African Tour:Lake Nakuru National Park

From Amboseli, Edgar drove me north to Lake Nakuru National Park. This was our single longest drive together outside of any park. The distance between the two is over 350km. It took a little over six hours. For the first half of the drive, I stretched out in the back of the van. During the second half, I stuck my head out the roof. This was also the closest I came to the equator. Lake Nakuru is just over 30km from the equator. Everything else in Kenya was at least 150km south of Lake Nakuru, and South Africa is nowhere near the equator.

The Great Rift Valley cuts all the way through Kenya. At Amboseli, and even Nairobi, the roads are more or less flat. The highest peak in Amboseli is 30 meters, which is a little ironic when you consider that most people associate the park with Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa. If you drive west of Nairobi, you hit the Great Rift Valley and the scenery gets a lot more interesting.

During the drive, we took a break on the side of a cliff. Edgar said it was so I could admire the scenery. I think he just needed a break from driving. We sat on rocks in silence while I stared at the valley with an ice cold Pepsi. It was a short break and nothing happened, but it was one of those nice little moments in life.

Lake Nakuru National Park was the smallest park I went to, maybe even the smallest national park in Kenya. While every other park or reserve was out in the wilderness, Lake Nakuru is practically a suburb of Nairobi, completely surrounded by civilization. If it were not a protected national park, all the animals would be gone and the lake would probably be dry by now. The lake itself is about the same size as Pelican Lake in Northern Minnesota. The park is a small ring around the lake. Since no rivers touch the lake, its size depends on how much rain it gets.

The main attraction at Lake Nakuru are the million flamingos that migrate for the algae. It is also one of the easiest places to spot rhinos. Lake Nakuru has 70 white and 25 black rhinos. Kruger has larger numbers, but they are spread out over a much larger area. Lake Nakuru's rhinos graze out in the open. If you drive around the lake, you are going to see rhinos.

I spent two nights at Lake Nakuru Lodge. That did not sound like enough time to me at first, but Lake Nakuru is pretty small. You can easily drive around the entire park in a day. An extra day is good to make more stops, and when you include the beginning of the day before you arrive and the end of the day after you leave, one day would not be enough.

Lake Nakuru Lodge was more or less the same as Ol Tukai, only much smaller and cheaper looking. The main building, lobby, and restaurant were smaller, though the gift shop was larger. It was harder to tell where most of the guest rooms were, but I really did not care. Once again, I was in a small cottage away from the main building. Instead of a front patio, these cottages had tiny balconies in the back. The views were not as good, but at least they faced the park. The Ol Tukai cottage was larger and nicer, but I spent most of my time awake and out of the room anyway. The one thing the Lake Nakuru Lodge had over Ol Tukai was the swimming pool. Lake Nakuru Lodge's swimming pool was bigger and better. More importantly, it has a jacuzzi. Relaxing in bubbling water is always a good idea after a long day of driving around, no matter where in the world you are.

Everyone goes to Lake Nakuru for the flamingos, and there are plenty of them. The lake also attracts thousands of pelicans, storks, and other birds. As the only real source of water in the park, all the animals go to the lake. Compared to other national parks and reserves in Kenya, Lake Nakuru is a little unimpressive. But it is the easiest place to see a wide variety of animals all gathered together in one place. Everyone spreads out in the larger parks. At Lake Nakuru, they are all at the same lake.

The most unusual thing that happened at Lake Nakuru was when a cop asked us for a bribe. We were driving away from the lake when a park ranger stopped us. The ranger got out of his jeep, came up to the van, and looked at me for a while. He never asked me for ID or even spoke to me at all. He wrote something in his notepad and told Edgar to get out of the van. It was almost like a traffic stop, except we were driving slowly on a dirt road in the middle of a national park with absolutely no traffic whatsoever.

Edgar and the ranger had a conversation well out of my earshot. Not that I would have understood their language anyway. When Edgar came back to the van, we drove away as if nothing had happened. When I asked him what that was all about, he calmly told me that the ranger wanted a bribe. The way he said it was more than a little sad. It was just another day at the office to Edgar. I wondered if Edgar's company budgeted for such things or if he had to pay out of his own pocket. I also wondered if such a thing was as common as I suspected. I never asked Edgar about it because I did not want to embarrass him. This was his country and these were his people. I also know that my country is a glass house, so maybe I should not throw any stones.

Lake Nakuru is worth a visit, but it really is more of a bird lover's paradise than anything else. I have nothing against birds, but I am not especially interested in them either. Phil and Margi, the owners of the Blue Jay Lodge in Hazyview were big bird fans. Maybe not Big Bird fans, but bird enthusiasts. They were always trying to tell us the best places to spot this or that bird. I think they would love Lake Nakuru.

African Tour:Dar es Salaam

Julius Nyerere International Airport
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Before we got to know Mombasa, it was time to leave the country. We were scheduled to perform in Dar es Salaam, which is only 500km down the coast. For whatever reason, there are no flights from Mombasa to Dar es Salaam. We had to fly an hour northwest back to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi and catch a 90 minute flight southeast to Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam. It was a lot of effort for very little reward.

We all stayed at the Johari Rotana Hotel in the Kivukoni district near the city center. Normally, I would have been disappointed in a generic business hotel, but this was the end of the tour and we had experienced plenty of local flavor. I kind of liked the predictability. The hotel had a small outdoor swimming pool that I never used. One of the room's better features was the floor to ceiling window with sea views. If only my room was facing the Indian Ocean instead of the industrial harbor. It was still a better view than looking at the building next door. Just like today's Chinese hotels, my room had large bathroom windows so people in the bedroom could watch their roommates in the bathroom. I have no idea why anyone wants this. Maybe the designers think it romantic to watch someone take a shower, but people do a lot more in bathrooms than lather up. Luckily, we all had ample experience with Chinese hotels, so we knew how to work around it. Easily the best feature of the room was the jazuzzi bathtub. It was not especially large, but it had eight jets coming out from all directions. If I did not have a roommate, I would have spent far more time in that tub.

