Janhoo's Blog

During the last part of our Africa trip, we went to Cape Town. On our first day in Cape Town, we experienced shark diving, which I will get back to later. However, on our last day, we took a tour of various sights around Cape Town, including a township tour.

A township refers to urban living areas that previously (under Apartheid) were reserved for non-whites (principally black Africans and Coloureds). The townships were usually built on the periphery of towns and cities, where also the townships that we visited around Cape Town were located.

Before venturing out to the townships, we visited the District Six Museum. The museum serves as a remembrance to the events of the apartheid era as well as the culture and history of an area called District Six, which is the name of a former inner-city residential area in Cape Town. Approximately 60,000 of its inhabitants were forcibly removed during the 1970s by the apartheid regime.

By visiting some of the townships, you really get a feel for the tremendous poverty that still exists in South-Africa. Compared with the extreme wealth enjoyed by the people living in the residential area close to our hotel, it is difficult to comprehend that both can exist in the same country.

Our township visit lasted for approximately 3 hours, during which we mainly drove through small streets in the township and looked at shacks and people. Our guide was babbling in a somewhat understandable English for most of the trip, and was actually able to provide some interesting information. A guide, preferably a black one for safety reasons, is recommended for visits to the townships.

A highlight was a visit to a traditional "medical clinic". With AIDS being a major problem in the townships, let us hope HIV positive individuals visit a real doctor instead of their local con/medical artist. Some colleagues of these village doctors (i.e. witch-doctors) in Tanzania have recently caused a killing spree of albinos, as the witch-doctors say using albino body parts in a potion can make people rich. Sounds like a great theory to me. However, the people in the townships will probably get richer (or at least healthier) much quicker if they instead kill their witch doctors.

I wrote the following a couple of days ago on my flight from Singapore to Johannesburg. After arriving in Tokyo, I realized that my cell phone had been stolen from my luggage. At Johannesburg airport, they actually asked me at the airline counter whether or not I had a cell phone in my luggage (in addition to many other items), but I answered no assuming this was a security check to prevent cell phones being turned on while in the passengers' checked in luggage (my cell phone was out of battery). Anyway, when arriving in Tokyo, I realized that someone had been in my luggage and stolen my cell phone.

While in South-Africa, I actually read an article about rampant airport crime in Johannesburg, but I did not think about this when packing my luggage at 6 AM. At the same time as scanning luggage for bombs, the Johannesburg airport personal apparently also scan the luggage for valuables, which are then kindly removed from the luggage. I guess a business case study in effiency is warranted. Anyway, bye bye cell phone. It was getting old anyway... Back to what I wrote on the airplane:

Having just watched “Street Kings” on my flight back to Singapore, I must say yet again that I do not understand how Keanu Reeves manages to get any acting jobs. To restate that, I do not even understand how he got his first acting job, but he proves that talent is not necessary for success in the entertainment world. Also, when will the alcoholic cop concept finally grow old? I am hoping soon. “The Bank Job”, a British film which I also watched on this flight, was a much more entertaining flick. Anyway, back to Africa.

We spent the most of one day driving the almost 600 kilometers from Kruger National Park to Johannesburg. While I did not spend any time in Johannesburg, let me write a few lines about this miserable city. The wealthier parts of Johannesburg are what I imagine Baghdad’s green zone to be like. Crime is so rampant that a big portion of the city’s successful population is considering to emigrate or to move to safer parts of South-Africa (many have already done so). Now, most politically correct guidebooks will inform you that crime is a problem in Johannesburg, and that you should take precautions there just like you would in any other major city. This is complete crap. The safety level of any major city should be compared with other cities based on crime statistics, and Johannesburg would come out poorly in comparison with most developed European, American, or developed Asian cities. It is simply nonsense that the same level of caution is required in all major cities, but this is the impression I got from several guidebooks and message boards that I read prior to going to South-Africa. Carjacks, robberies, muggings, and all other types of crime are rampant in Johannesburg, and anyone travelling to Johannesburg should really reconsider the necessity of going there.

Johannesburg is situated on flat agricultural type land and does not have any of the charm or the magnificent scenery that can be found in and around Cape Town. In addition, there seem to be zero tourist attractions in close vicinity of Johannesburg worth visiting, though Johannesburg remains the most convenient starting point for visits to Kruger National Park. Luckily it is possible to travel to Kruger National Park without driving through central Johannesburg.

