I have never flown over a place where a city just stopped, separated by a vast expanse of reasonably pristine bush (national park, hooray!) by nothing more than a rail track. I’ve never been anywhere as smoky and smoggy as the outskirts of Nairobi.
Travel
Aug 222010
Aug 212010
The next hop of our trip took us to Chumbe, a coral island beach resort off the South-West coast of Zanzibar. The founders and management pride themselves on their ecological credentials, but beyond being a lovely place in a stunningly beautiful location, it’s as good an argument against compost toilets as I’ve ever seen.
Aug 202010
Holy everloving shit, I’ve never seen so many giraffes in my entire life. Already flying into Tarangire national park in Tanzania, with a redheaded English aviatrix at the stick, we got an idea of what would await us. She insisted that, occasionally, the guides waiting to pick up tourists at the rough-hewn airstrip didn’t do [...]
Aug 172010
The trip to Zanzibar, although long, was reasonable enough, and aside from four hours spent (as probably the only haram dhimmi kafir infidel types in a surreal windowless Nairobi airport basement sleeping lounge — $42 for four hours — thoroughly uneventful. The only real excitement came when we learned Kenya Airways had lost Karin’s suitcase.
Jan 112010
What amazes me most about the Vietnamese we’ve encountered is their spectacular sense of improvisation and adaptability, while still not being really innovative. Hotel staff will set up camp on the floor at night and tailors work their asses off to get things done under abysmal working conditions; the lady who served us delicious seafood [...]
Jan 062010
Decided to have a relaxing morning and not take the 09:00 to Sapa (partially also to avoid the obnoxious drunk Australian from two nights ago), so hired a later private car to spend a few hours in town before our bus to Lao Cai and the train station.
Jan 042010
All ads for long-distance trains in Vietnam (particularly Hanoi-Lao Cai/Sapa) show photos of a glistening, white rail rocket reminiscent of a TGV or ICE. We were a bit surprised that, given the ramshackle state of the few trains that crossed our path so far, Vietnam would have such modern transport infrastructure, but why not?
Jan 032010
Rather than bother with getting up at 0600 for tai chi (bang bang bang on the door, GOOD MORNING!) on the “sun deck” (we haven’t seen any sun since arriving, and the steel blanket smothering the sky is getting a bit depressing), we took in an extra few blissful hours of sleep, waking occasionally to [...]
Jan 022010
After a horrid night’s sleep, thanks to a mixture of generator noise and unfamiliar bedding (nothing was really bad, we just had a bit of insomnia keeping us going), we’re roused around 7 by the dastardly squawking of Karin’s blackberry. No, that’s not right, she punches me awake; as I jump up, thinking we’re being [...]
Jan 012010
Up at 07:30, in a flurry of vile accursed hangover-induced illness, headaches, and general intolerance of anything approaching noise, cheerful hotel employees, or slight vibrations. Thankfully thankfully, the Voice of Vietnam that has been blasting music and motivation outside of our window at all hours of the morning has been silenced — one assumes, by [...]