Makumbusho Village
The Makumbusho Village Museum in Kinondoni is a recreation of traditional villages from several different indigenous tribes. Though it looked nothing like any specific village, the houses were supposed to be authentic representations of each tribe. It all seemed a little too fake to me. There are probably genuine villages people can visit away from the city. The Ngoma dancers were pretty good, though. I did not mind how much that was staged for the tourists since rehearsed dance performances were our reason to be on the continent in the first place.

Kariakoo Market
The Kariakoo Market in Ilala is the outdoor market in Dar es Salaam. Like Mahane Yehuda in Jerusalem or Albert Cuypmarkt in Amsterdam, everyone seems to go there. While I can say nothing for the food, the textile shops on the south end of Jamhuri Street were useful. I know of no better place to buy kangas. The crowds made some of my colleagues a little nervous, which I found interesting, considering where they were from. The most uncomfortably crowded outdoor market I have ever been to anywhere in the world was the Fengshan night market in Kaohsiung on Christmas Day, which is not even a holiday in Taiwan. Kariakoo felt as empty as the Carrboro Farmer's Market in North Carolina by comparison.

Mlimani City in Ubongo is the largest shopping mall in Tanzania. Unfortunately, it looks like any urban shopping mall. I cannot even be bothered to find a picture of it. Some of my colleagues wanted to shop at the Game Supermarket because it was owned by Walmart. We have no Walmarts in Taiwan, so they were curious. I pointed out that the absence of Walmart is one of the best things about Taiwan. Not that it really mattered. While Walmart is a majority stakeholder in the company, Game is run by a South African grocery store chain. It was like any large South African grocery store and had no hillbillies shopping in questionable attire.

The most interesting part about our Mlimani City outing was that the South African company closed down its only Game outlet in Dar es Salaam right after we went and completely pulled out of Tanzania just after that. Had we gone any later, my colleagues would have never experienced a Walmart that was nothing like Walmart.

Zuane, near the US embassy in Kinondoni, is arguably the most authentic looking Italian restaurant in Dar es Salaam. At least that was what a lot of people said. I only went to one Italian restaurant in Dar es Salaam, so what do I know. Their pizzas looked pretty good and the mozzarella was obviously fresh. The person I went with said the ravioli was excellent. Taiwanese people are not the most discriminating connoisseurs when it comes to pasta, but ravioli is essentially dumplings. She knows Chinese dumplings, so who's to say she is not a good judge of Italian ravioli from Tanzania.

Hong Kong Tai Yong Sun Restaurant in Ilala is either the most authentic Cantonese cuisine in all of Dar es Salaam or all of Tanzania, depending who you ask. Oddly, no one said it was the most authentic in all of Africa. My colleagues, some of whom are originally from Guangdong, all of whom are intimately familiar with Cantonese food, were unimpressed.

Azania Front Lutheran Church
A few blocks from our hotel was the Azania Front Lutheran Church. There was nothing particularly special about the building or its history, but I often find myself near Lutheran churches in the least Christian places.

Our time in Nairobi and Mombasa felt entirely too short to me. As soon as we got used to waking up in strange beds, we were off to the next city. In Dar es Salaam, we did not even get a chance to get used to anything. We flew in Wednesday morning, checked in, went to work, spent two whole nights, and left Friday morning. And one of our days in Dar es Salaam was mostly spent in Zanzibar.

On our last full day, we all caught the morning ferry to Zanzibar, did a show in Stone Town, and caught an evening ferry back to Dar es Salaam. The ferry ride was uneventful, except that everyone needed passports and went through immigration and customs. Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam are both in Tanzania, but Zanzibar has its own separate border control. It was almost like crossing the border from Shenzhen into Hong Kong, only with a lot of people speaking in unfamiliar languages. Going through immigration made the trip take a little longer since everyone was a foreigner, no matter which direction they were going.

Zanzibar is a pretty small island. Maybe half the size of Bali. It would have been nice to see more of it. After less than a full day on the island, and most of that time spent at work, I am not exactly the world's foremost authority on Zanzibar. I would not mind staying at one of the beach resorts one day. There are far fewer locals at the resorts, so it cannot possibly be as interesting, but some of the hotels look pretty nice.

Though Mombasa and Zanzibar are both mostly Afro-Arab and/or Muslim with large populations living below the poverty line on the shores of the Indian Ocean, they could not have felt more different. There was a good deal of tension in Mombasa's air. The locals tolerated the mzungu, though my impression was that they merely tolerated our money. It was similar to the Muslim Quarter in Jerusalem's Old City. Anyone who calls you “my friend” is trying to sell you something. Zanzibar was more relaxed. People seemed more genuinely friendly, regardless of how much money we might spend. It probably helps that Zanzibar is made up of several tropical islands with some beautiful beaches. I doubt I will ever go back to Mombasa, though I'm glad I went once. I will be disappointed if I never make it back to Zanzibar some day.

Since the preceding paragraph might come off as negative toward Muslims, I will point out that Zanzibar, the place I liked and want to go back to, has a much larger Muslim population than Mombasa.

African Tour:Mombasa

Moi International Airport
Mombasa, Kenya
After barely any time in Nairobi, we flew from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to Moi International Airport in Mombasa. Moi just might be the least interesting airport I have ever seen. It looks like an old roadside motel on the outside and a bus station on the inside. The drive from the airport lacked any scenery, despite crossing two bridges and driving over an island.

We all stayed in several apartments relatively close to each other in the Nyali neighborhood of Kisauni. Nyali is generally considered one of the better neighborhoods in Mombasa with the best beaches. Our apartment was largely forgettable. One of the reasons I prefer to stay in houses and apartments is because they usually have more charm than some generic hotel room. This apartment disproved that theory.

As with Nairobi, we worked every day in Mombasa. There was little time for sightseeing. I think I left Mombasa with even less of an impression than I got from Nairobi. At least in Nairobi I had some interesting interactions with the locals. Everyone in Mombasa pretty much stayed away from us.

We saw a few sights. Everyone who goes to Mombasa visits Fort Jesus on Mvita Island. Fort Jesus was built by the Portuguese 400 years ago and was controlled by everyone from the Portuguese to the British to various Arab sultans. As forts go, it is not particularly big, which might be one reason it was so easily captured over the years.

