything you see in the wild is pretty cool. And sure enough, by day 5 we were giving the giraffe, impala and elephant nothing more than a passing glance. The Lake Manyara park is 2/3 lake and 1/3 land and sits on the valley portion of the great Rift Valley. Lots of wildlife. The more elusive, being the tree climbing lion. Lions don't usually climb trees, but in this park they have learned how out of necessity in order to escape the flies that torment them in the grasses. On our way out, a jeep in front of us reported that they saw a lion napping off in the distance, so we backed up and were able to spot her. Our first lion! So we sit and watch her through binoculars oohhing and ahhing. Then we get a special treat when she gets up, walks towards us, crosses the road right in front of us and climbs a tree! How cool.

Here is our friend climbing the tree:


Elephant at Lake Manyara.


That night we stayed in a beautiful lodge overlooking the lake. Way too luxurious for us, but we weren't complaining and made the most of the all-you-can-eat buffets. I don't think we've been hungry for about 7 days now!

The next day was a long drive into the Serengeti Park, where we stayed in another fantastic lodge for 2 nights. In between those nights you go out in the Land Rover on game drives lasting 3-4 hours. Most of the time you are looking for animals, but it is funny how much time you also spend tracking other Land Rovers. Look! There are three jeeps stopped over there....what are they looking at? Let's go find out! So you can imagine what high season is like....makes me feel bad for the animals sometimes. The Serengeti consists mostly of vast plains, with a smattering of rock outcroppings called kopjes. Looking from a distance you wouldn't expect that so many animals live there. So what did we see? Everything....gazelles, impalas, hippos, buffalo, elephant, giraffe, hyena, lions galore, a cheetah from VERY far away, a leopard sleeping in a tree, migrating wildebeest, zebra, topi, warthog, jackal, vultures, some of the biggest birds we've ever seen and some of the smallest and most colorful.

Some photos...most are self-explanatory:


One of the thousands of wildebeest:


Zebras. Apparently their heads and necks are heavy, so when they want to rest they find a friend and rest their heads on each others backs. So cute!


Some of our favorite moments were watching the lions move around and snuggle with each other, gazing at the thousands of migrating wildebeest and zebra (we were lucky enough at this time of year to witness a small part of one of the last great migrations on earth...where 2.5 million wildebeest are constantly on the move for greener pastures between Tanzania and Kenya), watching sunset across the plains, and waking in the middle of the night to a strange rhythmic crunching sound only to find a hippo right outside our window chowing down on the grass.

Evening light on the Serengeti after a short rainstorm. Yes, we were actually there in the middle of this scenery. Unbelievable.


Close up with the lions:


After the Serengeti, we spent our last day exploring the Ngorongoro crater. This is a massive crater (11 km across) holds the largest concentration of wildlife on the planet. So with not much driving, you get to see a lot of wildlife. More of the same, but we got to add rhino, eland (largest of the antelope) and flamingo to our list. Other treats in the crater included a huge pride of lions (maybe 10 of them) that took advantage of the shade from the vehicles surrounding them, and watching a different pride of lions walking through the tall grass in single file hunting for lunch. We never did see a kill, but to watch them prowling like that was pretty cool. The lodge at the crater sat on the very rim and had spectacular panoramic views of the whole thing.

Lions hunting in the Ngorongoro crater:


A long drive out and we were back in Arusha by 5:00. And back to reality. No more being catered to and no more huge meals (a good thing I'm sure). Yesterday, we were able to dodge the bus touts and got on the Dar Express, which turned out to be a reasonabe ride (the 'Express' part was accurate) and within 9 hours we arrived in Dar Es Salaam on the central, eastern side of Tanzania. Dar is a huge city, and we haven't seen much of it yet besides our margninal and expensive hotel room and this internet place. Not much really to do here anyway, but we'll get a ferry tomorrow to Zanzibar which is the tourist destination of this area...known to some as part of the Spice Islands. It's hot back down here at sea level, and we're looking forward to hitting the ocean.