After staying one night at a hotel in Johannesburg, we took a flight to Livingstone in Zambia. This city is located close to Victoria Falls, though it is less conveniently located than the city of Victoria Falls located in Zimbabwe. We decided not to visit Zimbabwe in consideration of the uncertain domestic situation. Robert Mugabe, who brought Zimbabwe to independence from British rule, has managed to destroy the country and the situation is probably worse now than it was during colonial times. We spoke with some tourists that had visited Zimbabwe during the previous week, and apparently everyone including airport personal is begging for money. The individuals I spoke with had stayed at the colonial Victoria Falls Hotel, which used to be considered one of the best hotels in the world. On one morning, the hotel ran out of coffee, and there apparently was no champagne available in the champagne bar.

While we are discussing Zimbabwe, some whites I spoke with in South-Africa are worried that the likely future president of South-Africa, Jacob Zuma, will ruin South-Africa in a similar fashion to Robert Mugabe. Mr. Zuma has been charged with several offences, but is the favorite to succeed the current President in the upcoming election. The fear is that corruption will be even worse than in the current government, which is considered to be utterly incompetent. My favourite Jacob Zuma is the one of him knowingly having sex with an HIV positive lady (who also accused him of rape), while excusing the incident by claiming that he had a shower afterwards. Let us return to Zambia.

If you had asked me a couple of weeks ago to locate Zambia on a map, I would probably have placed it somewhere in the middle, but now I am more enlightened. Everyone I met in Zambia was friendly and positive, and in general people seemed much more confident about the future than people in South-Africa. Due to the proximity to Victoria Falls and the current situation in Zimbabwe, hotels in and around Livingstone are popping up almost on a daily basis, and the town is buzzing with commerce and developments.

The only negative surprise when visiting Zambia was the abhorrent visa fees. I “only” had to pay $50 for my single-entry visa permit, but certain nationalities (including British and American citizens) need to fork out more than $100. The visa fees can only be settled in USD cash, no other currencies are accepted. With only two immigration lines and hundreds of tourists, it took us more than 1 hour to clear immigration and customs. I understand that visa fees provide much needed income for the poor government of Zambia, but they can at least try to make the entry process speedier and less miserable.

There are several attractions in and around Livingstone worth seeing, and on my next visit I certainly want to cross the border to Botswana in order to visit the Chobe National Park. Since we were only going to spend two days near Victoria Falls, we decided not to take anti-malaria pills, though I know anti-malarial pills are highly recommended. I have never seen more mosquitoes in my life than in my hotel room that was located next to the Zambezi River, and I spent a good portion of the day killing mosquitoes with a newspaper. In the end, Yuka and I left Zambia without being bitten by mosquitoes even once, but I would not recommend the risk or trouble to anyone else. I will write more on malaria in my review of the hotels we stayed at while in Africa.

It is easy to spend an entire day just watching the Victoria Falls, and there are lots of nice walks to be taken around the falls. I would recommend getting a re-entry visa upon entering Zambia, as this will allow you to visit Zimbabwe to see the falls from the Zimbabwean side. We decided not to do so due to the expensive visa cost, but I honestly was not very excited about the prospect of visiting Zimbabwe. There is an area between Zimbabwe and Zambia that you can visit without getting an exit stamp in your Zambian visa, and I am sure we could have been more adventurous than what we were. At least we were able to cross the bridge over the Zambezi River and to step on Zimbabwean soil, though I did not venture any further than that.

On the Zambian side, there is an interesting trail that takes you down to the foot of the Zambezi River, and on the way down we came across a gang of locals that were in the process of killing a spitting cobra. It was a rather gruesome scene that I caught on tape, not sure if these actions should be approved in a National Park.

After visiting the Victoria Falls, we took a cab to the city of Livingstone, which has some interesting colonial houses and a very good African restaurant. We felt safe while in the city, though there are no attractions that would compel anyone to stay there for very long.

On the day of departing Livingstone, we took a morning helicopter flight over Victoria Falls. The cost was $100 for 15 minutes, and it is true that the size of the Victoria Falls can only be appreciated if seen from the air. It is simply not possible to get a sense of the gigantic size of the Victoria Falls when seeing them from the ground, and there are some portions of the falls that are only viewable from the Zimbabwean side and vice versa.

