Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Lagos to Port-Harcourt
Bellview flight 1833 landed at Murtala Muhammed Airport at about 5.30am, local time. From the air, Lagos was a sea of black. The odd street light would be the equivalent of a candle under a transparent bushel. I think I may have read somewhere about the view of Earth from space, and how much darker Africa is compared with the rest of the world. It gives new meaning to the phrase ‘Dark Continent’. I think Conrad can now get a reprieve, and perhaps all racists connotations can be removed. The continent is dark.
The walk from the plane to the conveyor belt was the quickest ever. It took about five minutes, if that. Immigration was perfunctory, no melodrama whatsoever. A bit of a tiff developed when someone apparently jumped the queue for picking up trolleys. And I thought, there we go, another queueing brouhaha. Nigerians can’t queue.
Picked up my luggage, and headed towards customs. I was wearing a bright yellow Togolese football jersey, with a kaffiyeh scarf tied around my neck. Some of you are probably thinking that was very naive of me. Dressing like a clown and attracting attention to myself. Dis one na JJC. It only dawned on me when I got to customs and I was pulled aside.
“Wetin you bring come for us? We dey accept any currency.”
“I didn’t bring anything, I came for a wedding.”
Note the two fatal mistakes there: speaking in proper English rather than pidgin, and saying I came for a wedding. For some ridiculous reason I thought coming for a wedding would present me in a sympathetic light. Did it?
“Wedding? If it was a burial, I for say. Wedding is a time of rejoicing.”
I gave a him some sterling, and buggered off. I am naive. A friend of mine once said that when he got to MMA, he ‘flipped mode’, he switched and became a different person. His attitude, his driving, everything changed. Mr Hyde came to fore. One can’t afford to wait till outside the airport to flip mode. Flip mode must take place, at Heathrow or Gatwick possibly, or at the latest, on the the airplane. This probably explains the (sometime) behaviour of people flying to Nigeria at Heathrow/Gatwick airports.
Why did I give him the money? Because I didn’t want undue stress. I wanted to get him off my back. But I’ve learnt my lesson. It is my kind of behaviour that perpetuates the culture of ‘gimme chop’. I put my own convenience ahead of the good of Nigeria. I wasn’t prepared to endure even the slightest duress. I was ashamed of myself. Next time, I have my line ready. “I work for the BBC. I’m here to do a documentary about corruption and the collection of bribes by Nigerian officials. Would you like to say a few words for my microphone?” I have to flip mode and think ruthlessly, otherwise I’ll be chewed alive in this country.
My uncle picked me up, but had to go back and pick up his car. A ‘tout’ was beside me, pushing and shoving me, making sure he earned his keep. Despite the fact that I hadn’t requested his services. My shirt was beginning to stick to my skin, that all too familiar Nigerian heat. The kind you can bite, chew, and spit out.
Most of the area around arrivals is now no parking, stop there, and the clampers do you down. And they nearly did us down. The tout shoved the luggage onto the no parking road, and as my uncle was driving down, he bundled the luggage into the car. The clampers got up and started running towards the car. Suddenly another three of four people swarmed around the car. “Oga wait, we no go clamp you. Settle us first.” I was sitting in the front passenger seat, feeling vulnerable. It reminded me a riot in Lagos, circa 1989, when our car was stopped at Iganmu. My mum’s necklace was snatched, my uncle’s watch ripped off his arm. There’s something about too many people around your car, hitting, pounding, and demanding. Quite frankly, it makes one want to pee their pants. It’s a claustrophobia where breaking out isn’t an option. My uncle ‘settled them’, and we drove off, heading towards the local airport.
During the short drive between the international and local airports, I realised what made me uncomfortable in Nigeria, but perhaps more specifically, Lagos. I felt naked. I felt exposed. If you’d can give you a list of people who can attest to how much I hate being naked. Email me.
I was looking forward to the new MMA2 of great fame. Sit down in an air-conditioned lobby, blog, drink some hot chocolate. Instead we went to the old local airport. The glorified molue park. If my uncle hadn’t been there to help, I’d have been lost. I’d probably have flown in the end, but possibly only after at least two hours of flip mode hustling.
For the first time in my life, I understood why money is so important in Nigerian society. It isn’t to buy cars or houses. It is to buy favours to keep the cars or houses running. What’s the point of buying a Mercedes SLK if you have to queue like everyone else to put petrol in it? What’s the point of owning a huge house house if you have to do the gardening yourself, open the gate yourself, secure the house yourself? Money in Nigeria is used to keep one’s lapels clean. I have money, so let other people do the scratching and biting for me.
We had to pay a penalty because I’d missed my flight from the previous day. Paying the penalty involved considerable pushing and shoving. And then we had to pay a charge for excess luggage. Paying the charge involved considerable pushing and shoving. But one can’t fly without a boarding pass. Getting the boarding pass involved, yep, yet more pushing and shoving. But I stood back and watched. We had a ‘tout’ who did all the biting and scratching. That’s what money allows one to do. Stand back and watch.
This was Arik, and from what I hear Arik is supposed to be one of the better performers. If this is what happens with the good, I shudder to even think of the bad. As it iturns out, new aircraft does not a good airline make. The plane was littered with oil workers and expats, made distinct by the company logos on their shirts. I was given a seat number, 25D. But as I walked to the back of the plane I noticed all the seats were taken. The flight attendant shouted “sit anywhere you find a seat”. Okay, no need to do oyinbo, find a place and sit. The guy standing behind me had been flown in from the US on Delta Airlines.
