Wednesday April 6th
We slept till about 4am, and that was it! Dogs were barking, Bruce got up, the mosques started to blare out their call to prayer, then the roosters started. A man knocked on our door at 5.40 – he may have been from hotel management, otherwise he was in the nextdoor room and had been woken by the noise of our shower. We left just after 6 am and were on the bus at 6.20. We bought a loaf of bread to eat on the way, and the bus left at 7 sharp!
There was no checking of passengers at Kyotera on the Tanzanian side of the border, and we reached Mutukula at 8.30, and only stayed there a short time. One young man in a yellow T-shirt had been tugged and pushed onto the bus by a woman, his mother? before the border. When the bus stopped at the side of the road in Uganda where a man was standing, he didn’t want to get off and the opposite to what had happened when he got on! One wonders what the story was there!
Masaka was reached at 10.30, then the outskirts of Kampala at a quarter to one. A man got up and started trying to sell medicine – in fact he made quite a few sales – of creams, pills and potions that were supposed to cure anything from baldness to impotency. He was quite amusing as he pantomimed a bit and told all these stories as testimonials – some really made me laugh and amused the other passengers too. I was kept busy outlining it all to Bruce.
Half an hour later, we neared the city centre, where the traffic had practically ground to a halt. It took another hour to reach the bus centre, which the bus couldn’t enter as there were vehicles parked in front of the gates. many of the other passengers had already got off, getting frustrated with the lack of progress – not an option for us, not knowing our whereabouts! We found the taxi stand quite easily, and soon set off for Entebbe. This time we had a much faster journey! It was a pleasant day, 26 degrees. The minibuses stop right outside the Entebbe Flight Motel so it’s a very convenient place to stay.
After dropping off our bags, we went for a walk past the nearby supermarket to the small village shopping centre. Around the taxi park are many small shops and cafés. We chose one that said it served snacks and cold drinks. Lutheran music was playing and we seemed to be the only customers. It was around 4 pm by now. The menu was a little unexpected: the ‘snacks’ were all some kind of meat or fish accompanied by chips, whereas ‘meals’ were the same thing but instead of chips, were served with ugali, matoke or various Ugandan alternatives! I asked the girl whether they had anything smaller like chapattis, and she was able to offer us samosas. We enjoyed drinking mango juice as well. Whilst we were relaxing in that cool place, we noticed a rather amusing poster on the wall. It said that if you smoked, the staff would think that you were on fire and treat you accordingly!!!!
After that break, we walked around a small food market and bought some bananas. Bruce was interested in finding out the price of some very nice looking steak at a butcher’s, and we were surprised to find out that it was quite expensive – 7,000 Ush a kilo (nearly 3USD). In Tanzania it is about Tzsh 3,000 a kilo (2 USD).
We stopped at a rather modern supermarket and bought some water as it was much cheaper than the hotel’s. We had a look around at all the different foods on display and bought some fruit juice. They have an interesting system when you leave the supermarket – you have to hand your docket over to a person near the exit doorway, who has a brief look at your purchases before waving you on. There is also a guard at the entry point. Rather different from here in NZ.
I found out that you have a choice of ordering from a menu or eating the buffet dinner at the motel, so I decided to choose from the menu rather than have to try to eat lots of food at the buffet to make the extra price worthwhile. Bruce wanted the buffet, so this put the staff in a brief quandary. Normally people eating from the menu dine in one room, and those partaking of the buffet in a 3-walled room opening onto the main courtyard. However, they decided that they could serve me my meal there as well as long as we agreed on a suitable time for dining.
Showing posts with label Kampala. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kampala. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Traffic jams
Friday March 25th 2011
We ate the provided breakfast, which is quite nice – mango juice, fresh tropical fruits, then toast and jam. There is also tea and coffee. We then took our bags across the road and down the way to the minibus taxi park, trying to dissuade all the hopeful taxi drivers (of both cars and bodaboda (motorcycles) from giving us a lift. It was quite cool and cloudy so it was easy to carry our packs - and we were travelling light – we only had one large pack and two small ones. It was easy to find a minibus going to Kampala, so we climbed aboard and didn't have to wait long before it was full enough to set off.