Old Town
My most interesting tourist adventure in Mombasa was walking along the narrow streets in Old Town. Nothing eventful happened, but I always like to see how people live in a place I have never been, especially if I am staying in a building or neighborhood most of them could never afford. The fancier your hotel, the farther removed you are from the real world around you. Mombasa reminded me of Bali in that regard. Not that the two places felt anything alike, but we stayed in a private villa on Bali that the people who cleaned would have to save up to afford. I have no idea how much the apartment in Mombasa cost. Hopefully less than the villa on Bali by the look of it. But it was probably more expensive than most of the houses I saw in Old Town.

Nyali Beach
Like all the foreigners in Mombasa, we went to the beach. Nyali Beach is generally considered the nicest in Mombasa. There was certainly nothing wrong with it. But after the beaches in Cape Town, it was nothing special. It was like going to the Hong Kong Museum of Art right after the Louvre. Something Nyali had that I do not recall ever seeing on any previous beach were camels. More than a few enterprising capitalists brought their camels to the beach so tourists could ride them. This is more common in Kenya than I would have expected. One of my favorite afternoons in Cape Town was riding a horse in Kommetjie. Oddly enough, none of us were as interested in riding a camel.

African Tour:Nairobi

Jomo Kenyatta International Airport
Nairobi, Kenya
After a few days at Kruger National Park and driving around the Mpumalanga countryside, Nairobi was like a different world. Not only is it by far the largest city in Kenya, it is also the gateway to all of the country's national parks and reserves. Everyone who goes to Kenya goes through Nairobi. The mix of international tourists and more locals than any other city in Kenya makes for an interesting, and a little tense, atmosphere.

The entire company stayed at the Sarova Stanley Hotel in the Central Business District. I always preferred houses and apartments, but this was not a bad hotel. It was a little less generic than typical business hotels and it was smack dab in the middle of the CBD. The hotel had a swimming pool that I never got a chance to use, a restaurant that I only saw at breakfast, and a tiny gym that most of us ignored because it was pretty much useless.

Nairobi at its best.
Just outside the hotel was the Jamia Mosque, Kenya National Archives, and Memorial Peace Museum. A little farther away was the Nairobi National Museum. As with most mosques, heathens are not allowed inside the Jamia Mosque. The outside was surprisingly unimpressive. The Kenya National Archives houses the “largest Pan-African art gallery in Africa”. The Memorial Peace Museum is a small memorial to those who died when the American embassy was blown up in 1998. The Nairobi National Museum is a larger than expected natural history museum that focuses exclusively on Sub-Saharan Africa. Between the hotel and the museum was the Maasai Market on the banks of the Nairobi River. It was like any other handmade tourist crap market, but it felt more authentic, for some reason.

We were only in Nairobi for a few days and we worked on all of them. That left little time for exploring, except late at night and early in the morning. The hotel staff told us not to go out after 22:00. They were not even subtle about it. They just came out and said it was too dangerous for foreigners. The CBD is supposed to be the safest part of the city. The hotel staff disagreed.

Not that any of us were going to get murdered if we walked outside the hotel at night. Probably just robbed. Scams are exceptionally popular in Nairobi. We were warned about fake police wanting to check our passports, strangers claiming this ATM is broken and we should use that one over there, good samaritans telling us some tourist sight is closed that day and offering an alternative, friendly people trying to start conversations while their accomplice picks our pockets, and the old international favorite, shady taxi drivers who take you some place you really do not want to go.

One of my favorite scams was one none of us had to worry about. Apparently, some children in Nairobi will approach strange men and loudly claim to be the child they abandoned. The goal is to embarrass the “father” enough to give them some money to go away. Since we were all women, and did not look at all like any of the children, none of us saw that one first hand.

Having already traveled a bit before we reached Nairobi, I was not unfamiliar with the concept of nefarious locals who prey on naive tourists. I met a few taxi drivers in Bangkok who were not entirely honest and was told by a local that the Grand Palace was closed while I was walking away from just visiting the Grand Palace. Stealing my passport is difficult in any country since I never take it with me when I wander around a city, I only use secure ATMs, and I have spent enough time in New York to know how to defend against pickpockets.

Even so, I encountered two obvious scammers in my brief time in Nairobi. One was a middle age man claiming to be an undercover police officer. He never asked to see my passport, but he showed me his badge for about a tenth of a second. From what little I saw, it looked homemade. I know nothing about Kenyan police, but there was nothing about this guy that made me believe he was legitimate. His cheap suit was too large and the way he carried himself looked like someone who had never gone through any military or self-defense training.

Our conversation went something like this:

Scammer: Are you lost?

Me: Not yet.

Scammer: It is not safe in the street.

This was in broad daylight on a reasonably crowded road.

Scammer: I can help you find the way.

Me: To San Jose? Do you know Burt?

Scammer (completely ignoring everything I say): The American embassy is moved. (pointing) It is now that way.

I never said anything about going to any embassy or that I was American. But to a lot of people, if you are white, you must be American.

Scammer: My car can take you.

Me: Pass.

I turned around and walked away. The entire exchange happened too quickly for me to fully realize that he was trying to get me into his car. I prefer not to think about why.

I looked it up later and they did move the American embassy. In 2003. We were relatively close to the old site, which is now a monument to the 1998 bombing.

The second scammer was a longer conversation, but one I still do not understand. I was maybe half a kilometer east of the hotel when a man roughly my age told me he worked at my hotel. He never mentioned the name. He only called it “your hotel” or “the hotel”. He said he worked in the kitchen and was getting ready to make my breakfast. It all sounded completely innocuous at first, other than his refusal to use the hotel's name. I talked to him for a while because, in the highly unlikely event he actually did work for the hotel, he might have some good stories to tell. The people who work behind the scenes are usually the most interesting. Unfortunately, when I asked him for directions back to the hotel, he pointed south.

After some small talk, he asked me if I could help him move some boxes. This really caught me off guard. He said it was for my breakfast, so it was only fair that I helped. I wondered if he had ever met an American tourist before. The more I declined his offer, the more upset he got. He really wanted help moving those boxes. In the end, I walked away, just as I had with the undercover police officer. The good news about Nairobi scammers is that they take no for an answer.