Leaving SE Asia

We've spent seven days here in Bangkok...two more than originally planned, and are finally taking off for Africa tonight. We were able to accomplish everything we needed to here in the big city and then some. We've walked the same streets, taken the same taxis, and walked through the same bloody shopping malls enough times to make ourselves even more ready to move on. We'll spend today hanging out, playing cards and watching a movie in our guesthouse. Then we hop on Kenyan Airlines tonight at about 11:30, and get into Kilimanjaro airport at about 10:00 tomorrow morning. We'll be staying in Arusha, Tanzania where we'll organize our first big excursion in Africa...a safari in the Serengeti.

I have a feeling downloading pictures will not be as easy and internet will not be as abundant as they have been here on the SE Asia tract, but we'll do our best to keep you updated.

We hope everyone is well and happy and having a nice spring!

The Kindness of Strangers

OK, we are back in Bangkok, surviving the heat and getting stuff done. Not much else to say, but I did want to share with you a nice, heartwarming story about our border crossing from Laos into Thailand.

We bought our tickets for our train ride from the Thai border to Bangkok in Vang Vieng. The ticket price included transportation from Vientiane to the border, and we were told to wait outside a certain restaurant at 4:00. No problem. 4:00 on the nose we were there, only to have a waiter from the restaurant tell us that the bus doesn't come until 5:30, and that we should wait across the street. We asked one more person to confirm because I thought that was cutting it close for a 7:00 train departure. But we got the same answer so we found some seats and sat around killing time and sweating.

At about 5:00, we see a man inquiring to a passing traveler as to whether she is going to Bangkok and waiting for transport. She said no, but luckily we overheard the conversation and showed our faces and told him we were. He said, "by train?" and we said, "yes". He said, "Let's go....I've been walking around looking and looking for you!". Yikes. So we piled into his comfortable air-conditioned minivan with a group of the friendliest Thais we have met heading out to catch the same train. They had been waiting and looking for us for 30 minutes. They were not concerned at all, and assured us we still had plenty of time. We thanked them profusely for not giving up and leaving us, and the driver said, "I cannot leave my people" or something to that effect.

This group consisted of a middle-aged man who lives in Washington D.C, Mr Song, and Bo, who we assumed is a business partner and 3 other ladies...they were all travelling on business from Bangkok. We chatted with Song the whole way to the border while he translated the conversation to Bo, who was clearly very interested in us and our travels.

At the border, the minivan left us, our new friends went to do some Duty free shopping and we put ourselves in the very slow moving and very long "Foreigner Passport" immigration line to depart Laos. It started to become a little disconcerting as to how slow the line was moving as we still had to find transportation across the bridge, go through Thailand immigration, and find transportation to the train station. As we are standing there, with about 10 people ahead of us to go, our friends come back from shopping and breeze through the "Thai Passport" line. Bo speaks rapidly to the immigration officer there, and then quickly waves us over to his line....they had made it OK for us to go through their line knowing we were pressed for time. (I don't think the surly immigration officer, however, appreciated the throngs of other falang that followed us into that line thinking it was open to all foreigners! I have a feeling they got turned back).

The kindness did not stop there. As we are getting our passports inspected and stamped, Bo comes over with two receipts for the Laos exit fee. He paid our way out of Laos! (So it was only 50 cents each, but the gesture and the time saved was so thoughtful). Then, we get ushered over by them again, as they have hired a minivan taxi to take them the rest of the way and the insist we pile in with them. And continue to refuse any money from us. So off we go into Thailand. Luckily the lines on the Thailand immigration were the same for everybody and not very long. Back in the minivan and off to the train terminal with 20 minutes to spare to sit down with our new friends and have a quick bite to eat. I honestly think we might not have made it had we been left to our own vices and ignorance about the transport.

We were blown away by their kindness, especially after we were the reason they were late in the first place! Thai hospitality and kindness at its best.

Bangkok is going well. We have been shopping and to the movies. The only movie playing in every single theatre is MI3, but we were craving a good ol cinema experience so we went. A bit on the loud side (volumes are frequently turned up way too lound in SE Asia....at least the speakers weren't crackling like they often are in the street), but an entertaining movie. Today we went to the HUGE weekend market...something like 10,000 vendors set up. We bought a cheap pair of binoculars and some socks. Dad, you would have absolutely hated this market. So many people, hot, and nothing but shopping. We didn't even enjoy it all that much, but we had to go check it out in pursuit of good bargains.

