Matt & Kate's travel blog or: Matt & Kate's bogus journey

After all the travel, the main point of coming to the UK at Christmas time was to relax and relax we did. Most of our time was spent in Winchester with Kate’s brother and sister-in-law (Nigel and Janet) eating, drinking, wandering in the town and country and just generally doing not much. We did have visas to sort out, and though that was a hassle, most of that was waiting time. To fill in the waiting time we made a few trips to London where we caught a show (actually a great children’s puppet show that Kate’s brother was in), saw all the Christmas crowds and decorations and I saw the Tower of London with my friend Tanya. We also visited Kate’s cousin and aunt in South London which was fun and, again, very relaxing.

But the main excitement was actually the weather. I had been looking forward to seeing the snow and Kate was full of stories about England winters being all drizzle, grey cloud, and early nights and no snow. But in the end there was snow everywhere for almost our entire stay. The first fall happened on our very first day and I was more than a little excited, it being a little over 20 years since I had last seen it. But a few weeks later it bucketed down (admittedly causing massive transport problems for those that had to work) again so we headed out and built snowmen and threw it around and just generally enjoyed it. Great fun and a great way to bring out the inner child in anyone.

Speaking of inner child, another enjoyable part of our time in England was joining Nigel and a very pregnant Janet on shopping trips to purchase all kinds of baby related things. It seemed like a possibility that the baby would come while we were there, but despite a particularly close call it wasn’t to be.

We perhaps relaxed and soaked up the western way of life too much as when it came to don the backpacks in India again we found it particularly hard going. Starting in Delhi probably didn’t help, but the transition was tough, but one we have thankfully overcome – and onwards and upwards we go. Our plan from here is to spend a few weeks in Rajasthan after seeing Delhi and Agra (Taj Mahal was amazing) and then head south via Goa to the state of Kerala before flying out. The destination is up in the air but more than likely Kate will be volunteering in Sumatra from March 1 helping orangutans and I will be heading to Melbourne early (the volunteer dates clash with the all important concert in Melbourne). If Kate doesn’t get accepted (application in progress) then I think a beach somewhere warm for a few weeks will be the backup plan. Then comes a whirlwind tour of Australia – it’s amazing how little of our own country we have seen, so what better time to rectify that.

Photos of our snow playing below. India updates will follow in a week or so, if we get wifi that is.

Continued from part one: As the boat pulled up all the white folks (not being racist of course, but skin colour is rather noticeable in Africa – we were constantly called whitey or the French or local language version thereof. A little strange at times.) decided to go to the one hotel. This suited us as some of the group spoke excellent French (and had mobile phones to organise a pickup from the dock too) and were more than happy to translate for the amateur French speaking half of the group. The place we stayed in was run by a Canadian woman who had married a chief of one of the local villages. It was very nice with a local specialty for dinner and a nice campfire all night (it was actually cold at night). The first day we wandered around the town looking at the sights – mainly mosques, ornate doors and windows, and the houses where early European explorers stayed (and often died) after reaching Timbuktu back when doing so was a difficult feat. The locals (Tuareg nomads, an interesting people with a history of revolts and isolation and who also do the salt mining camel trips into the heart of the desert that take about a month all up – you could join them if you wanted too…) tended to follow us around the whole time trying to sell us jewellery and other things before their caravan left “the next day”.

The second day we had organised for a camel trip a little way into the desert through the chief. We haphazardly set a price and set off. Kate and I immediately realised the error of our ways after promising not to get back on camels again after the pain of Morocco, but too late! We both had sore backsides for the next few days. After a couple of hours of bouncing out towards the desert we pulled up at our destination, a hut in a Tuareg village. The plan from there was basically to sit on a mat under a tree for 4 hours. They did feed us lunch but the key ingredient in the dish was definitely sand (crunch, crunch, crunch was all you could hear) and tasted rather terrible. A little on the dull side though they did find the time to try and sell some more jewellery. During our long trek back, the Dutch couple who came along too thought that perhaps the trip was overpriced for what was delivered and would take the chief up on his “pay half now and then pay the rest when you return, unless you aren’t completely happy with the trip” offer. So they did, with the help of a translator. Wow. Neither of us really expected it to go well, but I for one didn’t expect an all yelling, all gesturing, some translated wall of fury. It was quite a sight to see the chief getting all worked up over, to him, a matter of honour, pride and “our word”. Needless to say we all just handed over the cash and went somewhere else for dinner.