“I have a seat number, if someone is sitting on my seat, they should get up.”
I turned around and said to him, “My friend, this is not Delta Airlines. If you want to go to Port-Harcourt today, you better find a seat, and put your arse down.” Or something close to that.
The flight was smooth. They served a snack of meat pies and drinks, which I didn’t have. I was bursting for a wee. I hadn’t been since shortly after take-off the night before at 11pm. It was now 8.30am. And because I was sitting by the window, I didn’t want to have to fight my way out of my tight little corner to go to a loo I’d probably have had to queue for anyway. So I slept instead.
Port-Harcourt
Port-Harcourt is very similar to how I remember it. I used to come very often as a boy, cos my mama’s family are from Rivers. Yes, I know, I’m mixed race – half-Igbo, half-Rivers. I hadn’t been to PH since 1993, so 15 years. In the time in between, I heard that Garden City status of PH was no longer justified. But I must admit, PH was clean and tidy. I’m comparing it to Lagos, which isn’t hard to beat. Then again, some Western cities are filth boxes, London being one of them. PH airport is a building with a roof and a baggage carousel. Get off the plane, walk into the building with the carousel, walk out. It seemed like a colonial outpost, designed for the purpose of supplying Her Majesty’s Imperial Government of the Protectorate of Nigeria.
I saw the famous solar powered street lights which line the route into town. But I didn’t get a chance to see them in action as it was daytime. My cousin who had picked me up from the airport was complaining about about the okadas, nuisance, accident magnets, etc. But I actually don’t mind them. I understand that there are quite often the cheapest and quickest way to get around several Nigerian cities. For the supply and demand economists out there, the market talks.
PH felt like a much saner place than Lagos. Despite all the talk of kidnappings, it still felt safer. I didn’t feel the vulnerability and nakedness I felt during my brief time in Lagos. This was a city where I felt I could walk around on my own, hop in a taxi, jump on an okada. No creaking neck from constantly looking over my shoulder.
The great thing about these trips is seeing family one hasn’t seen in a long time. Paying ones dues, saluting the cousins, uncles and aunties – especially the ones that haven’t seen you since they carried you as a baby. Why do they always disappear for decades, and then turn up at your wedding and tell the world about how they changed your nappy as a baby?
It also appears that when men reach a certain age, only one question becomes relevant. Marriage. When are you getting married? Is there anyone we should know about? Should we start preparing? When will you give your mum grandchildren? Flaming Heck! Give me a break, man! It took a lot of willpower not to have to cuff some of my aunts round the ear... The look on their husbands' faces almost seemed to say, "don't do it son, look at us."
From PH, I got on a Rivers State Transport Company bus to Awka, Anambra State.
The walk from the plane to the conveyor belt was the quickest ever. It took about five minutes, if that. Immigration was perfunctory, no melodrama whatsoever. A bit of a tiff developed when someone apparently jumped the queue for picking up trolleys. And I thought, there we go, another queueing brouhaha. Nigerians can’t queue.
Picked up my luggage, and headed towards customs. I was wearing a bright yellow Togolese football jersey, with a kaffiyeh scarf tied around my neck. Some of you are probably thinking that was very naive of me. Dressing like a clown and attracting attention to myself. Dis one na JJC. It only dawned on me when I got to customs and I was pulled aside.
“Wetin you bring come for us? We dey accept any currency.”
“I didn’t bring anything, I came for a wedding.”
Note the two fatal mistakes there: speaking in proper English rather than pidgin, and saying I came for a wedding. For some ridiculous reason I thought coming for a wedding would present me in a sympathetic light. Did it?
“Wedding? If it was a burial, I for say. Wedding is a time of rejoicing.”
I gave a him some sterling, and buggered off. I am naive. A friend of mine once said that when he got to MMA, he ‘flipped mode’, he switched and became a different person. His attitude, his driving, everything changed. Mr Hyde came to fore. One can’t afford to wait till outside the airport to flip mode. Flip mode must take place, at Heathrow or Gatwick possibly, or at the latest, on the the airplane. This probably explains the (sometime) behaviour of people flying to Nigeria at Heathrow/Gatwick airports.
Why did I give him the money? Because I didn’t want undue stress. I wanted to get him off my back. But I’ve learnt my lesson. It is my kind of behaviour that perpetuates the culture of ‘gimme chop’. I put my own convenience ahead of the good of Nigeria. I wasn’t prepared to endure even the slightest duress. I was ashamed of myself. Next time, I have my line ready. “I work for the BBC. I’m here to do a documentary about corruption and the collection of bribes by Nigerian officials. Would you like to say a few words for my microphone?” I have to flip mode and think ruthlessly, otherwise I’ll be chewed alive in this country.
My uncle picked me up, but had to go back and pick up his car. A ‘tout’ was beside me, pushing and shoving me, making sure he earned his keep. Despite the fact that I hadn’t requested his services. My shirt was beginning to stick to my skin, that all too familiar Nigerian heat. The kind you can bite, chew, and spit out.