I understand what the fake cop was after. He wanted me to get into his car. I have no idea what the fake hotel employee wanted. Unless he legitimately wanted me to help him move boxes.

Nairobi on any given day.

African Tour:Drakensberg Escarpment part 1

Lanseria International Airport
Johannesburg, South Africa
After we finished our last show in Cape Town, we had a few extra days before we were scheduled to fly to Nairobi. The plan was for everyone to hang out in Cape Town and enjoy the city. I could have easily done that. We spent more time in Cape Town than anywhere else in all of Africa. I could have spent a few extra weeks or months in Cape Town. But an opportunity came up that I knew I had to take.

Four of us flew back to Johannesburg. Not because we liked Johannesburg more than Cape Town. Far from it. Cape Town is an objectively better city. We flew to Johannesburg because we wanted to go to Kruger National Park. There are closer airports to Kruger, and even one in the park itself, but we decided that something larger, like Johannesburg's Lanseria International Airport, would probably have safer planes. More importantly, I heard good things about the drive to Kruger and I wanted to take it.

We rented a car at Lanseria, which was just as easy as renting a car anywhere else in South Africa. The only thing they cared about was making extra drivers pay an extra fee. Once again, the car we rented had a manual transmission and I was the only one who could drive it. Even if it had been an automatic, I doubt anyone else would have wanted to drive.

We rented a light gray 2018 Mercedes-Benz W463 5 speed. Though older than most rental cars, this one was in excellent shape and had surprisingly few miles. At least before I got my hands on it. People in my country think of Mercedes as a luxury car. South Africans have a more European view. This was a utility truck that was not designed to turn heads. It looked like a big jeep. We chose a truck over a sedan because we figured we might need something that could go off-road at Kruger. We also knew the drive through the Drakensberg Escarpment would be rugged, though any car could have made it. Most of the roads were every bit as paved as any major highway in Western Europe. A few were even brand new.

From Lanseria Airport, we drove half an hour up into Pretoria where we took a sharp east turn onto highway N4. After about two hours, we turned north onto R36 and drove for an hour to Lydenburg, which was a good place for a pit stop. Lydenburg is to the Drakensberg Escarpment as Merced is to Yosemite. A small town with little to offer, it had enough fuel for the car and our bodies.

Long Tom Pass
From Lydenburg, we took R37 east to Sabie. This was where the drive got interesting. Lydenburg is more or less flat. R37 gradually goes uphill for 13km, at which point it becomes a standard mountain drive of endless ups and downs. R37 is nothing but nature until about 18km from Lydenburg. Right off the road is an entrance to a farm. There is no way to tell how large the farm is, but you see nothing from the road besides the entrance gate and miles and miles of grazing cows. Five or six kilometers from the farm gate is Long Tom Pass, the beginning of the Panorama Route, so called because the scenery immediately gets more impressive than farms and fields. It is like Chapman's Peak Drive, only with valleys and mountains instead of city and ocean. Long Tom Pass is the first point where you can really see how high up in the mountains you are.

Part of the Panorama Route
Deep into Long Tom Pass is Long Tom, a large canon that was used against the English during the Second Boer War. It could not be more out of place, sitting on a hill and facing an endless natural view of mountains and the valleys below.

Sabie Falls
Photograph by Mariaan Buys
Sabie is home to more than a few waterfalls. The Sabie River covers some rugged terrain. Sometimes that river has no choice but to plummet down a gorge or into a valley. The closest waterfall from the city of Sabie is, appropriately, Sabie Falls. It is easy to get to and not all that impressive. My last real boyfriend was from Cape Town. One of the reasons I wanted to take this drive was to see all the things he talked about, and promised to show me, when we took the someday trip to Kruger National Park that never happened. He talked about a few waterfalls. Sabie Falls was not one of them.

Bridal Veil Falls
From Sabie Falls, we drove five or six kilometers west to Bridal Veil Falls, an exceptionally thin waterfall that drops about 70 meters. The area is surrounded by hiking trails and is probably an excellent place to walk around all day. We had less time.

Lone Creek Falls
Lone Creek Falls is less than three kilometers from Bridal Veil Falls, but the drive is three times farther. Lone Creek Falls is another thin waterfall, about the same height as Bridal Veil Falls. Where Bridal Veil Falls drips into a tiny puddle, Lone Creek Falls fills a pool.

Horseshoe Falls
It took pretty much the same amount of time to get From Lone Creek Falls to Horseshoe Falls as it took to get from Bridal Veil Falls to Lone Creek Falls. They are conveniently spaced out evenly from north to south, with Sabie Falls a more or less equal distance from Bridal Veil Falls to the east. Horseshoe Falls are either three separate waterfalls right next to each other or one waterfall divided by plants and birds and rocks and things. Though short as waterfalls go, the area is completely natural. There are no wooden walkways or guide rails. Without the hiking trails, it would be impossible to find.

Mac Mac Falls
A little more than ten kilometers north on R532 from Sabie is Mac Mac Falls, another tall, thin waterfall. The big difference with Mac Mac Falls is that your vantage point is a higher elevation. Instead of looking up at the water crashing down in front of you, you look down at the water plummeting deep into a gorge that can only be reached with climbing equipment. Another difference is that Mac Mac Falls is incredibly close to the main road. The others require a quick hike through the wilderness. Mac Mac Falls is a short path away.

Panorama Route
Photograph by Freya Muller
There was far more to see on the Panorama Route and beyond, but everything was getting harder to see as the sun began to go down. Ideally, we would have started our drive early in the morning, but we left from Cape Town, not Johannesburg. Everything else would have to wait until the drive back to the airport.

Our hotel for the next few nights was in Hazyview, a small town next to the Phabeni Gate at the southwest end of Kruger National Park. Hazyview was 60km from Mac Mac Falls. In the time it took to get there, we could have seen some amazing sights on the Panorama Route, but we wanted to get to our hotel before the people who ran the place were asleep.