The first part of the ride was fine, travelling through the lush countryside as far as Kampala, but once in the city, the traffic became totally chaotic. It wasn't nearly as bad four years earlier when we’d travelled through the city on a big bus! Instead of the usual 40-minute trip, it took an hour and a half!
This time there were solid lines of gridlocked minibus taxis - some were stationary waiting for passengers and others were trying to get somewhere! In places they were lined up 3 deep.
Once we had disembarked at the Old Taxi Park, we tried to remember where the Gateway buses leave from, but unfortunately all we could remember was that you have to go uphill. We chose a likely-looking street and tried asking some passers-by, but they couldn't help us. One group of three young men wanted to chat with us, but after a while, Bruce decided that one man's attentions to me were a bit over-the-top! He had first called me "sweetheart", then wouldn't let go of my hand - so Bruce said, "Leave my wife alone," - which caused a number of questions! Qualcel bus 60,000 sh!!! + 10,000 Mutukula to Bukoba on Gateway. Stuck ¾ hour petrol station, passed bus depot 1 hour after setting off, ½ hour to leave city – at noon!
Eventually we found someone who reckoned he knew where the Bukoba buses leave from, but we were rather perturbed when he set off downhill. We followed a little reluctantly and ended up at a different bus depot where there was a bus due to depart to Bukoba about half an hour earlier than the Gateway bus would leave. I was rather surprised at the price charged for the tickets – the ticket-seller told us the fare would be 30,000 shillings – each! However, I assumed that the price was higher due to it being a different company and the steep rise in fuel costs. As it was getting rather late, and we weren't sure if we could find the Gateway depot in time, we decided to take the ride.
We were glad to be able to buy some water very cheaply from a lady who came onto the bus to sell her wares, and then it was time to set off. First the driver went to a petrol station and put just a few litres into the tank before setting off - only to find that he couldn't exit the petrol station because the traffic was so busy on the street that it was really hard to exit onto it. We were stuck behind several other vehicles and had to wait our turn. After a while, the driver got impatient and followed someone’s very silly advice to try another exit. So, after reversing from where we were, and manoeuvring to another exit, we found that it was totally jammed by 2 or 3 rows of stationary daladalas (minibus taxis), some waiting for fares! No-one would let us out, and eventually our driver caused some extra chaos by reversing back towards the pumps again, then returning to our first exit – as the vehicles that had been in front of us before had all managed to leave, and in fact, there were fresh vehicles queuing up there, waiting for the rare gaps in the traffic. By the time we were able to leave the petrol station, we’d spent 45 minutes there, and slowly completing a circuit of a block, we arrived outside the bus station again, a whole hour after we’d left! I was hoping that we wouldn’t re-enter it again to pick up more passengers! Fortunately we already had our quote and it was time to get going! Another half-hour later, we exited Kampala. It was great to be out in the countryside, the only disruptions to the traffic being the frequent judder bars at the entry and exit points of villages and towns, and the odd police check.
We made quite good time and reached Mutukula around 4pm. What a surprise it was when everyone started to disembark before the border post and started to climb on board a Gateway bus!!!!! The new conductor asked for another 10,000 Ush and I explained that I thought I'd already bought a ticket for the complete journey - oh no, that was just for the Qualcel bus! At least 10,000/= wasn't too much to part with, and it was a little amusing really!
We didn’t have to spend too long at the border, and were soon in Bukoba, very happy to be greeted by our friend Gayle Smith, together with an ex-student of ours, Hassan. She’s sponsoring him through school as his Muslim family disowned him when he became a Christian. Unfortunately he got a much lower grade than expected in the National Form Four exams, but was still able to get a scholarship for a school in the South East of Tanzania. We’d first met Gayle just a few months before we left Bukoba in 2007, when she came to start teaching at the school where we were working. She is now working at a different school.
We had time to buy an SIM card for our phone and a voucher before squeezing into a taxi with several other people. Gayle says it’s the usual way of getting to Kemondo now if you’re too late for the daladalas. But it isn’t very comfortable with 6-9 people in a car built for 5!
