Advertisement
Found an Internet cafe that let me use my own computer. No wifi. Just a long cable with an RJ45 connector. No DHCP either for automatically detecting new connections. Had to manually configure the IP and gateway addresses. The connection is very fast too. Perfect.
Today was mostly a walking day. Must have walked about 7 or 8 km. Also took several Boda Bodas ... these are motorcycle taxis where you ride as the passenger, just like in Vietnam. They get their name because this used to be the way to get from Border to Border in Uganda ... so Boda Boda it is.
Only had one near miss when on a Boda Boda, when he had to brake hard and skid because a pedestrian was unaware we were behind her. Managed to hold onto the camera bag and backpack while keeping my balance. Yes, the guide book talks about how dangerous they can be, but if you pick the guys who seem more cautious and acually have a helmet (most don't), then it seems pretty ok.
What's probably more dangerous is the pungent thick diesel fumes from all the minivan shared taxis - the ones called matatu
in Kenya. Didn't ride in any of those today. It's hard to figure out where they are going, based on what the "conductor" is saying. Perhaps a few months of language training would help.
Kampala was mostly destroyed when Idi Amin was pushed out by his replacement despot Milton Obote ... actually, much of the destruction was by the Tanzanian Soldiers who even killed most of the wild life in the game parks. Kampala is recovering well and growing with modern architecture besides some traditional buildings. Idi Amin started the construction of the national mosque, and Gadaffi helped with completing the unfinished mosque. That's why there's a Col. Gadaffi Road near there. How to make friends and influence people eh.
The locals are very friendly and always want to help. One time while walking, I stopped to get a drink of water and look at the map in the guidebook. This worker who was loaded down carrying a ladder and painting paraphenalia stopped and asked if he could help with directions. Here's someone loaded down with work stuff, and he's only too eager to help.
As in Cambodia, the people on the streets are very young. The
war must have wiped many of the prior generation. It's good to see that peace has broken out.
The streets themselves are pretty interesting, in that you have to keep your wits about you, unless you want to fall into an open man hole, or trip over loose paving stones, or walk into someone. The markets are also full of life. Too bad the light was terrible to take any good pictures.
No sense of danger in terms of pick pockets or snatch and grab artists, it seems. I would not walk around like I did all day in the downtowns of most large US cities.
Yes, just like in Mombasa and Nairobi there's bored looking armed guards with shotguns and AK47s outside banks and other prominent public buildings. And that indicates that armed bank robberies are probably quite common. As in Sri Lanka, there's lots of automatic weapons around from the recent wars and the on-going fighting in the DRC.
I tried to get lost, but it was hard. There's several prominent land marks and it's easy to stay oriented in the central Kampala area. Since I used the Boda Boda to venture further out,
Street View
Notice the open man hole cover they knew their way. I'm sure I'll get lost easily, if I was driving. There's almost no posted street names and the ones that do ... keep changing names at every other intersection it seems.
Tomorrow I head to Jinja, the source of the Victoria Nile, where lake Victoria empties out in a series of rapids. I've booked an all day white water rafting trip. After that, it's 3 days safari at Murchison falls NP. Not sure about Gorilla tracking on this trip. I haven't talked to anybody about the security situation where the mountain gorillas are at the Rwanda/Uganda/DRC border. Recently lots of DRC refugees have spilled over into both Rwanda and Uganda to get away from the fighting near the Goma area.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.126s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 54; dbt: 0.0848s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Cessna152
Jason Smart
Great shots of Kampala
Sounds like you enjoyed Uganda - a place not many people actually get to. And like you, I enjoyed my time there, and also like you, flew there from Doha! (My wife and worked up in Al Khor as teachers). Sometimes Africa just seems to call....