In broad daylight, the hotel was pretty easy to find. From R536, turn left on Tarentaal Lane and follow it as it curves around, turn right on Eagle Street and follow its curve, make a sharp left on Blue Jay Crescent and keep driving almost until the end of the road. Turn left into a driveway and there you are. Easy as punch.

After the sun goes down, it gets a little trickier. There are no street lights beyond downtown Hazyview. Worse, street signs are few and far between. Those that exist are small with black lettering and unlit. You have to know which streets you want to turn on. We had GPS and the internet, neither of which were reliable in the rural suburbs of Mpumalanga. R536 is a main street. Tarentaal Lane is a tiny road in between trees and a small fruit stall. As it goes uphill, it borders a wall and more trees. Even in daylight, it was like driving with blinders on. Eagle Street is an equally tiny road in between trees and more trees. At least it has a few houses here and there. Blue Jay Crescent is the most difficult turn. There is a sign that is barely visible at high noon. At night, you would never guess that is the correct street. Rather than a paved road, it is dried mud. We passed it several times thinking it could not possibly be the street we wanted. Not only is the road not really a road, it looks like it goes deep into the woods. From Eagle Street, all you can see are trees converging. We called the hotel owners a time or two to confirm that we were in the right place. They seemed to think it would be a good idea if a group of women who had never set foot in the area and barely spoke the language should drive an unfamiliar car down the pitch black, empty road to nowhere in the middle of the night. So we did. The farther we drove, the more convinced I was that we were going the wrong way. Eventually, we saw a gate and a small sign that told us we were at the right place. Deep into the night, the gate was closed, but the owners were wide awake and expecting us. Not surprisingly, foreigners get lost on the way to their hotel all the time.

When you drive up to Blue Jay Lodge, day or night, it looks like you are driving up to someone's house. All you can see from the street are trees and a gate. Inside the gate, it looks like a small resort or wilderness lodge with a lot of trees all over the place. We stayed in a rondavel, a round South African style house with a high, conical roof. The roof is probably a great relief in the summer, trapping heat several feet above the rest of the room. The temperature never got above the mid-20s while we were there, so the high roof never mattered to us. Each two story rondavel was divided in two. With four people in two rooms, we took up an entire floor. Each room had a kitchen, which was kind of a waste since we only used one and only rarely. We ate most of our meals inside Kruger National Park. The lodge provided an enormous breakfast spread every morning. Since we always left for the park before sunrise, we only had their breakfast when we checked out.

All of our accommodation before this point was at houses where we were on our own and hotels that had standard hotel food. This was our first bed and breakfast situation. In addition to our made to order breakfast, there was a variety of exotic cheeses, breads, and the freshest fruit I have seen in years. None of it was exotic to South Africans, but Taiwan is not a cheese or bread culture, so pretty much anything beyond cheddar, mozzarella, and white toast is a treat. Fresh fruit is rare too, for some reason. Plenty of tropical fruits grow on the island, but no one seems to sell them until a few days after they have been picked. The Blue Jay Lodge had some fruits commonly found in Taiwan, like kiwi, pineapple, and strawberries, but everything looked like it was brought in from the farm that morning.

African Tour:Cape Town part 1

Cape Town International Airport
Cape Town, South Africa
The flight from Durban to Cape Town took a little over two hours and was the opposite of eventful. As with Durban, we were all driven by car to different apartments/houses. The biggest difference was the size.

King Shaka International Airport is in the suburbs of Durban, outside of the city limits, but no more than a half hour drive from downtown. Cape Town International Airport is smack dab in the middle of the city, but it took us over an hour to get to our house. Not only is Cape Town ten times larger than Durban, but our house was in Simon's Town, about as far south as you can go on the Cape Peninsula without hitting protected wilderness. Getting to the house from the airport required three different freeways. When we finally got off the freeway, we were on a long street along the coast. The street got noticeably smaller as we passed through downtown Simon's Town. With most of the city behind us, we turned onto a smaller road that went gradually uphill and then dramatically uphill. We turned onto a tiny lane that looked more suitable for Taiwanese scooters than South African pickup trucks. From scooter lane, we turned onto a slightly wider road that went even further uphill. An hour and twenty minutes after we left the airport, we turned onto a dead end alley. Had this happened in the middle of the night, and had our driver been even close to menacing, this could have been a spooky ride. But we left the airport at ten in the morning, the drive along the coast was cheery, and our driver could not have been friendlier.

From the alley, it looked like we would all be staying in a tiny cottage not nearly large enough for seven people. The house was on a slope, so we had to go indoors before we fully understood its size. The top floor was a two car garage that could only fit small cars. The garage interior was large enough for an American SUV, but the separate garage doors were barely wide enough to fit a Volkswagen. Half a floor down was the tiniest front yard, the front door, a half bathroom, and what could only be described as the mudroom. They probably call it something else in South Africa. The next floor down was somehow four times larger than the floor above. What we came to call the second floor had a large living room, an enormous kitchen, a decent sized dining room, and a full bathroom. There was also a balcony across the entire rear of the house. The bottom floor had three bedrooms and four full bathrooms. The large backyard could be reached by a sliding glass door from each of the bedrooms. Beyond the backyard was a plot of empty land not quite large enough to build another house. Without the fence between the yard and empty land, we would have assumed the entire thing was the backyard. From the street, the back of the house looked like it should have been the front, except there was no front door and the address was posted on the alley side. All of the houses on the street were similar, with inviting backyards on the larger street and small entrances on the alley.

The bedrooms were nothing like what I expected. Instead of a master bedroom, the largest looked like a dorm room. It had four bunk beds, enough for eight people. We only had seven staying at the house, so the four youngest shared that room. At first, we thought the house only had four and a half bathrooms. Then someone opened one of the closets in the largest bedroom and discovered the door to another bathroom. It was an odd design. From the room, it looked like a wall of closets. If you opened the doors on the left and right, you got closet. If you opened the middle door, there was a tiny hallway that led to a full sized bathroom behind all the closets.

The medium sized room looked like any other bedroom with its own bathroom. Two of our more senior dancers shared that one. As the highest ranking person in the house, I took the single room. It was pretty small, but it had its own bathroom. I never really cared about the size of the room since most of the time I spent in the house was either in the kitchen or on that large balcony.