Most of the area around arrivals is now no parking, stop there, and the clampers do you down. And they nearly did us down. The tout shoved the luggage onto the no parking road, and as my uncle was driving down, he bundled the luggage into the car. The clampers got up and started running towards the car. Suddenly another three of four people swarmed around the car. “Oga wait, we no go clamp you. Settle us first.” I was sitting in the front passenger seat, feeling vulnerable. It reminded me a riot in Lagos, circa 1989, when our car was stopped at Iganmu. My mum’s necklace was snatched, my uncle’s watch ripped off his arm. There’s something about too many people around your car, hitting, pounding, and demanding. Quite frankly, it makes one want to pee their pants. It’s a claustrophobia where breaking out isn’t an option. My uncle ‘settled them’, and we drove off, heading towards the local airport.
During the short drive between the international and local airports, I realised what made me uncomfortable in Nigeria, but perhaps more specifically, Lagos. I felt naked. I felt exposed. If you’d can give you a list of people who can attest to how much I hate being naked. Email me.
I was looking forward to the new MMA2 of great fame. Sit down in an air-conditioned lobby, blog, drink some hot chocolate. Instead we went to the old local airport. The glorified molue park. If my uncle hadn’t been there to help, I’d have been lost. I’d probably have flown in the end, but possibly only after at least two hours of flip mode hustling.
For the first time in my life, I understood why money is so important in Nigerian society. It isn’t to buy cars or houses. It is to buy favours to keep the cars or houses running. What’s the point of buying a Mercedes SLK if you have to queue like everyone else to put petrol in it? What’s the point of owning a huge house house if you have to do the gardening yourself, open the gate yourself, secure the house yourself? Money in Nigeria is used to keep one’s lapels clean. I have money, so let other people do the scratching and biting for me.
We had to pay a penalty because I’d missed my flight from the previous day. Paying the penalty involved considerable pushing and shoving. And then we had to pay a charge for excess luggage. Paying the charge involved considerable pushing and shoving. But one can’t fly without a boarding pass. Getting the boarding pass involved, yep, yet more pushing and shoving. But I stood back and watched. We had a ‘tout’ who did all the biting and scratching. That’s what money allows one to do. Stand back and watch.
This was Arik, and from what I hear Arik is supposed to be one of the better performers. If this is what happens with the good, I shudder to even think of the bad. As it iturns out, new aircraft does not a good airline make. The plane was littered with oil workers and expats, made distinct by the company logos on their shirts. I was given a seat number, 25D. But as I walked to the back of the plane I noticed all the seats were taken. The flight attendant shouted “sit anywhere you find a seat”. Okay, no need to do oyinbo, find a place and sit. The guy standing behind me had been flown in from the US on Delta Airlines.
“I have a seat number, if someone is sitting on my seat, they should get up.”
I turned around and said to him, “My friend, this is not Delta Airlines. If you want to go to Port-Harcourt today, you better find a seat, and put your arse down.” Or something close to that.
The flight was smooth. They served a snack of meat pies and drinks, which I didn’t have. I was bursting for a wee. I hadn’t been since shortly after take-off the night before at 11pm. It was now 8.30am. And because I was sitting by the window, I didn’t want to have to fight my way out of my tight little corner to go to a loo I’d probably have had to queue for anyway. So I slept instead.
Port-Harcourt
Port-Harcourt is very similar to how I remember it. I used to come very often as a boy, cos my mama’s family are from Rivers. Yes, I know, I’m mixed race – half-Igbo, half-Rivers. I hadn’t been to PH since 1993, so 15 years. In the time in between, I heard that Garden City status of PH was no longer justified. But I must admit, PH was clean and tidy. I’m comparing it to Lagos, which isn’t hard to beat. Then again, some Western cities are filth boxes, London being one of them. PH airport is a building with a roof and a baggage carousel. Get off the plane, walk into the building with the carousel, walk out. It seemed like a colonial outpost, designed for the purpose of supplying Her Majesty’s Imperial Government of the Protectorate of Nigeria.
I saw the famous solar powered street lights which line the route into town. But I didn’t get a chance to see them in action as it was daytime. My cousin who had picked me up from the airport was complaining about about the okadas, nuisance, accident magnets, etc. But I actually don’t mind them. I understand that there are quite often the cheapest and quickest way to get around several Nigerian cities. For the supply and demand economists out there, the market talks.
PH felt like a much saner place than Lagos. Despite all the talk of kidnappings, it still felt safer. I didn’t feel the vulnerability and nakedness I felt during my brief time in Lagos. This was a city where I felt I could walk around on my own, hop in a taxi, jump on an okada. No creaking neck from constantly looking over my shoulder.
The great thing about these trips is seeing family one hasn’t seen in a long time. Paying ones dues, saluting the cousins, uncles and aunties – especially the ones that haven’t seen you since they carried you as a baby. Why do they always disappear for decades, and then turn up at your wedding and tell the world about how they changed your nappy as a baby?
It also appears that when men reach a certain age, only one question becomes relevant. Marriage. When are you getting married? Is there anyone we should know about? Should we start preparing? When will you give your mum grandchildren? Flaming Heck! Give me a break, man! It took a lot of willpower not to have to cuff some of my aunts round the ear... The look on their husbands' faces almost seemed to say, "don't do it son, look at us."
From PH, I got on a Rivers State Transport Company bus to Awka, Anambra State.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
A first.
