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N.. is off on his Central African journey to meet up with E.. and W.. in Lusaka in 3 weeks time.
Left our Doha villa at 00:40 to catch a 03:45 Emirates pond hopper to Dubai to catch the morning Dubai-Kampala flight. At that time the ride to the airport took only 20 minutes. At the airport, the guy in the lineup in front of me was our villa neighbour with his infant daughter. His wife had left for London already and he was travelling to Vancouver via the Dubai-Seattle Emirates direct connection with his daughter in a car seat. She slept the whole time while we were waiting, and only got up when the car seat had to be put in the cargo hold. Ofcourse flying to Seattle is a lot cheaper than flying to Vancouver. We could have easily shared the cab to the airport if only we knew the timing of our flights. Yes, I asked lots of people what time they were leaving, and every one of them was leaving much earlier or much later.
The flight to Dubai and the onwards flight to Kampala was pretty uneventful, except the Dubai-Kampala flight switched gate numbers
without me being aware of any public announcements. I was one of the last passengers to board, since I'd been waiting at the original gate shown on my boarding pass. I think I dozed off a couple of times while waiting, and maybe missed an announcement made during that time?
Kampala is on the same time zone as Doha, so no jet lag ... just tiredness from the red-eye flight and cattle class seating. It is a nice African city and like Amman and Roman, it's situated on 7 hills). Great to walk around in if you don't mind some hill climbing and the traffic that seems to ignore the plight of pedestrians ... It's got a different vibe than Nairobi ... it seems very safe, and the people are very friendly. But, since several bombs were set off here by the Shebbab of Somalia, security at most buildings is present mostly in the form of security theatre. They make you open your bag and show what's inside. When I show the computer, they just look at the case. It could be stuffed with marzipan or something that smells like that for all they know ... I guess, since
I don't look Somali they let me through. Oh the Shebbab don't like the fact that Ugandan troops make the bulk of the African Union mission in Somalia that is kicking the Shebbab butt right now with the help of US air strikes and the occasional US special forces actions. And as for security theatre, the hotel guard has stopped checking my bag, since I went in and out too many times today carrying either my camera bag or backpack or both.
Kampala is cooler than Doha but more moist. About 25C with several rain showers on and off. Stayed cloudy for a good part of the day too. Unusual for this time of year.
The hotel I'm staying doesn't have an Internet connection. So I Went to an Internet cafe to connect via wifi and update the Travel Blog and send a few emails. After ordering food, I was told that they don't have the password to the router, and the only way to connect is through the computers on site. Sorry. That's not an option. I always assume that any public computers have key loggers installed. Yes, a public wifi connection could be sniffed easily and
man-in-the-middled and side-jacked with fire-sheep, etc., But if you make sure you only use https sites and verify the SSL certificate was indeed issued to the https site you are visiting by a Certificate Authority (CA) you trust, then it should be safe. (See how user friendly it is to stay modestly secure? Keep a bunch of CAs you trust in memory and always remember to double check the cert. and don't get hood winked into misreading a 0 for o and rn for m etc.) Yes, SSL has some holes ... but, that's an issue anywhere, not just at public wifi hotspots. But potential key loggers are best avoided.
Couldn't find my hotel room at night ... the room had disapeared! ... turned out the floor attendant had closed the outer privacy door, so I didn't see the posted room number! I must be tired. Time to go sleep.
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