I liked the Durban kitchen better. It was smaller and felt more like a home. The Cape Town kitchen was large and had every appliance we could ever need, except a rice cooker. The kitchen was fully loaded with a stainless steel refrigerator, oven, stove, dishwasher, toaster oven, toaster, microwave, blenders, mixers, pots and pans, dishes and utensils. But it was all western style. There was not a single chopstick in the house and we all missed not having a rice cooker. The Cape Town kitchen was larger, fancier, and obviously more expensive. It felt like it was designed for entertaining guests. I liked the Durban kitchen better because it was designed for making a quiet dinner at home.

The balcony was the best feature of the house. The view from the front yard was the house across the alley. The view from the backyard was the house across the street. Since all the houses were on a slope, they all had a balcony facing northeast. We had an unobstructed view of the northern tip of False Bay. The sunsets were nice, but the sun went down the other side of the Cape Peninsula. Sunrises were spectacular. Since I generally wake up before the dawn, I watched the sun come up over the mountains that surround Cape Town and reflect off the water in the bay almost every morning. Most of my roommates missed it.

Not the actual balcony, but pretty close.
I also saw a whale one day. I was standing on the balcony minding my own business when a whale just popped out of the water. It was too far away for me to even guess what kind of whale it was, but it was definitely a whale. There were more than a few dolphins in False Bay, but any movement from them just looked like waves at that distance. This was clearly a whale jumping halfway out of the water and crashing onto its back. My roommates spent a lot of time looking for their own whales, but none of us ever saw another one. At least not from that balcony.

Artscape Theatre Centre
Transportation in Cape Town was similar to Durban in that we were all picked up and driven to work. That was convenient, especially since we worked more in Cape Town than anywhere else. In other cities, we introduced a few traditional Chinese dance styles to the locals, everyone mostly got a kick out of it, and we moved on. In Cape Town, we learned a traditional African dance, a variation of the Makhibo. That required extra work on our part. Every other show was full of routines everyone knew backward and forward. The Makhibo was brand new to all of us.

Fortunately, we had some free time in between all the rehearsing, though finding our own transportation was more complicated. Since Durban is ten times smaller than Cape Town, it was much easier to get around. I could walk to the beach in less than half an hour, and walk the entire promenade in less than an hour. Cape Town was a harder city to walk around. Boulders Beach was only a few hundred meters away, but with all the winding hill roads, it took a good ten minutes. Downtown Cape Town was more than 40 kilometers from the house. I have no idea how long that would have taken to walk. When we arrived, it looked like staying in Simon's Town was going to be inconvenient.

Local transportation in Cape Town is not exactly admired the world over. The bus lines were convoluted and never really went where we wanted to go. The Metrorail's Simonstown Line went from the main station to Simon's Town. People rave about the view from the train, but that is only during the 20 minute stretch along False Bay. The rest of the ride is an hour in the suburbs. Since Cape Town was designed for cars, taxis were our primary ride off the clock.

And we had plenty of places to go. Cape Town has pretty much everything you need in a single city. You can climb a mountain, swim in the ocean, ogle birds, keep at least one eye on baboons, and run away from an ostrich all in one day. As long as you have transportation.

African Tour:Durban

Lanseria International Airport
Johannesburg, South Africa

King Shaka International Airport
Durban, South Africa
Our flight to Durban was short and easy. We spent more time in the terminal than on the plane, though there were no delays this time. Rather than fly out of OR Tambo International Airport, we left Johannesburg from Lanseria International Airport, a much smaller airport. It has international in its name, but I only saw signs for flights to other cities in South Africa.

The drive to the hotel was also faster. At least for four of us. Instead of piling everyone into a business hotel, we all stayed at apartments and B&Bs around town. I have no idea if that was a better arrangement, and I doubt it was more efficient, but I liked it a lot more. There was nothing wrong with the hotel in Johannesburg. It was a clean place to sleep and close to major thoroughfares. In Durban, I stayed with three other dancers in a nice little apartment in the Morningside neighborhood. We were an easy walk to Mitchell Park, a Spar grocery store, Florida Road, and Battery Beach.

The grocery store was convenient since we were in an apartment instead of a hotel. The apartment's kitchen was more than adequate and was even stocked with a few staples right before we arrived. The husband and wife owners lived close by and were happy to help out with pretty much anything we needed. Caroline brought us homemade rusks every morning, which we all appreciated even if we never ate them until later in the day. She even drove us to the grocery store when we made our biggest run. There was a washer and dryer directly below the apartment, but we found the washer difficult to use. Betty, the housekeeper, did all of our laundry for most of our stay. I felt a little bad about having an older black woman wash my clothes, especially in a South African apartment owned by a white couple, but she did an incredible job. Whenever we put anything in the laundry bags, it came back cleaned, ironed, and neatly folded. No one ever charged us anything for the laundry, so we left Betty a decent tip before we checked out. My Taiwanese roommates thought that everyone should do the best job they could regardless of their pay, but I convinced them that in tipping cultures, it is always a good idea to tip well for exceptional service. I had the same conversation every time any of us went to a restaurant.

Betty was the highlight of Durban. She probably had a fascinating life story, but was reluctant to talk about herself, so I never pushed her. Something she loved to talk about were her grandchildren, which made my roommates feel bad that she was cleaning up after us. The cultural differences were interesting. Where I had white guilt and never really thought about her age, they had generation guilt and never thought about her race. For her part, Betty seemed to have the meaning of life sorted out. I would not mind spending a day as content as she always was.