For the first time, I'll end up spending more time outside Lagos than in. Got to Lagos in one piece, then flew out to Port Harcourt straightaway. Spent two days there, and I'm now in Awka, Anambra State. Lots of stories to tell, lots of theories of relativity and other things, but so little time, and so little bandwidth...
Friday, March 21, 2008
Finally
...made it. Writing this from duty free. The only way I can miss this flight is if I fall asleep because I'm just blooming exhausted. Believe me, that isn't far-fetched. Woman at the check-in counter described me as a model passenger. "If only they were al llike you." All my luggage was within the weight allowance, I had my passport at the ready, I knew where I wanted to sit. It took me precisely five minutes to check in. Yes, I deserve a medal.
Let's not even get into the lack of order, and the provenance of chaos in the early queuing stages. Nigerians don't know how to queue. To say the concept is alien to them is misleading, because at least aliens live in the same universe as us. Queuing and Nigeria are not even light years apart.
My hand luggage was given the Tel Aviv treatment. It was swabbed for all sorts of incendiary, fissile, explosive material possible, I'm sure. Basically, I forgot a half drunk bottle of water in it. Silent alarm bells obviously rang, discreetly, and lights flashed in some ante-chamber. In Tel Aviv they swab all your luggage about three times before check in. Heavy. Off to board.
Let's not even get into the lack of order, and the provenance of chaos in the early queuing stages. Nigerians don't know how to queue. To say the concept is alien to them is misleading, because at least aliens live in the same universe as us. Queuing and Nigeria are not even light years apart.
My hand luggage was given the Tel Aviv treatment. It was swabbed for all sorts of incendiary, fissile, explosive material possible, I'm sure. Basically, I forgot a half drunk bottle of water in it. Silent alarm bells obviously rang, discreetly, and lights flashed in some ante-chamber. In Tel Aviv they swab all your luggage about three times before check in. Heavy. Off to board.
I didn't
...make the flight. Got close to the front of the queue, before being told they had reached the magical number of 199, or something. I was mildly peeved, more amused by the incredulity of it all. Airlines always overbook. We all know this. Passengers are fickle as fireflies, and don’t always turn up. So airlines do the sensible business thing by using the laws of averages, probabilities, and possibly physics to make sure they get as many people onto a flight as they can. This being an airline, the “Nigeria Factor” cannot be applied airside, otherwise one can imagine baggage holds and foldable chairs being used to boost numbers.Things will always go belly up, in Nigeria, Togo, or Germany. What matters is the response to the inverted belly. When Virgin or BA realise that their plane will probably be full, what do they do? They start alerting customers, offering them free tickets, cash, anything. Just so people can continue saying nice things about them despite not getting on a flight they were booked for. Bellview waited until the very end. We were still queuing 30 minutes after the scheduled departure time. Nobody suspected we woudn’t be getting on the plane, because there was no indication of a crisis. Slow checking in, and/or the “Nigerian Factor”, perhaps, but a full plane? Most of the paranoid talk was mainly a combination of jest and good ol' cynicism.
The rub was that we didn’t find out we were going nowhere slowly till the very end. No explanation, nada. Being the English gent (sans irony) that I am (or chicken - in the queue I had joked about staging a sit-down protest on the conveyor belt if we didn’t travel), I went to the man in charge. “The flight is full, we’re sorry. Come back tomorrow.“ It stung as much as I imagine it would a perpetually hungry but dim debtor at seeing the “No credit today, come back tomorrow” sign in Iya Sekira’s buka. Travelling being second only to nothing in stress terms, seemingly law-abiding passengers metamorphosed into irate Tibetan monks in search of a Lhasa Chinaman. No zen-calm Buddhism being practised here, thank you. To affirm the fact of travelling as the preeminent stressful event in life, think of the two best men who weren’t able to get on the flight. And think of the groom, who had to call his future wife and tell her he’d be landing on the morning of the wedding instead of the Friday. Saturday will be a breeze for them. If he makes it.
The Metropolitan police were called after a little verbal sparring between a Nigerian guy and a couple of check-in people. “Fuckienh himmigrant”, ‘e said to dem in d ‘eat of batool. One was eastern European and the other looked South Asian. “Dey tink I’m illegal”. His wife’s white, going to Nigeria for the first time, cafe-au-lait baby daughter in pram. Of course this altercation had no bearing on anything, save some enterntainment for us, and a chance for London’s armed finest to serve and protect. They left after two minutes. One theory was that they’re all immigrants, let them bludgeon themselves to death for all we care.
In the end we were taken to St. Giles Hotel, twenty minutes away in Feltham. We got there at about 1am, checked in, got our instructions that we would be picked up at 2pm today. I got a single room on the 10th floor at St. Giles, four star, right by Feltham train station. Decent enough place, but Bellview did the cheapskate thing and only got us a continental breakfast. And if you know anything about continental breakfast, it can only be described in similar terms to what our old driver, James, used to call rice - “bird food”.
Woke up this morning at five, after just three hours of glorious bedtime. People in Nigeria calling to find out when Bellview will do the decent thing and bring me “home”. I couldn’t fall asleep again, so I watched BBC News 24, picking out colleagues in the background. Just 24 hours before I was one of those pottering about the place. But I was now in a hotel room, having left them, but not quite. I haven’t slept properly since I woke up at 1pm on Tuesday. My eyeballs will pop. I’m sure they will.