We made our escape the next day, but unluckily for half of us we had already signed on for a private car with the chief himself (the only feasible way out of Timbuktu for us was by 4WD [at 4am!!!] and they need to be reserved). All went well, with all of us just ignoring him. But of course, there was more. When we were 10kms short of Mopti (after many, many bumpy hours on a graded road) the chief stops the car and says we have to transfer to a taxi for the rest. Kate and I just shrugged but the Spaniard with us had had enough (and was also not one of the camel trekkers who had the run in) and said it was ridiculous, only to be met with a second ridiculously over the top rant from the chief. We jumped in the taxi and headed off, glad to be rid of him. Eventually. The taxi he had chosen for us was a typical Malian rust bucket, and like so many cars around didn’t just simply start at the turn of a key but required coaxing – pushing, touching of wires together, tinkering under the bonnet – before moving, at no matter what speed. Slow in our case, so the 10kms took half an hour after a petrol stop and several police checks that are the norm everywhere in Mali. But we arrived and promptly collapsed in a heap.

Our next destination was the Dogon Country, home to another group of people (the Dogon of course) who, like the Tuareg, seem to be not entirely part of the rest of Mali. First we had to choose a guide – and just about everyone in Mali we met started out by offering to guide us in Dogon Country, it is quite the thing to do in Mali. Having chosen a guide, we set off from Mopti to Bandiagarra, the nearest town to Dogon. This involved taking a bush taxi, running on the general principle of “I’ll leave when I’m full, even if it takes 2 days to fill.” “Luckily” for us, this particular bush taxi only took three and a half hours to fill, so it wasn’t too bad. The next morning we met our guide and we were off. As soon as we appeared in the first village we were swarmed with kids, all wanting to hold our hands – what a thrill! So within a minute we had 2 or 3 kids each, holding on for dear life and defending their positions, often quite brutally, when any other kids tried to get in on the act.

We trekked for four days all up, and each day was much the same. Get up early (well, around 7.30) for breakfast before packing up and exploring the village for a while, hike to the next village for an hour, explore that village, lounge around a wait for lunch in the restaurant (every village had at least one restaurant/“hotel”) because food took even longer in the Dogon, closer to an hour and a half. Lunch and dinner were a sauce over our choice of rice, pasta or couscous. After lunch was snooze time for our guide (he insisted he couldn’t possibly eat a big lunch and then go off and start walking straight away, or even an hour after eating, he needed a long rest – “just like you would in an office“….) then we would walk for another hour or so to the village we would sleep in and set ourselves up for the night. Most of the “hotels” were just lots of small rooms with no windows (or sometimes even a door that closed properly), a basic bed or two and some very rustic toilet and shower facilities a short walk away. And of course, no electricity. Not exactly luxurious, but we managed for four days.

But of course, the main reason for the trek was the scenery and the people. A fascinating way of life, very much unchanged by the passing of time. The area is noticeable for the cliff that runs all through the Dogon Country, with some villages at the top, some at the bottom, and where it’s less steep, some villages kind of in the cliff. Back in the day, there was a different people there – the Tellem, and their houses are all in the cliff face about 50 metres off the ground. The theory is that there was once more water and hence vegetation around and so they climbed vines to get home – I still think it doesn’t really explain why they would choose such a strange place to build a house. We went up and down the cliff at various (carefully chosen) places and had a bit of an explore of some of the abandoned Dogon villages that were at the lowest part of the cliff, fascinating stuff. They are famous for their masks and their ceremonies, but we didn’t get to experience that this time.

After our trek there was really only Bamako to explore and we had a week left before our flight, and after Ouagadougou we didn’t think a capital would really hold our interest. But we had no choice so we took off anyway. Luckily for us (as there really wasn’t much to see) our airline changed our tickets for free! Amazing. We did catch the national museum, the grande marche, and a few other sights, but it was all a little underwhelming and with the knowledge we would soon be in England, it was a bit strange.

