Tanzania - Dar es Salaam
Well, as can be seen by the weather report, I am in Tanzania, Dar es Salaam to be exact. for those of you who don't know where this is, it is on the east coast of Africa, between Kenya and Mozambique. Hmmmm, Africa, well it is a far cry from the bustling built up Kuala Lumpur or Pretoria for that matter, but this is where my home will be for the next two months or so.
Tanzania is home to Kilimanjaro, a mountain with the highest point in Africa. I have been here for only two weeks or so, but I can tell you that in my opinion this is the only thing that the country has got going for it, apart from Fanny Bar, I mean Zanzibar. This place has a huge amount of potential. Long wide beaches and also some seriously hot land on the beach front that can be developed!
Dar itself is a small city which gets more built up as you leave the airport and head towards the coast. The airport is a complete f&*( up. I bought my VISA at the embassy in Pretoria and they told me it would save me time on arrival. So I pay Mr Swahili Tan his fresh USD$50 for my VISA at the Pretoria Shop, I mean embassy. He then informs me that when I get to the airport I should pay another $100 due to the fact that I am here for reasons other than pleasure. This was all good, and I understand the costs involved, the government wants to try get every cent out of the foreigners that keep the country running! On arrival we were forced to wait in a long queue, I suspected this was just to check if you had something they could try and get a bribe for....but this wasn't the case. It was actually the line for the VISA applications, it was a mixed line for both applications, be it business or pleasure...and can you believe it, they take your passport and then give it to a group of people sitting behind some armour plated glass shields. I assume these are the immigration officials....they are half asleep, overweight and look as corrupt and arrogant as a government official. So they line all the foreigners up in front of this and then they go about stamping, writing, and stamping again....boom bang and slowly but surely they start trying to read the names of the passport holders, this is so they can collect their passports and move on to collect their baggage. This entire process took around 1 hour...crazy if you ask me.....and the worst things is that the government doesn't offer a multiple entry VISA, you must pay your $150 again in 2 months.....great money making scheme! you would think they would make the entry cheap so that tourists would come and spend money here?
Go figure
There is a typical African driving style here, this style almost falls into the MDK category. The MDK category is a highly sophisticated driving technique that is easily adopted even though it consists of a complex series of technical moves.
MDK is an abbreviation of Make Don't Know. I first learnt about MDK in KL.
MDK stands for MAKE DON'T KNOW. What this simply means is that you ignore the presence of other drivers that are approaching you from any direction and you simply continue on your course as if you "don't know they are there". It is effective if you have the balls.....the only bugger up is that if the other drivers are practicing MDK then you have a collision. But this is rare cos they usually chicken out! So, for me, I say a MDK keeps the traffic away!!
The city seems very old and run down, most buildings in desperate need of repair, this goes for the roads as well. Pot holes are the order of the day here with every street having hundreds ranging from small ones to Hilux swallowing monsters.
They have a serious power problem here. During the hours of 7:00am and 7:00m they turn off power and only feed it to the industrial areas, this results in most places running on Diesel generators for most of the day........but this is the norm here, so I guess nothing is going to be done to try improve the situation.
Food and drink is quite costly here, not as cheap as was expected and the quality of the food is not good, either they are washing the food in the shit-house or there is a serious bug going around. I think I have spent more time in the toilet than at my desk. We have a major shopping centre with the main anchor shop being Shop-rite. They stock all South African food and drinks, so this is the place to get what you need.
You can find an ATM in most places, this is convenient and stops the hassle of having to go to a money changer.
Lets see how Dar turns out over the next month...........
Tanzania is home to Kilimanjaro, a mountain with the highest point in Africa. I have been here for only two weeks or so, but I can tell you that in my opinion this is the only thing that the country has got going for it, apart from Fanny Bar, I mean Zanzibar. This place has a huge amount of potential. Long wide beaches and also some seriously hot land on the beach front that can be developed!
Dar itself is a small city which gets more built up as you leave the airport and head towards the coast. The airport is a complete f&*( up. I bought my VISA at the embassy in Pretoria and they told me it would save me time on arrival. So I pay Mr Swahili Tan his fresh USD$50 for my VISA at the Pretoria Shop, I mean embassy. He then informs me that when I get to the airport I should pay another $100 due to the fact that I am here for reasons other than pleasure. This was all good, and I understand the costs involved, the government wants to try get every cent out of the foreigners that keep the country running! On arrival we were forced to wait in a long queue, I suspected this was just to check if you had something they could try and get a bribe for....but this wasn't the case. It was actually the line for the VISA applications, it was a mixed line for both applications, be it business or pleasure...and can you believe it, they take your passport and then give it to a group of people sitting behind some armour plated glass shields. I assume these are the immigration officials....they are half asleep, overweight and look as corrupt and arrogant as a government official. So they line all the foreigners up in front of this and then they go about stamping, writing, and stamping again....boom bang and slowly but surely they start trying to read the names of the passport holders, this is so they can collect their passports and move on to collect their baggage. This entire process took around 1 hour...crazy if you ask me.....and the worst things is that the government doesn't offer a multiple entry VISA, you must pay your $150 again in 2 months.....great money making scheme! you would think they would make the entry cheap so that tourists would come and spend money here?
Go figure
There is a typical African driving style here, this style almost falls into the MDK category. The MDK category is a highly sophisticated driving technique that is easily adopted even though it consists of a complex series of technical moves.
MDK is an abbreviation of Make Don't Know. I first learnt about MDK in KL.
MDK stands for MAKE DON'T KNOW. What this simply means is that you ignore the presence of other drivers that are approaching you from any direction and you simply continue on your course as if you "don't know they are there". It is effective if you have the balls.....the only bugger up is that if the other drivers are practicing MDK then you have a collision. But this is rare cos they usually chicken out! So, for me, I say a MDK keeps the traffic away!!
The city seems very old and run down, most buildings in desperate need of repair, this goes for the roads as well. Pot holes are the order of the day here with every street having hundreds ranging from small ones to Hilux swallowing monsters.
They have a serious power problem here. During the hours of 7:00am and 7:00m they turn off power and only feed it to the industrial areas, this results in most places running on Diesel generators for most of the day........but this is the norm here, so I guess nothing is going to be done to try improve the situation.
Food and drink is quite costly here, not as cheap as was expected and the quality of the food is not good, either they are washing the food in the shit-house or there is a serious bug going around. I think I have spent more time in the toilet than at my desk. We have a major shopping centre with the main anchor shop being Shop-rite. They stock all South African food and drinks, so this is the place to get what you need.
You can find an ATM in most places, this is convenient and stops the hassle of having to go to a money changer.
Lets see how Dar turns out over the next month...........
posted by Saffa_G at 17:25
1 Comments:
nice bro,
you write very cool stuff.
So the Dala-Dala they drive MDK way ;o)
Keep on, dont give up i will try to pass by to read your posts and make some comments also.
XP
Post a Comment
<< Home