Woke up this morning at five, after just three hours of glorious bedtime. People in Nigeria calling to find out when Bellview will do the decent thing and bring me “home”. I couldn’t fall asleep again, so I watched BBC News 24, picking out colleagues in the background. Just 24 hours before I was one of those pottering about the place. But I was now in a hotel room, having left them, but not quite. I haven’t slept properly since I woke up at 1pm on Tuesday. My eyeballs will pop. I’m sure they will.
We’ve been at Heathrow since 2.30pm, so you can imagine the other cheapskate thing Bellview did was to pay for one-night only. Check-out times tend to be around midday. So I’m sitting here blogging. Then I’ll take a tour of Terminal 2 and all its (non)goodies. Check in at 5. Then Nigeria. Hopefully.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Will I, won't I
...make this Bellview flight. What the hell, it cost £430. The two Virgins were attempting and failing to seduce me in the £700 range. BA was about £600. The Europeans were in the £500s, and forcing me to change in Timbuktu, while only allowing me a not so grand total of 40kg baggage allowance. Sacre Bleurgh! I'm going to Nigeria, not Pimlico. And you can rest assured that my stuff is only partly contained in one of the cases.
If I had a more prominent gut, it and its contents would have been splattered all over London. Got here at about 2045hrs. Irresponsible you might think. Not always, but this time it was. Anyhoo, here I am. It's 2134hrs. Scheduled departure time is at 2200hrs. Yoruba peppers the air behind, and in front of me. Yes, there are people behind me... The talk is of, "come and try and refund my money," then something about "gbo oyinbo". I understood what they meant at the time, but now I forget. Probably something like, "they better not blow grammar".
Some people's flights were cancelled yesterday. Are they getting priority? Will I make this damn flight? I hear raised voices. Not good... That will teach me to adventure during peak season. I need to be in Nigeria yesterday.
The woman in front of me smells a bit. All the stress and tension....
If I had a more prominent gut, it and its contents would have been splattered all over London. Got here at about 2045hrs. Irresponsible you might think. Not always, but this time it was. Anyhoo, here I am. It's 2134hrs. Scheduled departure time is at 2200hrs. Yoruba peppers the air behind, and in front of me. Yes, there are people behind me... The talk is of, "come and try and refund my money," then something about "gbo oyinbo". I understood what they meant at the time, but now I forget. Probably something like, "they better not blow grammar".
Some people's flights were cancelled yesterday. Are they getting priority? Will I make this damn flight? I hear raised voices. Not good... That will teach me to adventure during peak season. I need to be in Nigeria yesterday.
The woman in front of me smells a bit. All the stress and tension....
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Au retour
It's 1927hrs in Doha, and I'm sitting in transit. My flight to Gatwick doesn't leave till 0210hrs, and right now that feels like the other side of the moon. Ordinarily, I'd have gone on a whistlestop tour of Doha (à la Istanbul), and come back for my flight - but I'm bushed. My body clock's been playing tricks on me for the past few nights, and running off into the desert sand won't help. Plus, my watchword while in Kathmandu was "chilling", and I know I did a heck of a lot of that. The end of the holiday isn't the time to break my mantra. I also feel that Doha is a place I'll be coming to again; I'll get another chance, I'm sure.
It's the 23rd/24th, so the airport is like a market place. Expats leaving to join their families in far flung corners of the globe, Arabs perhaps seeking cooler climes. I might amuse myself by buying some alcohol, not because I'm an alchy, but because of the free mini wheelie suitcase that comes with it. I've always wanted one of them, but since I'm generally averse to hand luggage, I never plan adequately for it. I also started reading Kiran Desai's Inheritance of Loss while in Kathmandu, so I'll continue it. The start of the book set in the Himalayas chimed perfectly with my stay in Nepal - neither Doha nor London quite cut it.
It's the 23rd/24th, so the airport is like a market place. Expats leaving to join their families in far flung corners of the globe, Arabs perhaps seeking cooler climes. I might amuse myself by buying some alcohol, not because I'm an alchy, but because of the free mini wheelie suitcase that comes with it. I've always wanted one of them, but since I'm generally averse to hand luggage, I never plan adequately for it. I also started reading Kiran Desai's Inheritance of Loss while in Kathmandu, so I'll continue it. The start of the book set in the Himalayas chimed perfectly with my stay in Nepal - neither Doha nor London quite cut it.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Soaps and toothpaste
Over time, I seem to have developed a system of comparing countries I visit to the countries I know best. If I visit a developing country (waiting for the right time to switch to calling them “neo-colonial states”), I inevitably compare it to Nigeria; and if I visit a country in the “West”, I compare it Britain. They’re both countries where I spent many of my formative years, and much of my adult life. So when I landed in Kathmandu, all the comparisons were with Nigeria. The airport runway was strewn with hulks of rusted airplanes, and for some reason I thought of the Biafran War of Independence (let’s debate names of conflicts another time). I thought of how grounded bombed out aircraft must have looked in the red sand of eastern Nigeria. The loose parallel is that Nepal has had its own civil war, and I say loose because those planes were obviously not there as a result of war, but neglect.
A bus picks you up from the foot of the aircraft and transports you a mere 50m to the terminal. Heaven forfend an Aussie tourist should graze their knee on the hazardous 50m trek to the terminal! The terminal is a room, with a few counters. I didn’t get my visa in London, because I discovered it’d be cheaper if I got at the airport. I walk to the booth to take passport pictures for the entry visa, which is about $20.