Florida Road is this week's trendy restaurant street. We saw plenty of tip jars. It had Spiga, a vaguely Italian café with a lot of penne dishes; Glamwich, a haven for avocado toast and bunny chow; Times Square, which always seemed more popular at drinking time than at eating time; Bird & Co, a chicken and pizza place that looked like fast food at restaurant prices; Paul's Homemade Ice Cream, which had confusing flavors, like the vegan “No Cow and Chicken”. I understand the no cow part, but never knew ice cream had chicken in it; House of Curries, with the largest bunny chow menu; the Firehouse, a pizza place with trendy toppings like avocado, toasted coconut, cashews, and teriyaki sauce; Sofra Istanbul, a Turkish restaurant with frozen french fries; Sabroso, with its generic Mexican menu; Fired Up Pizzeria, with pizzas so ugly, I did not even want to step inside; Flamin' Wok, a vaguely Thai restaurant with fortune cookies; and Tommy's Sushi, with “Chinese takeaway”. It was not Chinese. There were even more restaurants on the next block. The entire street was wall to wall restaurants. We could have eaten at a different place every day, even without going to other parts of the city.

The Thai place was noteworthy, even though no one thought it tasted like Thai food. They had fortune cookies, which I had to explain to my Taiwanese colleagues, who had never heard of such a thing. There is something surreal about sitting in a Thai restaurant in South Africa and describing American Chinese food to Chinese people. My colleagues were flabbergasted when I told them that everyone in the United States thinks Chinese people eat fortune cookies.

Bunny chow had to be explained to all of us. It is a loaf of white bread stuffed with curry. A quarter bunny is more than large enough for one person. Rabbits are not involved in any way. It was invented by Indian immigrants as an explicitly vegetarian dish. There are disputed theories about why they are called bunnies and which restaurant in Durban, if any, has the original. Fortunately, we asked what bunny chow was early in the trip. We would see it on more than a few menus throughout Durban.

Transportation in Durban was a little more complicated than Johannesburg. Rather than pick everyone up from one hotel in a charter bus, our drivers went to all of our different apartments and drove us around in cars. That meant we never all arrived at rehearsals at the same time, which meant more time in transit despite driving shorter distances. Guided tours were also more complicated. Everyone was driven by car to a meeting point and then driven as a group by bus to whatever tourist trap was on the agenda that day. I mostly avoided all of that, with a few exceptions.

Gateway Theatre of Shopping
Umhlanga, South Africa
When everyone else went to the Gateway Theatre Of Shopping in Umhlanga, a few of us took the bus and went to Umhlanga Beach. The Gateway Theatre Of Shopping claims to be the “largest shopping mall in the Southern Hemisphere”. Umhlanga Beach is famous for its lighthouse and rocky coast just beyond the soft sandy beach. With a long promenade right next to the beach, it is a great place to walk on sand or pavement, though a lousy spot for surfing or swimming. There was no way any of my colleagues would want to swim in an ocean anyway.

Umhlanga Beach
Photograph by LC Swart
When everyone took a bus to the Pavilion Shopping Centre in Westville, I walked down the Golden Mile. From the pictures I saw, the Pavilion looked a little like the Taipei 101 mall. One of the stores at the mall is a Christian bookstore called CUM Books. Being immature, this caught my attention. I was disappointed to learn that CUM stands for Christelike Uitgewers Maatskappy, which means Christian Publishing Company in Afrikaans. The Golden Mile is both a beach and several beaches along a seven kilometer stretch from Blue Lagoon Beach to the North Pier. It has none of the famous rocks of Umhlanga Beach up the coast, which makes it a much better place for surfing and swimming. It has the “longest beachfront promenade in sub-Saharan Africa”, which only made me curious where the longest promenade in North Africa was. The promenade and beaches were an easy walk from our apartment, so I went there more than a few times. The first time I went into the water, I thought it was my first time in the Indian Ocean. Then I remembered that I did some beach swimming in Bali almost ten years ago.

Not that I avoided all the guided tours. I went with the group to the Durban Botanic Gardens, which was far more botanic than the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens in Johannesburg. It had more flowers, which is probably a good thing. There was even a separate orchid house, the “largest orchid collection in South Africa”, naturally. It was closed that day. The butterfly habitat was open, and a great place to look at butterflies, if you are into that sort of thing. The garden was especially proud of its tree collection. They bragged about their palm trees, which are not so impressive for those of us who live on a tropical island. They also had a lot of jacaranda trees, which are common in South Africa and not something we ever see at home. Even though we were there while the flowers were in bloom, the locals did not seem to care. What we found different, they found ordinary, and vice versa. The best part of the gardens was probably the small lake, where we saw more than a few birds I could never identify.

The Durban Natural Science Museum is inside city hall rather than its own dedicated building. It might be the smallest natural science museum I have ever been to, but all the children we saw loved it. That is really all that matters. If you can get them interested when they are still young and care about things, maybe they will care when they get older.

The Umgeni River Bird Park near the mouth of the Umgeni River had even more birds I could never hope to name. I recognized the flamingos, pelicans, swans, owls, toucans, peacocks, macaws, vultures, and those little Australian birds that got Men At Work sued. If they have over 300 species, that means I barely knew any of them. The bird park is essentially a zoo, which is never my favorite place to go. I was in a part of Africa where you can see animals in their natural habitat. Gawking at them in cages is the last thing I want to do, but the Umgeni River Bird Park breeds 17 different endangered species. That has to count for something. It was also free.

The worst guided tour was to the Japanese Gardens, which is a waste of time for anyone who has been to Japan or a garden. It is a park with a few generic Japanese decorations here and there. The only interesting aspect to the Japanese Gardens are the monkeys that wander around. Something we were warned about before we left Taiwan, besides crime, were the baboons in South Africa. Apparently, they are even bigger troublemakers than macaques. The monkeys we saw in the park were smaller and much calmer. Though not at all afraid of us, they never tried to steal anything from anyone.

Next to the Japanese Gardens was Sun Sun Supermarket. Billed as an Asian grocery store “With Everything Asian Under the Sun”, some of my colleagues were excited to check it out. I was more than a little skeptical. Outside of Asia, “Asian” usually means dry noodles and soy sauce. Surprisingly, it looked a lot like a Chinese grocery store, only with far more signs in English. They even had Super Supau, which I have never seen outside of Taiwan. Everyone in the building except me could have been from East Asia, which is what most people outside of Asia mean when they talk about Asia. Nothing west of India ever counts. Though their inventory was much smaller than everything under the sun, my colleagues walked out with full bags.

