Early Evening Inspections

[pargyle]

I have a couple of dresses made from Tanzanian Kangas
1998 I took my daughter on Safari to The Selous, Ruaha and Tarangiri. We ended our trip with a few days in Zanzibar. On the ferry from Dar es Salaam they packed us all in so tight that the boat listed all the way over.

I used to go there regularly in the 1980's on business .... it was a bit primitive (although run down into the ground would be a better description) in those days, to say the least ...

I never braved the ferry to Zanzibar - I saw how many they would cram in. It capsized in 2011 with an estimated 2000 people on board ... there was no list of passengers but they think that around 250 people drowned.

The taxis in Dar es Salaam in the 1980's were scary enough ... my regular driver drove an ancient Opel record that had no passenger side front door or a seat (he said it was like a London Taxi so you could put your luggage in easily !) and I sat in the back holding the door shut when it hit a bump or crossed a rut in the road ...

I could tell you stories about Tanzania in the 1980's but it would need a long evening over a few beers.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

The taxis in Dar es Salaam in the 1980's were scary enough ... my regular driver drove an ancient Opel record that had no passenger side front door or a seat (he said it was like a London Taxi so you could put your luggage in easily !) and I sat in the back holding the door shut when it hit a bump or crossed a rut in the road ...

Dar is not so bad now, and all the taxis I saw were no different to the ones over here. I did have a scary moment on my first full day there - I had to get up at about 0400 and catch a taxi from the airport hotel to the airport to catch my internal flight to Mtwara, the trip was less than a quarter of a mile, out of the hotel, over the railway the a quick left turn into the airport...Bang! a motorbike came out of nowhere and straight into the side of the car all I saw was this face sliding slowly down my side window to the floor. The driver cursed, said 'don't worry' jumped out and went over to the cyclist dragged him to his feet and gave him a right telling off before throwing the bike to one side, jumped back in and carried on to my destination!! I found out that we did have the right of way and the biker was in the wrong!!

 

[pargyle]

Dar is not so bad now, and all the taxis I saw were no different to the ones over here. I did have a scary moment on my first full day there - I had to get up at about 0400 and catch a taxi from the airport hotel to the airport to catch my internal flight to Mtwara, the trip was less than a quarter of a mile, out of the hotel, over the railway the a quick left turn into the airport...Bang! a motorbike came out of nowhere and straight into the side of the car all I saw was this face sliding slowly down my side window to the floor. The driver cursed, said 'don't worry' jumped out and went over to the cyclist dragged him to his feet and gave him a right telling off before throwing the bike to one side, jumped back in and carried on to my destination!! I found out that we did have the right of way and the biker was in the wrong!!

African Justice ... you'd never get away with it over here ...

I know Dar is a lot better now .. it was 40 years ago that I first went there - it was 20 years after independence and it was just long enough for the old colonial infrastucture to disintegrate and enough time for the newl(ish)Tanzanian Government to make a mess of things. Corruption was rife throughout the whole of Public administration and every public utlity was breaking down. Electricity was intermittent as the central generation plant had broken and there were no spares, the water supply was erratic at best and brown when it was running ...the roads, even in the centre of Dar, were largely un-surfaced and those that were - riddled with huge potholes. It was a piss poor country then - it's still poor now but I think foreign investment - particularly from China who have poured billions into the country - in particular the railways and power generation ... has made a huge difference.