In my previous post, I mentioned that it suffered from a bit of developing worlditis. In the duty free alcohol shop, smaller than the size of your average London offie, I saw one the most equitable examples of division of labour. There was a man to carry the alcohol to the check-out after it had been bought. A man to make photocopies of the passport. A woman to take the cash from the customer. A man to take the cash from the woman and get change from the till. A man to hand the purchased alcohol to the customer. And I’m sure there was someone else doing something else I couldn’t quite figure out. Who says Bolshevism is dead? Or perhaps it’s as a result of the Maoist inspired unrest in the country.
The route to the house had all the hallmarks of Lagos, yet it was remarkably different. I do not recall one single pothole on the roads. Not one. Even my posh New Cross has potholes (big ones). Not very Lagos, I know. But the roads were congested, and you’d see the drivers plough at hair raising speeds against traffic to get past jams. Quite Lagos. But it was the smell of exhaust fumes, and the realisation that when I got home, I’d be smelling of eau de Toyota engines, circa 1982. Very Lagos. The motorbike is the saviour of the developing world’s transport system. Without them, life would be unbearable for commuters, and Kathmandu is no different. The streets buzz with sounds of motorcycle horns, plus the primary riders all have helmets. I even spotted a woman rider, and thoughts of women’s liberation began permeating my thoughts.
At the house, I was again reminded of the importance of consumerism in my westernised psyche. I buy, therefore I am. In New York a few weeks ago, I bought, and bought, and then I judged its habitableness by whether I could buy Ribena or Copella there. Whenever one travels, one compares what is available at the destination with what is available back at home. My thing for liveability is internet. But I spotted some other curious things: blue Dettol soap, yes, blue; Colgate toothpaste with “mint crystals”, which tasted just like Close-up. Those were available thanks to the manufacturing giants, China and India.
Showers are one of life’s glories. A good shower can awaken and soothe both at once. A shower that makes you think of the source of the hot water is even sexier. The water in the house is heated with solar power. It’s not complicated, it’s just some panels on the roof! Nigeria, are you listening? So I had a sexy shower, had lunch, slept, woke up, had dinner, slept, woke up, slept. Woke up, wrote this. Life is good. All the interspersed sleeping is as a result of jetlag. Kathmandu is 5hours, 45minutes ahead of GMT – making it 15minutes ahead of New Delhi. So I'm watching BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, and the headlines are at quarter to the hour. Weird, I know.
A bus picks you up from the foot of the aircraft and transports you a mere 50m to the terminal. Heaven forfend an Aussie tourist should graze their knee on the hazardous 50m trek to the terminal! The terminal is a room, with a few counters. I didn’t get my visa in London, because I discovered it’d be cheaper if I got at the airport. I walk to the booth to take passport pictures for the entry visa, which is about $20.
In my previous post, I mentioned that it suffered from a bit of developing worlditis. In the duty free alcohol shop, smaller than the size of your average London offie, I saw one the most equitable examples of division of labour. There was a man to carry the alcohol to the check-out after it had been bought. A man to make photocopies of the passport. A woman to take the cash from the customer. A man to take the cash from the woman and get change from the till. A man to hand the purchased alcohol to the customer. And I’m sure there was someone else doing something else I couldn’t quite figure out. Who says Bolshevism is dead? Or perhaps it’s as a result of the Maoist inspired unrest in the country.
The route to the house had all the hallmarks of Lagos, yet it was remarkably different. I do not recall one single pothole on the roads. Not one. Even my posh New Cross has potholes (big ones). Not very Lagos, I know. But the roads were congested, and you’d see the drivers plough at hair raising speeds against traffic to get past jams. Quite Lagos. But it was the smell of exhaust fumes, and the realisation that when I got home, I’d be smelling of eau de Toyota engines, circa 1982. Very Lagos. The motorbike is the saviour of the developing world’s transport system. Without them, life would be unbearable for commuters, and Kathmandu is no different. The streets buzz with sounds of motorcycle horns, plus the primary riders all have helmets. I even spotted a woman rider, and thoughts of women’s liberation began permeating my thoughts.
At the house, I was again reminded of the importance of consumerism in my westernised psyche. I buy, therefore I am. In New York a few weeks ago, I bought, and bought, and then I judged its habitableness by whether I could buy Ribena or Copella there. Whenever one travels, one compares what is available at the destination with what is available back at home. My thing for liveability is internet. But I spotted some other curious things: blue Dettol soap, yes, blue; Colgate toothpaste with “mint crystals”, which tasted just like Close-up. Those were available thanks to the manufacturing giants, China and India.