More shopping on the list, research, pages to be inserted into passports, airline tickets to pick up and a restocking of malaria meds. Fun stuff. Don't be hurt if we don't update you with all the fine details. The next post may very well come from Tanzania, Africa. However, if those rope swing pics ever come through, I promise to toss them up here.

Cheers!

The Last of Laos

We are currently in Vientiane, Laos, the capital of the country. We arrived here yesterday by public bus/truck and once again, it is HOT. It was so nice up in the northern part of the country with all the mountains and daily rain showers and clouds. Still hot up there, but bearable. Here, it is hardly bearable. So I looked online, because we've been complaining so much and become so lethargic, I figured it must be well over 100 degrees. Phooey, it's only 90. But then I looked at Bangkok.....98. Yikes, I guess we should stop complaining. The best news, is that in Tanzania (our next big destination), the hottest temp I could find was in the mid 70's. Yay!

So we finished up our bike trip with one big marathon ride all the way from Luang Prabang back to Vang Vieng. We stopped at the half way point, but it was still early and decided to push on. Then stopped at the next major town and did peek our heads into a couple guesthouses, but no one was around so we took it as fate and made a final sprint for 'home'. That day we rode about 230km! It total, for our whole trip we figured we covered about 1,017 km. Not bad. That last day of riding was all backtracking, but in some ways coming from a new direction and being on bikes it didn't feel redundant at all. Even a change in the weather makes the scenery appear different. A beautiful ride none-the-less. Here is some more scenery photos for you to look at (are you tired of them yet?)...

This is about halfway between Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng. Just south of Phu Khoun.


A little closer to Vang Vieng. A look at the road we've been driving:


Really getting close to Vang Vieng now....

And finally, just about 20km north of Vang Vieng as we are trying to beat the setting sun...


We spent two days in Vang Vieng, staying at an organic farm/guesthouse outside of town. A nice way to get away from the falang hoards in town. (By the way mom, it is falang in Laos, and farang in Thailand...to refer to Westerners). They serve pretty good, all organic food, and mulberry everything (shakes, pancakes, etc) as their primary crop is mulberries.

The one thing everyone does in Vang Vieng is inner tube down a small stretch of the Nam Song River. While we envisioned a fast paced river with some mild rapids, we were a bit disappointed as it was pretty slow moving water, and lots of paddling (from which we are pathetically sore, thank you very much!). What they did have instead were many riverside bars serving an immense amount of BeerLao, and huge, gnarley rope swings! Two of them were crazy. The bamboo support stand/ladder/platform sat about 30 feet off the water, and you hold on to a handle connected to a big cable that is anchored way over your head, and once you get the courage to push yourself off the platform, you swing like mad, making a huge arch where at the peak of the swing you are just slightly lower than the platform from which you started, where you let go and plunge into the river. The first time I did it I was too scared to let go, so I swang back and forth a couple times (pretty darn fun), but the second time I let go at the peak (pretty fun as well). This was way scarier for me than those crazy zip lines for some reason. Keith went several more times than I did and perfected his piroette entry into the water as well as his backwards launch. We didn't bring our camera with us, but some girls we met took some pictures for us and promised to email them to us...we'll post them as soon as we get them.

We left the next day for Vientiane, and we are kind of petering out on the sightseeing and are a bit anxious to get to Bangkok and get a book on Africa so we can start planning that leg of our journey. So pretty laid back days here. We did go out this morning to see what I think is the largest stupa in the world. I don't know too much about it except that it has become the National symbol for Laos and is on the cover of our book, so we had to go see it and get a picture of one of us standing in front of it. Here it is:


We don't plan to so much else here. We've got an airconditioned room, so we're loving that naturally. We'll check out the local night market tonight then it's off to the border across the Friendship Bridge tomorrow evening and an overnight train to Bangkok.