We were thrilled to be hailed by someone in the street near the taxi stand – our friend Aristides, one of the stone-cutters Bruce worked with at Harvest. He’d had an accident since we last saw him and had had his leg amputated below the knee late 2010 as an earlier operation had never healed properly and had left an infected wound. He’d managed to get an artificial leg and proudly showed it to us. More about that later!
Our taxi driver did a surprise detour on the way to Kemondo – to avoid a police check. He said the policemen is like Colonel Gaddafi!
Once at Gayle’s feeling rather weary after all our days of travel, we waited for tea. She makes a really yummy avocado dip. She’s sharing a house with a couple of other teachers at the mission school. We’d visited it briefly 4 years earlier.
We ate the provided breakfast, which is quite nice – mango juice, fresh tropical fruits, then toast and jam. There is also tea and coffee. We then took our bags across the road and down the way to the minibus taxi park, trying to dissuade all the hopeful taxi drivers (of both cars and bodaboda (motorcycles) from giving us a lift. It was quite cool and cloudy so it was easy to carry our packs - and we were travelling light – we only had one large pack and two small ones. It was easy to find a minibus going to Kampala, so we climbed aboard and didn't have to wait long before it was full enough to set off.
The first part of the ride was fine, travelling through the lush countryside as far as Kampala, but once in the city, the traffic became totally chaotic. It wasn't nearly as bad four years earlier when we’d travelled through the city on a big bus! Instead of the usual 40-minute trip, it took an hour and a half!
This time there were solid lines of gridlocked minibus taxis - some were stationary waiting for passengers and others were trying to get somewhere! In places they were lined up 3 deep.
Once we had disembarked at the Old Taxi Park, we tried to remember where the Gateway buses leave from, but unfortunately all we could remember was that you have to go uphill. We chose a likely-looking street and tried asking some passers-by, but they couldn't help us. One group of three young men wanted to chat with us, but after a while, Bruce decided that one man's attentions to me were a bit over-the-top! He had first called me "sweetheart", then wouldn't let go of my hand - so Bruce said, "Leave my wife alone," - which caused a number of questions! Qualcel bus 60,000 sh!!! + 10,000 Mutukula to Bukoba on Gateway. Stuck ¾ hour petrol station, passed bus depot 1 hour after setting off, ½ hour to leave city – at noon!
Eventually we found someone who reckoned he knew where the Bukoba buses leave from, but we were rather perturbed when he set off downhill. We followed a little reluctantly and ended up at a different bus depot where there was a bus due to depart to Bukoba about half an hour earlier than the Gateway bus would leave. I was rather surprised at the price charged for the tickets – the ticket-seller told us the fare would be 30,000 shillings – each! However, I assumed that the price was higher due to it being a different company and the steep rise in fuel costs. As it was getting rather late, and we weren't sure if we could find the Gateway depot in time, we decided to take the ride.
We were glad to be able to buy some water very cheaply from a lady who came onto the bus to sell her wares, and then it was time to set off. First the driver went to a petrol station and put just a few litres into the tank before setting off - only to find that he couldn't exit the petrol station because the traffic was so busy on the street that it was really hard to exit onto it. We were stuck behind several other vehicles and had to wait our turn. After a while, the driver got impatient and followed someone’s very silly advice to try another exit. So, after reversing from where we were, and manoeuvring to another exit, we found that it was totally jammed by 2 or 3 rows of stationary daladalas (minibus taxis), some waiting for fares! No-one would let us out, and eventually our driver caused some extra chaos by reversing back towards the pumps again, then returning to our first exit – as the vehicles that had been in front of us before had all managed to leave, and in fact, there were fresh vehicles queuing up there, waiting for the rare gaps in the traffic. By the time we were able to leave the petrol station, we’d spent 45 minutes there, and slowly completing a circuit of a block, we arrived outside the bus station again, a whole hour after we’d left! I was hoping that we wouldn’t re-enter it again to pick up more passengers! Fortunately we already had our quote and it was time to get going! Another half-hour later, we exited Kampala. It was great to be out in the countryside, the only disruptions to the traffic being the frequent judder bars at the entry and exit points of villages and towns, and the odd police check.