While we generally used South-African Air while in Africa, on the return flight to Johannesburg from Livingstone we used Zambian Air as there were no available seats on any other airlines. This airline is fairly new, based in Zambia, and not part of any alliances, thus I was fairly skeptical about the safety prior to boarding. However, we were very pleasantly surprised. For some reason, the crew was mainly foreign, probably because qualified personal cannot be found in Zambia. The service was impeccable, the Boeing plane seemed reasonably well kept to the naked eye, and I was almost a bit disappointed not to be offered anything more exciting. I was thinking we would be placed in a Soviet type propeller airplane without windows commanded by a drunk crew, but as usual reality turned out to be less exciting and dangerous than my imagination.

Today I posted some more pictures from Nagasaki:

Jan Visits Nagasaki

I have added a bunch of pictures from Hashima Island - Gunkanjima - Battleship Island!

Jan Visits Hashima Island - Gunkanjima - Battleship Island

Today I have been shark diving in a town close to Cape Town. We saw five different individual great white sharks, the largest being about 3 meters long. The longest one recorded was apparently over 6 meters, though I am not sure if I would have dared going into a cage to see that one. Anyway, more on that later. Here is what has happened earlier this week:

Kruger National Park is the largest national park in South-Africa, and the park is connected to another national park in Mozambique. As stated above, the park may not be sufficiently large for certain birds and animals, but when visiting the park in a safari vehicle, the park certainly looks impressive. Our guide from Thornhill Lodge, Oscar, spent most of the day driving around to find cars that had stopped on the road. If you see a parked car on the road in Kruger National Park, it usually means that the passengers in the car have spotted an animal. The trick is then to stop next to the car, ask the driver of the vehicle what they are looking at, and then to look in the same direction.

Now, the biggest difference between a zoo and a national park is that the animals in the naional parks are free to venture around as they please (obviously within the borders of the national park). Another distinction is that the animals hunt or find their own food, but otherwise there are some similarities. For example, we spotted a few lions that were just lying around doing nothing, just like they would in a zoo (in fact, lions are inactive on average 22 hours a day). While the lions in a zoological garden would be located just a few meters from you, in a national park they can be located several hundred meters away. Since safari vehicles are not allowed to leave the main roads, in Kruger you end up starring at the animals though binoculars. It is true, however, that the animals look a lot less sad in the national park than they do in a zoo, though it perhaps is unlikely that an impala (type of antelope) finds as much pleasure in freedom as humans do. For starters, in national parks the impalas are surrounded by lions and leopards that are constantly looking for ways to kill and eat them, thus a zoo can at least provide security from attacks and a stable food supply (if the lucky impala avoids zoos such as that in Kabul).

While driving around Kruger, we were lucky to see hippopotamus, zebras, crocodiles, lions, impalas, giraffes, elephants, buffaloes, baboons, warthogs, several types of vultures, vervet monkeys, and a wide range of other animals that I cannot recall as I am retarded.

Once we returned to Thornhill Lodge, it was already dark, thus it had been a long day in the bush. Our guide spoke barely intelligible English and had limited knowledge about animals other than the Big 5, thus the trip could have been more rewarding with a better guide. Since a visit to Kruger involves driving around without seeing much at all for most of the time, a trip would be much better if the guide could provide general information about the park and the animals and plants within it. In comparison with the guided trips I have taken in the Australian bush and the Everglades, the guided tour of Kruger was quite a disappointment.

The following morning we were woken up at 6 AM for a guided bush walk that was to commence at 6:30 AM. While there are plenty of wild animals living on the Thornhill Lodge property, this morning we were only able to see a bunch of impalas. However, after having finished the guided tour and returned to Thornhill at 8 AM for breakfast, we realized that a group of four giraffes had decided to visit our lodge to eat from some trees just outside. The same group of giraffes arrived the same evening for some more food, and giraffes can be surprisingly loud when walking around outside. One interesting fact the guide told us is that giraffes are not able to make any sounds, thus even when attacked by lions they are not able to scream or entertain other giraffes with an oral deliberation of what it feels like to be attacked. I know that if I were to be attacked by a wild animal, I would at least scream like a mad man, though I probably would die of fear shortly afterwards.

Talking about being attacked by animals, there are apparently three smart things to do when attacked by a crocodile. The first is to open the crocodile’s jaw to let water pour into its throat; I guess the theory is that the crocodile will drown. Alternatively, you can stick your fingers into the crocodile’s eyes, which at least to me sounds like the most viable option. The third alternative is apparently to hit a vulnerable spot around the crocodile’s ears, though I doubt the best time to find this spot would be when one is being attacked by a crocodile. After telling us about these three alternatives, the guide told us that no one had yet to survive a crocodile attack, though I am not sure if that is true or not. More importantly, I guess the one thing to remember is to stay far away from any body of water that is NOT a swimming pool.