Showers are one of life’s glories. A good shower can awaken and soothe both at once. A shower that makes you think of the source of the hot water is even sexier. The water in the house is heated with solar power. It’s not complicated, it’s just some panels on the roof! Nigeria, are you listening? So I had a sexy shower, had lunch, slept, woke up, had dinner, slept, woke up, slept. Woke up, wrote this. Life is good. All the interspersed sleeping is as a result of jetlag. Kathmandu is 5hours, 45minutes ahead of GMT – making it 15minutes ahead of New Delhi. So I'm watching BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, and the headlines are at quarter to the hour. Weird, I know.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Foothill of the gods
Landed this morning in Kathmandu. The city is surrounded by mountains - the Himalayas. They look like gods looming over a pious population, gazing up adoringly. Kathmandu, which means the Wooden Temple, is at the foothill of the gods. As we approached the runway, I could imagine a James Bond stunt director plotting how to make the plane suddenly disappear amid all the nooks and crannies of the mountains. Then you'd hear a boom, some rising smoke and fire, culminating in a medium shot of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in his wheelchair, stroking an albino Mongolian tiger, or some other equally bizzare genetic anomaly. Mwahaha. But Bond always survives, like I did. I'm here now. Bond also always gets the girls - that, I'm still working on.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Doha International
As I type this, I'm sitting in one of the waiting areas at Doha International Airport, en route for Kathmandu, Nepal. The connection is dial-up slow, but there's just enough bandwidth to post this without biting my toenails in frustration. Plus it's free! None of that BT-wifi-Cloudzone payment in blood extortionism of Heathrow... The duty free (pictured) is quite the thing, not on the scale of Dubai, of which much is always said in praise. But I've just spotted my Christmas treat for myself - a Nokia phone I had my eye on is being sold for about $400 here, yet I was planning on forking out 300 of Her Majesty's finest gold coins (I know it's an alloy, but Her Majesty's finest copper, zinc, and nickel alloy coins isn't as romantic, does it?) Plus there are few other treats. Fiddy's first unreleased album was called, "Power of the dollar", it's time for a reissue, methinks.At Heathrow, I felt a pang of anger towards Richard Reid, he of shoe bomber fame. Because of him we all have to strip in public, or at least take our shoes off, grrrr. And I wasn't wearing my finest "made in Israel" Marksy and Sparksy sock, but some ordinary, frayed pieces of cloth and elastic masquerading as socks. My foot fashion credibility has been pegged down a notch or two.
I should be landing in the Himalayan kingdom at about midday local time. For the first time in my travels, I'm do not know what to expect. I can only think Gurkhas, Sherpas, and Prachanda. But the world is immense, and if there's anything I know, it's that I know nothing. The plan is to know less of nothing. Go on, hound me for not making sense. If you dare.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Back in blighty + pictures
I'm now back home in London, and still haven't posted anything about Jerusalem. My time there was packed with activity, and I'll recount all the details soon. In the meantime here are some pictures from my few hours in Istanbul:
The Shysters/Good Samaritans who made sure I saw Istanbul.
Sultan Ahmet Mosque at night.
Roast corn, with Sultan Ahmet in the background.
McDonald's. Front yard being cleaned, could be a Saturday night in any Western European city.
The almighty Starbucks.
Klodfarer Street, where I stayed. Marseille anyone?Thursday, August 23, 2007
Byzantium
Atatürk International Airport is clean, if not particularly inspiring. Airports always tread the line between being sanitised to prevent an MRSA outbreak among travellers on the one hand, and being cathedrals to consumerism on the other hand. If the watchmen had their way, airports would strictly be the former. The problem with airports is that people only pass through them, they're not like bus or train terminals, where people gather and meet. It might be they're that way by virtue of being out of town, or by convention.
My flight was due to leave at 7.50 in the morning, which left me with about 9hours to kill in Istanbul. 8hours is plenty of time. I've had "affairs" that lasted less than that. I had contemplated sleeping in the airport, waking, and leaving first thing in the morning. But my street cred would suffer badly. I'd never be able to really say that I'd been to Turkey, it'd just be a sly crossed fingers addition to my list of visited countries. Istanbul is famed for its East meets West culture, a city that straddles the border between Europe and Asia, a seamless bridge where here and there become one, become (t)here.
When one travels, one tends to meet three kinds of people: shysters, kind strangers, and a third kind of person, who is a combination of the two. People who sell tourism tend to be one part shyster, one part Good Samaritan. And I guess those are the people I encountered at the airport. They sold me a hotel for my few hours in the heart of Istanbul, and transport to and from the airport. It might be 1am, but I’ll walk around, take pictures, and go back to bed. Whistle-stop trip to Istanbul.
As the car races between Atatürk International Airport and Sultanahmet, one can only ask what objection Europe has to Turkey's prospective EU membership. In fact, the chief opponent of Turkey’s EU membership - fiercely secular France - probably has more in common with religiously secular Turkey, than it does with openly Catholic Poland.
The route is lined with trees, driving is slightly erratic, a cool breeze sweeps across the Bosporus, a wonderfully symbolic body of water. On the way back to the airport in the morning, the sea is dotted with anchored ships, their lights glistening in the distance. Sultan Ahmet Mosque, or the Blue Mosque as it’s popularly known in the West, almost hovers over Istanbul. It’s on a higher plane to most the city, and because of the trees around the city, you can only see its full glory up close. From a distance, all one can see is a giant hovering Islamic spaceship, waiting to abduct all comers and lift off into the foreign galaxies.
Hali Hotel is on Klodfarer street, a mere two minutes walk from the Blue Mosque. It’s 1am. I do what any battle hardened traveller would, I take stroll to the mosque, eyeing the McDonald’s “restaurant” on the right side of the road. On the opposite side is a Starbucks. Further down are tram stops. Mercedes E-class cars cruise by with musica Americana blaring through rolled down windows. I might as well be in Frankfurt, or Brussels.