Bamako is famous for it’s live music and everywhere we had gone we had seen posters advertising a show around the corner from our (fantastic) hotel on our last night in town, and given we had a late night flight, we thought it was a perfect farewell to Africa. How right we were… After enquiring at our hotel about the venue we felt safe that we didn’t need to buy tickets in advance as it was huge. So we showed up at 9 right when it was supposed to start, and were greeted by an overwhelming number of people, most of whom were attempting to get in through the still locked doors. The scene: several thousand people on either side of a road filled with cars, those on the other side of the road from the venue (like ourselves) were wisely waiting and watching to see what would happen, from the doors there snaked two huge lines of people, culminating in a heaving, climbing, pushing mass of people on the stairs leading up to two tiny, house-sized doors. Insanity. This situation continued for half an hour or so, with us by this time deciding that perhaps we wouldn’t go in after all, and the doors remaining firmly closed. Suddenly it all changed, from the entrance there came a van full of police in riot gear, driven by an absolute madman at at least 70 km/h on the road mostly, but towards the end veering into the crowd. The van screeches to a stop, all the riot police jump off and proceed to beat (literally of course) a path for the doorway and to take control of the steps (all this we observed from a very safe distance away as we had, along with most of the people on our side of the road, run off at the approach of the crazy van). This continued for about 15 minutes, with relative calm descending. The police then spread back and seemed to have created an orderly corridor for the crowd to enter the now open door through. About 20 people made it in before the crowd went absolutely nuts and surged towards the entrance and the police – the doors promptly closed and the batons came back out and more beatings occurred. The crowd then calmed down a bit for a while, before surging again, being beaten back again, etc, etc. About 40 or so minutes afterwards (we weren‘t going in, but we were staying (a safe enough distance away) to see what happened), for seemingly no reason another police van drove up, in exactly the same fashion and another squad of police stormed out and beat their way through the crowd. Finally, between the two lots they formed a huge triangle out the front of the building and law and order was seemingly restored. So we waited.. And waited. For the next hour or so we waited and watched, while absolutely nothing at all happened. Very strange. We eventually went back to our hotel as we had a flight to catch and we will never know if the show got under way, but it is extremely doubtful. We were left utterly bemused that such a scene could result simply from a large group of people wanting to attend a music concert. So that was our strange end of our African adventure. To be followed by a horrendous travel saga that was far less interesting but far more arduous that took us to England and to, relative, sanity again.

Phew. Time for some photos.

Still playing catchup with the blog – it’s hard not to be lazy and lethargic after the last 6 months or so of running around the world in the sun and now being able to relax for a while… in the freezing cold. But we are getting there and should be leaving for India just as soon as we get our visas, which is a whole other story.

On to Mali. It’s a bit difficult to know where to start with Mali, Mali was difficult, confusing, exhausting, and on and on, but also completely amazing and fascinating and on and on. Perhaps I shall stick to a nice, normal linear description first. After starting to write, the sheer volume of words has prompted me to split it into two posts.

Our first stop in Mali was Segou (mentioned last time, long bus ride, etc, etc). A nice, relaxed river-side town. There really wasn’t much to see there, more of a place to break a journey up. There were some lovely, crumbling, old buildings – relics of France’s colonial past – to walk around, aside from that the only other thing to see was a village an hour away by boat that made (and fired) pottery. We found out about this on the night we arrived from a would-be-guide who appeared from out of the shadows as we were waiting for our dinner at a restaurant (this is an occupation that took up much of our time, it seems that food is not able to be prepared in less than 30 minutes in Mali, an hour (we always took books with us) is much more reasonable). He spoke for a while to us from behind a wall in the dark before I gestured for him to actually come in and sit near us.

So he took us off the next day and showed us around, we saw the local women making pottery without any fancy machines – all they needed was a stand and a thong (flip flop for the UK residents) and voila, fantastic pots. The firing was done with fire (of course) but we were eventually told that it was done the next day, not the day we went (despite being told otherwise). Still, interesting.