After eating breakfast, our guide drove us to the Blyde River Canyon. This natural attraction is located in the southeast of the country close to the border with Mozambique, and Blyde River Canyon is apparently the third largest canyon in the world (after the Grand Canyon and a canyon located in Namibia). The fast-flowing Blyde River has slowly carved its way through 700 meters of shale and quartzite to create a 20 kilometer canyon. While we did not see any wildlife, the Blyde River Canyon is apparently home to baboons, different types of monkeys, and both species of bushaby (don't really know what a bushaby is, ask my guidebook).

Unfortunately, on our first day in the Blyde River Canyon, we did not see much at all due to fog. Therefore, on the way back to Johannesburg on the following day, we stopped by the Blye River Canyon yet again and were able to take some magnificent pictures.

After our first visit to the Blyde River Canyon, we returned to the Thornhill Lodge for lunch, after which we went on a game drive in the Thornybush Big Five Reserve. There are a lot of private reserves that border the Kruger National Park, and the private reserves are mainly fenced in. The plan is, however, that the fences will gradually be taken down so that animals will be freely allowed to transfer between the national park and the private reserves. Not surprisingly, many of the private landowners are opposing such moves for a variety of reasons. While I did not have the chance to speak with any of the landowners, I imagine the main reason would be that they no longer will be able to guarantee that the Big Five are available on their property. Also, with the properties secured and fenced in, it is easier for the landowners to prevent poaching and other illegal activities on their properties. Also, since they effectively own the animals on their properties, there is an economic incentive for them to protect the animals on their land.

I believe most serious environmentalists believe that capitalism can be combined with effective environmental management. If a landowner can guarantee biodiversity on their properties through arranging game drives on their land, I believe they should be able to keep the fences. On the other hand, careful management is needed to prevent inbreeding.

Back to our game drive on the Thornybush Big Five Reserve. The difference between Kruger National Park and the private game reserves is obviously the size, and in the game reserves the cars drive straight into the bush in order to get as close to the animals as possible. As a result, we were able to see all the Big Five except the leopard, which apparently is seen only on rare occasions. While it was satisfying to be able to see a lot of wild animals close up, essentially a private game reserve is like a massive largely self-maintained zoo. The sense of adventure just is not there as much as it was in Kruger National Park, though the animal sightings were less impressive in the latter.

Just to comment on what I am seeing right now at the Livingstone International Airport in Zambia (we've visited Zambia to see the Victoria Falls). A bunch of conservative Jews are about to board a plane, and some of the men are engaged in a serious religious prayer now just before getting on the aircraft. I am happy that I am not boarding the same flight, as the entire scene is making me a bit nervous. Most likely, these are Americans Jews as they are fairly overweight and mainly wearing sneakers. There is a tour group of about 20 individuals, and they just shared a big cake as one of them is celebrating his birthday. Since they had forgotten to bring plates, creativity was needed, thus one particularly fat guy was eating cake out of his hat. When suddenly called by one of his buddies to say a prayer, he stood up with cake crumbs still hanging from his mouth, thus it was quite a comical scene. In the end, this side of the airport has gotten fairly dirty, but I guess someone will soon be here to clean up after the rich tourists have left.

More Later....

I had always figured that flying to South-Africa would take a lot of time, but I was only partially right. From Singapore, the flight to Johannesburg is only around 10 hours, thus it is about the same as going to Europe. However, due to various reasons that are not really that interesting, we ended up flying to Singapore through Bangkok. With a waiting time in Singapore of approximately 10 hours, we thus ended up travelling around 30 hours before reaching Johannesburg.

Since Singapore is such a tiny country, taking a train from the airport to the city center takes only about 30 minutes. Another aspect I enjoy about Singapore airport is that almost all the airport shops are open 24 hours, which makes a 2:30 AM morning flight a whole less troublesome. We were also able to take a shower at the airport, thus we were very refreshed when boarding our flight to Johannesburg.

Singapore Airlines is a fantastic airline, and its entertainment system in economy class beats the business class alternative of most European and US airlines. It is also difficult to complain about the quality of food and wine, and perhaps even more importantly, the stewardesses are beautiful. However, this does not help at all when you are seated next to the Monster Kid from Hell.