Couples sit among many rows of benches under the gaze of the mosque, killing time. Some wear headscarves, some don’t. Some have wedding bands, some don’t. I try to imagine couples sitting by St Paul’s Cathedral in London. I can’t. In one corner is a vendor, selling roast corn. There’s always been a competition to find the European nationals most similar to Nigerians. Italians always make it because they gesticulate a lot. Greeks are always there or thereabouts. With roast corn on the side of the road, Turkey has got to be Nigeria. And with a corn cob in my mouth, I walked back to Hali Hotel, slept, and got ready for Jerusalem.
I'll put pictures up when I can.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Terminal 3
The flight is taking off at 1630hrs. I left New Cross Gate station at 1318hrs. I did what I always do, and left relatively late. My normal routine is to get to the airport just as checking in is coming to an end. That way I don't have to queue, and I don't have spend hours inanely walking through duty free shops, thinking, "bloody hell, if it costs this much tax free, imagine how it must cost in the real world." My routine almost means that there's a relatively straight path from my doorway to my seat on the plane.
But in these days of heightened security fears, one has to allow for time to sit down, take off one's footwear to allay the Man's fears that one isn't a shoe bomber. And when the Man asks why the Florida alligator skin shoes weigh so much, you can reply, "I'm Rick James, bitch!" At which point the Man will not be responsible for his actions. The Picadilly Line to Heathrow feels like the most generous tube line in the world. It stops everywhere, and picks up everyone. So, I opted for the Heathrow Express, that beloved bastion of executive cool. No cattle car for me, sir.
The train pulled in less than an hour after my departure from New Cross Gate. So I waltzes to the Turkish Airlines counter, give my spiel - I packed it myself, it didn't leave my sight, no the laptop hasn't got porn on it, but what's that to you, sir... I check in less than 5 minutes. The fastest ever check in time. I say to all Nigeria bound flights to put that up their pipes and smoke it. What look like early bird Nigerians are milling around the Virgin Atlantics desks, hoping not to be trampled by the horde who'll arrive this evening. So what do I do for two hours while I wait to get on the plane?
Ponti's cafe. I believe they have quite a few of them around London. This is no time for exotic food, so I plump for an all-day breakfast. You can't go wrong with those. Nothing like a traditional morning fry up for lunch. I then practically stroll through immigration, no hostility whatsoever. Quite boring, really. Where's the drama? I must find a Lonely Planets guide or something similar. But Smithy's don't have one, and neither do Borders. It's like there's a booksellers apartheid style boycott. The books go from India straight to Istanbul, with nothing in between. Must get one when I reach.
What else do I need? Ah, digital camera. Thank God for multinationals, the immoral so-and-sos, Dixons comes to the rescue, tax free as well... What else? I forgot my shekels, bugger. Well, £40 worth isn't too bad. And then there's was the elderly black woman. South African looking. I hear the snipping, but wasn't sure what it was. And as Sods Law states in Chapter 6, Article V, "thy lap shalt be the recipient of an elderly black woman's fingernails as she clips them nonchalantly in an aiport lounge." Yep, it landed on me as I sat down, contemplating how to next amuse myself.
Tonight, Istanbul (not Constantinople), and tomorrow, Tel Aviv, Israel.
But in these days of heightened security fears, one has to allow for time to sit down, take off one's footwear to allay the Man's fears that one isn't a shoe bomber. And when the Man asks why the Florida alligator skin shoes weigh so much, you can reply, "I'm Rick James, bitch!" At which point the Man will not be responsible for his actions. The Picadilly Line to Heathrow feels like the most generous tube line in the world. It stops everywhere, and picks up everyone. So, I opted for the Heathrow Express, that beloved bastion of executive cool. No cattle car for me, sir.
The train pulled in less than an hour after my departure from New Cross Gate. So I waltzes to the Turkish Airlines counter, give my spiel - I packed it myself, it didn't leave my sight, no the laptop hasn't got porn on it, but what's that to you, sir... I check in less than 5 minutes. The fastest ever check in time. I say to all Nigeria bound flights to put that up their pipes and smoke it. What look like early bird Nigerians are milling around the Virgin Atlantics desks, hoping not to be trampled by the horde who'll arrive this evening. So what do I do for two hours while I wait to get on the plane?
Ponti's cafe. I believe they have quite a few of them around London. This is no time for exotic food, so I plump for an all-day breakfast. You can't go wrong with those. Nothing like a traditional morning fry up for lunch. I then practically stroll through immigration, no hostility whatsoever. Quite boring, really. Where's the drama? I must find a Lonely Planets guide or something similar. But Smithy's don't have one, and neither do Borders. It's like there's a booksellers apartheid style boycott. The books go from India straight to Istanbul, with nothing in between. Must get one when I reach.
What else do I need? Ah, digital camera. Thank God for multinationals, the immoral so-and-sos, Dixons comes to the rescue, tax free as well... What else? I forgot my shekels, bugger. Well, £40 worth isn't too bad. And then there's was the elderly black woman. South African looking. I hear the snipping, but wasn't sure what it was. And as Sods Law states in Chapter 6, Article V, "thy lap shalt be the recipient of an elderly black woman's fingernails as she clips them nonchalantly in an aiport lounge." Yep, it landed on me as I sat down, contemplating how to next amuse myself.
Tonight, Istanbul (not Constantinople), and tomorrow, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
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