By this time the Djenne Monday market (a big event) was looming so we headed off. From anywhere in Mali, the only way to get to Djenne (if you are a tourist that is) is to take a bus that goes along the highway between Segou and Mopti and get out at the carrefour (it’s French for yoghurt, I mean intersection or crossroads) for Djenne and “steel yourself for a long wait” in the words of our trusty Lonely Planet. As it turned out, they were right, though not in the way we thought. Luckily for us, another couple got off there as well with their Malian guide also going to Djenne. As soon as we all got off we were met by a driver of a “bache” (a ute with seats in the tray bit and a little roof) who quoted us a price, which we thought was fairly reasonable and loaded our bags on the roof for us. We all jump in, excited and relieved that it has gone so smoothly and start chatting away. The driver goes away, comes back 5 minutes later and says “oh I’m actually waiting for 10 more passengers before we go… or you could just pay that straight up and we can go.” Of course 10 more tickets between us made the great deal rather terrible so we said no, but waiting looked a little ridiculous when we stopped to assess where we were – which wasn’t on the highway at all but in fact a little off it and looking a lot like the middle of nowhere. A lot of arguing later, a driver from the hotel that the other couples guide had booked shows and the arguments continue and continue. Eventually, they sort it out, we pay the equivalent of maybe 5 more seats (a bargain!) and drive off, 6 to a car. As we are leaving, we notice another bus show up and drop 2 more tourists off who walk over to the same bache driver…

Anyway, after all that we made it to Djenne and stayed at an absolute hovel of a hotel on the Sunday night (but they had an awesome Knight Rider sheet on the bed!) and looked around where the market was supposed to be – not much chop and almost nobody around was the verdict. The next morning we went out to see what had become of the market and were rather surprised to see the area covered (amazingly densely covered) with people, food, clothes and random products of every possible description. Though when I say every possible description that should really be every possible description except for things that a western tourist would ever in their right minds buy. Buckets, pans, cheap and second hand tools, clocks, hideous underwear and inedible food (mounds a metre high of dried, stinking fish were by far the most inedible of all) were everywhere and commerce seemed to be brisk but it was difficult to tell as the market operates on it’s own special language that we knew not a word of and it was never entirely clear if people were buying things, haggling incessantly or simply just talking to each other. A fantastic sight but we, of course, bought not a thing. Another major highlight of Djenne is it’s fantastic mosque. Mosques throughout the region are all mud brick buildings with wood sticking out everywhere. Apparently every year after the rainy season the buildings all need maintenance so the wood is both decorative and scaffolding.
We decided to take advantage of the high volume of traffic to leave Segou for Mopti. We had no problems securing a seat in a bache but it ended up proving to us that you can in fact fit 15 people in one of them. A very uncomfortable trip, I got the lucky spot of on top of the spare tyre at everyone’s feet. Mopti was a real crossroads in our trip, from there we could take the boat to Timbuktu or organise treks through the Dogon Country. The problem was the boat to Timbuktu has a reputation for an incredibly loose schedule and supposedly takes 3 days to get to Timbuktu. The trick was going to be balancing when the boat left (which we wouldn’t find out until we got to Mopti), a trip to Dogon Country and getting back to Bamako with enough time to catch our plane. That was the worry anyway. We showed up in Mopti at 5pm and went to the boat office only to be told that the boat leaves at 7pm that night. After a mad panic to change euros and buy toilet paper, food (meals are provided but have a reputation for being small or running out) and water before leaving, we jumped on the boat and took off.

The first thing we realised was that despite the promises that dinner was included on the first night, it in fact was not (lucky we had bought extra food). The boat itself was quite interesting, bottom deck was mainly taken up with cargo – huge piles of fruit and vegetables, a motorbike, a goat, a horse, and all sorts of random things; the second deck was taken up with the cabins, our “first class” cabin was there along with 8 other tourists; the top deck was half wide open space where Africans travelled – sleeping, cooking and everything else in the open – and the other half was the restaurant area. Every time the boat stopped at a village (there were about 8 or so stops between Mopti and Timbuktu) every woman on board (some guys too, but not many) trooped off the boat loaded with their goods loaded on their heads and set up a little mini-market on the riverbank. The locals of course know this and are waiting in huge numbers at every stop (in fact, even in the villages where the boat doesn’t stop the people all gather to watch the boat passing) to buy their wares, this didn’t change even at the night stops, everyone just brings along a torch. But all good things must come to an end, and after only 2 nights we were told to pack up and get off. A shame as with the unexpectedly quick departure of the boat we found ourselves with a little too much time left plus we liked life on the boat – the food was decent, the temperature moderate and the other tourists friendly. Oh well, we consoled ourselves with the fact that we were in Timbuktu!

Photos and junk below, part two coming soon.