On the other side of my aisle, a blond kid of about 4 years old was sitting on his mom's lap. Now, it is a mystery to me how this child was able to sit on his mom's lap during take-off, as he looked much older than the infants that normally are allowed to sit with their parents during take-off (thus providing the parents with a cheaper ticket price for their kids). He also had a milk bottle, which for a while made me wonder if he had some invisible mental retardation, but this did not seem to be the case. As they say (or ought to say), "Behind every annoying child stands an incompetent parent", and this was certainly the truth in this case. During the preparation for take-off, during take-off, and after take-off, the Monster Kid from Hell was screaming at the top of his lungs. It was so loud I was surprised the captain did not kick the kid off the plane. Mainly he was screaming "Papayan", and I still have no idea what that means (probably something in Afrikaans). The mother was just sitting by doing next to nothing. Before landing, she asked a stewardess whether her child could sit without a seat belt during landing as he would start screaming again if forced to wear a belt. Crazy mother.

Luckily all the screaming and shouting made the kid tired after about one hour following take off, and when he finally went to sleep the rest of the passengers could get some well deserved rest. Yuka, on the other hand, was sitting next to a character from Angola (we saw his passport), who obviously did not have much experience flying. During the flight, he even woke up Yuka to ask how he could use his remote control A normal person would probably think to ask a stewardess rather than to wake up fellow passengers, but this guy was not normal. He also thought he could control the main TV screen with his remote control, and was thus surprised to see that he had a personal TV screen under his seat (just like every other passenger).

When arriving in Johannesburg, we were met by our guide at the airport. Yuka tried to find a phone box that she could use to call home, and we had to go all the way to the departures hall to find one. As soon as we had found one, we discovered that it was out of order. Welcome to Africa.

The drive from the airport to our lodge was approximately 510 kilometers long, but it passed quickly as the roads are relatively good and there is little traffic. On the way to the lodge, we stopped at a rehabilitation center for wild animals. The living space of Africa's wild animals is gradually decreasing, and this is particularly serious for the birds and animals that require large territories in order to live. Certain eagles and other birds, for instance, may fly over hundreds of kilometers within a short period of time. Since there are virtually no parks that can offer wide spaces of this magnitude, many birds and other animals end up being killed when they leave the park. In addition there is the persistent problem of poaching, and many of the animals can be quite valuable on the black market. The poaching method of choice seems to be poisoning. While this option is indiscriminate as it ends up killing lots of animals that can not be sold on the black market, poison is cheap to purchase and ends up killing lots of animals. The people at the rehabilitation center were mildly speaking not very optimistic about the future of African wildlife, thus it was an eye wakening experience. On a more positive note, the rehabilitation center offered the opportunity to get up close to several birds and other animals that you are not likely to see when visiting the Kruger National Park. In my view, the focus of the Kruger guided tours is mainly on the Big 5 (lion, rhino, buffalo, leopard, and elephant), thus many of the other animals and especially plants end up being ignored.

We stayed at the "Thornhill Safari Lodge", which is located within the Greater Kruger Park ecosystem - approximately 40 km from Kruger Park's Open gate. Our bedroom had en suite facilities, including mosquito nets around our bed. Prior to visiting Kruger National Park, I researched quite a bit regarding the risk of malaria. During winter, the risk of malaria is very low as there is little water in the park and temperatures can get down to the freezing point. During the approximately 3 days that we spent in the park, I did not see a single mosquito, though that is not to say that there is zero risk for a mosquito bite.

On our first safari day, we were woken up at 4:45 AM and left the lodge area at approximately 5:30 AM. We then reached the guide of Kruger Park just as it was getting light, and I will write more about our experiences there later.

In the back pocket of my chair in the airport bus from Nagasaki airport, I found a little magazine titled "Pocket Navigation Nagasaki". While also providing information on a couple of bars and dining establishments, most of the advertisements in the magazine were for various hostess clubs and other shady businesses. This one particular advertisement could not help to catch my eye, however, as the ladies featured are amazingly beautiful. The lady in the middle in the shop's Madam, while the other two are Tomoco and Akina. You can meet them all at the shop's website. While the shop only opened on June 2, it is hard to know how long it will be in business. If I ever go to Nagasaki again, I will make sure to visit.

Please note that this shop is simply a bar with supposedly female hostesses, and the only fun going on is drinking and karaoke. More precisely, it is a sunakku, though the exact definition of a sunakku is rather ambiguous. No matter how you define it, Hige Mama certainly looks like a memorable place to go for an evening out.