We made quite good time and reached Mutukula around 4pm. What a surprise it was when everyone started to disembark before the border post and started to climb on board a Gateway bus!!!!! The new conductor asked for another 10,000 Ush and I explained that I thought I'd already bought a ticket for the complete journey - oh no, that was just for the Qualcel bus! At least 10,000/= wasn't too much to part with, and it was a little amusing really!
We didn’t have to spend too long at the border, and were soon in Bukoba, very happy to be greeted by our friend Gayle Smith, together with an ex-student of ours, Hassan. She’s sponsoring him through school as his Muslim family disowned him when he became a Christian. Unfortunately he got a much lower grade than expected in the National Form Four exams, but was still able to get a scholarship for a school in the South East of Tanzania. We’d first met Gayle just a few months before we left Bukoba in 2007, when she came to start teaching at the school where we were working. She is now working at a different school.
We had time to buy an SIM card for our phone and a voucher before squeezing into a taxi with several other people. Gayle says it’s the usual way of getting to Kemondo now if you’re too late for the daladalas. But it isn’t very comfortable with 6-9 people in a car built for 5!
We were thrilled to be hailed by someone in the street near the taxi stand – our friend Aristides, one of the stone-cutters Bruce worked with at Harvest. He’d had an accident since we last saw him and had had his leg amputated below the knee late 2010 as an earlier operation had never healed properly and had left an infected wound. He’d managed to get an artificial leg and proudly showed it to us. More about that later!
Our taxi driver did a surprise detour on the way to Kemondo – to avoid a police check. He said the policemen is like Colonel Gaddafi!
Once at Gayle’s feeling rather weary after all our days of travel, we waited for tea. She makes a really yummy avocado dip. She’s sharing a house with a couple of other teachers at the mission school. We’d visited it briefly 4 years earlier.
Uganda
Thursday March 24th 2011
The second leg went via Addis Ababa to Entebbe, but we weren't allowed off the plane; it was only a very short stop. We did, however, enjoy looking at the mountainous landscape of Ethiopia as we neared the airport.
It was mid-afternoon when we arrived at Entebbe, and a rather muggy 26 deg C. They had had some rain in the morning and the streets were still a little damp. They have altered the airport and immigration procedure since our last time here in 2006, and it was so quick! No more waiting in line for an hour! We were able to get some Tanzanian and Ugandan shillings at the airport Forex at a good rate, so were well-prepared for our stay and following journey. Then it was off to a motel for the night, as the bus to Bukoba only goes in the morning.
We have stayed at this motel before, the Entebbe Flight Motel, and it is quite a good choice. The room rates are quite reasonable, and they offer a free shuttle service to and from the airport which actually is a substantial saving. Breakfast is included in the room rate too. We decided to eat there in the evening as we weren't quite sure what the local market centre was like for food and how safe it was at night.
The motel serves a buffet-style meal of local dishes every evening. Bruce loaded up his plate - but I wasn't very hungry and they were rather surprised how little I put on mine!
It was a little hard to sleep well, we woke up several times, then from 5am the traffic became very noisy.
The second leg went via Addis Ababa to Entebbe, but we weren't allowed off the plane; it was only a very short stop. We did, however, enjoy looking at the mountainous landscape of Ethiopia as we neared the airport.
It was mid-afternoon when we arrived at Entebbe, and a rather muggy 26 deg C. They had had some rain in the morning and the streets were still a little damp. They have altered the airport and immigration procedure since our last time here in 2006, and it was so quick! No more waiting in line for an hour! We were able to get some Tanzanian and Ugandan shillings at the airport Forex at a good rate, so were well-prepared for our stay and following journey. Then it was off to a motel for the night, as the bus to Bukoba only goes in the morning.
We have stayed at this motel before, the Entebbe Flight Motel, and it is quite a good choice. The room rates are quite reasonable, and they offer a free shuttle service to and from the airport which actually is a substantial saving. Breakfast is included in the room rate too. We decided to eat there in the evening as we weren't quite sure what the local market centre was like for food and how safe it was at night.
The motel serves a buffet-style meal of local dishes every evening. Bruce loaded up his plate - but I wasn't very hungry and they were rather surprised how little I put on mine!
It was a little hard to sleep well, we woke up several times, then from 5am the traffic became very noisy.
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