http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Ouaga/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Ouaga en-us Fri, 24 May 2013 14:25:32 +0000 Fri, 24 May 2013 14:25:32 +0000 Alright I suppose I will start with the big news first me and my girlfriend Susan got engaged in Kerala a few days ago. Yep after ten years of dillydallying I finally popped the question. I won't go into the intricacies but it happened at sunset on one of the cantilevered Chinese fishing nets on the harbour at Fort Cochin. The celebrations began with chai and ended with some surprisingly http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Kerala/blog-468900.html Before I arrived back in India for the first time in eight years I was a little apprehensive about just how much this supposedly timeless country might have changed. I mean the place has been charging into the modern age like a sacred bull in a tiffin shop for a decade or two now and I wasn't entirely sure if I would find India to be a transformed nation one of glittering shopping malls order http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Tamil-Nadu/blog-462429.html Myanmar is not as Cosmo Kramer mistakenly asserts an American discount pharmacy. It is of course the country which is always referred to parenthetically as Burma. It's coming on twenty years now since the military junta changed the name so why does the world persist in sticking to the old label This 'Myanmar or Burma' question continued to tax me throughout my fifteen days in the country http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Burma/Yangon-Region/Yangon/blog-361976.html Despite four years of startlingly bad luck tsunamis earthquakes military coups government corruption nightclub fires and the recent shutdown of the brandspanking new airport by prodemocracy protestors Thailand's tourist industry seems to be able to bounce right back. When we arrived in Bangkok just a couple of weeks after the latest setback the closure of the main international hub in http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Central-Thailand/Bangkok/blog-360557.html Those who have been reading my blog are probably aware of my love of meaningless lists and my trip wouldn't be complete without just a few more. So here in no particular order are all of my Top Fives and some Bottom Fives to give you an idea of what I loved and hated about Africa.First I'll do a ranking of the 18 countries I visited I did pop into Lesotho as well but didn't see enoug http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Gauteng/Johannesburg/blog-232178.html Africa has obsessed me since I was a kid. My dream as an 8year old was to come to Africa and kiss a wild hippo. Yes weird I know. Perhaps I shouldn't have revealed that little nugget of information. Nevertheless the history the mystery and the tragedy of this immense land has attracted me for years. Finally around ten months ago I had the funds the air ticket and the time to launch my o http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Gauteng/Johannesburg/blog-228334.html What better place could there be for ending an African trip than the Mother City itself Cape Town This city has it all a spectacular location cool bars fine dining great shopping relatively sharkless beaches mountains wilderness a developed infrastructure a mostly friendly vibe and plenty to keep you occupied. It has to be the most beautiful city I've seen anywhere on the continen http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-Town/blog-228330.html I just cannot get my head around this Rainbow Nation they call South Africa. It is perhaps the strangest country I have ever visited. In fact it is more like many countries all overlapping and sharing the same geographical space yet interacting very little. Sometimes it feels like Australia sometimes it feels like the US sometimes it feels like Britain and sometimes it feels like well an A http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Jeffreys-Bay/blog-224850.html The average life expectancy for a Swazi is now 32 years old. Swaziland is a stable affluent and peaceful nation. So why are people dying at my age Because of AIDS. Swaziland now has the highest infection rate in the world a shocking 40 percent. Why that is I'm not quite sure but it probably has something to do with the size and location of this tiny country. Sandwiched between Mozambique a http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Swaziland/Mbabane/blog-223983.html Let me begin with a word of warning never ever have anything to do with the Mozambican police if at all possible. They are bent corrupt rude xenophobic and vindictive and that's just the nice ones. They are without a doubt the worst officials I have had anything to do with in the whole of Africa most of the continent's border guards and cops have been surprisingly friendly and not bri http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Mozambique/Southern/Maputo/blog-221490.html A more perfect African meeting place could not be found. It was on the shores of Lake Malawi the very lake discovered by Livingstone 150 years ago that I found him. Feared lost in the heart of Africa here he was immersed in conversation in the Butterfly Lodge. As I walked in he stopped talking and met my gaze. He was shorter than I had imagined and his hair was longer blonder but it wa http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Malawi/Central/Lilongwe/blog-215834.html As I sit here writing these electronic journal entries I sometimes think to myself why the hell do I do this I mean it is a bit strange really. When I first went travelling back in 1998 I didn't even have an email address. Communication with home was via very expensive and infrequent phone calls from international call centres or poste restante in big city post offices. Sometimes news http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/North/Arusha/blog-213083.html Ah there's nowhere like Africa for people to refer to you unashamedly by your skin colour. In Senegal I was a toubab in Burkina Faso a blanc in Ethiopia a faranji and now I'm a mzungu. I have been since I set foot in Kenya. All over East Africa especially in areas away from the beaten path of tourism little tykes run up to you pointing and screaming 'mzungu mzungu'. People shout the http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/Zanzibar/Zanzibar-City/blog-209050.html After visiting Rwanda it is almost impossible to believe that this is the very country which tore itself apart just 13 years ago. I arrived here with images of machetes bulletridden corpses intertribal warfare and societal breakdown instead I arrived in an efficient and orderly country where the people are quick with a smile and a greeting and harmonious living is the order of the day.No http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Rwanda/Ville-de-Kigali/Kigali/blog-206875.html Winston Churchill labelled it 'the Pearl of Africa' probably after sinking one too many gin Martinis but despite the rampant poverty and tragic history Uganda does have a charm all of its own. The country is famous for all the wrong reasons most people when they hear the name think instantly of good ol' Idi Amin and his reign of terror or if they are more of a current affairs buff per http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Uganda/Western-Region/Kabale/blog-203636.html Ah Kenya that most quintessentially African of countries with a heady mix of big game big country and big corruption. Not to mention plenty of banditry petty theft and tourist ripoffs. But did I enjoy it Goddamn yes. The journey from Addis to Nairobi was about as epic as they come. 1600plus kilometres by bus and truck along crumbling roads dusty bush tracks and the occasional paved http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Kenya/Rift-Valley-Province/Masai-Mara-NP/blog-199904.html Now I don't usually take to quoting Tony Blair for the titles of my posts but the above quote is perhaps one of the most appropriate things the oncePM and oncedecent guy ever said. One thing you cannot escape when you travel through Africa is the pure unadulterated poverty that exists on this continent. As a brief illustration let me quote some rankings from the UN Human Development Index. T http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Amhara-Region/Gondar/blog-197584.html Right first things first. Leave your stereotypes of Ethiopia at the door. Get those images of barren deserts out of your head. Eliminate any lingering images of starving hungry villagers. Try to blink away that picture of Addis Ababa as a small collection of mud huts surrounded by goats. Ethiopia has bad PR officer working on its international image. The reputation and the reality couldn't be m http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Amhara-Region/Bahir-Dar/blog-194750.html Togo is a prime example of the madness or ineptitude or spitefulness of colonial administration or perhaps a bit of all three. Sandwiched between the slavetrading empires of the Ashanti and the Dahomey the Togolese lost a lot of their folks to slavery. The Germans invaded in the 1880s and found an obscure and suitablypliant village chief who signed a treaty of protection with them. Th http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Togo/Lome/blog-193101.html Here we are in yet another UNESCOlisted medina this time in the charming picturesque and vowelladen fishing town of Essaouira.We have kind of backtracked a little after spending a few days in the Atlas Mountains south of Marrakech but the thought of good seafood and cool sea breezes was too enticing yesterday afternoon when we were delivered back into the searing smoggy heat of Marra.Firs http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Morocco/Marrakech-Tensift-El-Haouz/Essaouira/blog-159382.html