Watching Taiwanese people shop is an odd experience. We were in a part of the world none of us had ever been to before. Yet instead of buying ceramic giraffes and zebra keychains, they mostly bought clothes made in China and Vietnam from stores similar or exactly the same as what we have at home. When it came to food, the less exotic the better. Even though I could never taste anything, I wanted to try the local dishes. I have no idea what bunny chow tastes like, but I have eaten it in a few different places. They could taste everything, and wanted the most familiar food they could find. Taiwanese would have been preferable, but Chinese would have to do. There was nothing in all those Sun Sun bags they could not buy at home.

The Playhouse Company Theatre
We also did some work with the Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre, who were all fantastic.
September to November is spring in South Africa, so I came prepared. Most of my Taiwanese colleagues did not bring bathing suits because we started in October. Several people pointed out the difference between the Southern and Northern Hemisphere, but to the Taiwanese, October is not bathing suit season. I am often baffled by their insistence on dressing for the season rather than the weather. If it is 30 degrees and humid in July, they wear t-shirts and sandals. If it is 30 degrees and humid in December, they wear coats and boots. I thought that being in a different country at a much lower latitude would change that. I was wrong. Almost everyone dressed for Taiwan October, not South Africa October.

We arrived in Durban at the tail end of a storm. You could tell it had been raining for a while, though it took a break before our plane landed. The next few days had scattered thunderstorms and the threat of rain around the corner. Then we woke up to sunny and warm almost every other day. There was one full rainy day in Durban and one day where it rained off and on. Otherwise, it was spring sun and clouds. Every night was colder than a Taiwan winter, but none of the days were nearly as hot. Even on the hottest days, which were always below 30 degrees, there was usually a nice breeze coming from the ocean.

Our apartment did not have a swimming pool, but the house next door did. I mentioned something about how much I like to swim to Caroline during a random conversation and the next day she told me we could use the swimming pool next door. I have to assume they had some kind of previous arrangement with their neighbors to let tenants use it. It seems almost impossible that we were let into a stranger's pool just because I happened to mention it in passing. Regardless of whatever went on behind the scenes, none of my roommates brought bathing suits. That meant I got the swimming pool to myself. The owners of the house with the pool were much older. I got the impression they had not used it in years. Eventually, my roommates wised up and bought bathing suits, even though it was almost November. One afternoon, some of Betty's grandchildren joined us. It did not seem like their first time in that pool. Though Betty never donned a bathing suit, she kept an eye on those children like a meerkat. I wondered what it must have been like for her to watch a white woman, a few Chinese women, and her black grandchildren all swimming in the same water together, and then to know that it would never be an issue for the children.

Johannesburg is much bigger than Durban and probably has more to see and do. I preferred Durban for a few reasons. Our apartment was in a quiet residential neighborhood instead of in the middle of a shopping mall. The people we worked with in both cities were friendly, but the people of Durban were less big city uptight and more small town relaxed. Durban is on the Indian Ocean and has several beautiful beaches. Johannesburg is nowhere near a large body of water. We spent twice as much time in Durban, so I had more opportunity to wander around and explore on my own without any tour guides. I usually wake up before sunrise at home. After adjusting to the time difference in Johannesburg, I did the same most days in Durban. Since Durban is on the east coast, the beaches are an excellent place to watch the sun rise over the Indian Ocean. Simply walking down the Durban promenade was a better day than any of the scheduled tourist stops in Johannesburg.

Photograph by Liesel Muhl

African Tour:Johannesburg

Taoyuan International Airport
Taipei, Taiwan

Suvarnabhumi Airport
Bangkok, Thailand

Hamad International Airport
Doha, Qatar

OR Tambo International Airport
Johannesburg, South Africa

Flying from Taiwan to South Africa is pretty simple. We took Thai Airways from Taipei to Bangkok, then Qatar Airways from Bangkok to Doha and a separate flight from Doha to Johannesburg. It was supposed to take 24 hours.

Our first delay was in Bangkok. We spent nine hours at Suvarnabhumi Airport. They never told us why. As other passengers were put onto other flights, we waited. We were a larger group, so it was probably more difficult to find something for us. I am not normally a fan of waiting in airports for nine hours, but something interesting came out of it. Our original Bangkok to Doha flight was supposed to be on a Boeing 777, which I have flown on plenty of times. Our new flight was on an Airbus A380, which I had never flown before. The A380 is that double decker plane that was supposed to revolutionize air travel and replace the 747. Except it never did. Airbus built fewer than 300 planes in 18 years, compared to more than 1,500 planes in 50 years for the 747. Airbus lost money on the A380. Boeing made a fortune on the 747.

We finally left Bangkok at three in the morning. Because of time zones and that whole spinning of the Earth thing, our seven hour flight landed just before six in the morning. Hamad International Airport in Doha seems to be pretty popular. It wins awards from organizations that hand out awards to airports. The first time I went to Hamad International Airport was on my way to Barcelona. That flight was also delayed, so I spent ten hours in the award-winning airport in the middle of the night when all of the things that won the awards were closed.

This time, we spent almost 15 hours at the airport, starting at six in the morning when everything was closed. The advantage to being in a larger group was that the airline put us up in one of the airport hotels. The last thing they wanted was for any of us to leave the airport, not that we had any visas for Qatar. I was the only one in our group with a passport that could get me out of the airport without any extra paperwork. Since I only had 15 hours, and I am not wild about spending money in a country where being gay is a capital offense, I thought it best to stay with my group and take a break in that free hotel.

After dinner, we took an eight and a half hour flight to Johannesburg on a Boeing 777. Our 24 hour trip from Taipei took 44 hours.

Melrose Arch
We arrived in Johannesburg at four in the morning and were at our hotel before six. Another good thing about being in a larger group was that we could check into the hotel as soon as we got there. Solo travelers usually have to wait until the normal check in time, which is nowhere close to six in the morning. The Johannesburg Marriott Hotel Melrose Arch was a standard business hotel just like every Marriott I have ever seen anywhere in the world. For some reason, I assumed all of our hotels on this trip would be similar. They were not.

Melrose is a more upscale neighborhood of Johannesburg. The Melrose Arch is a new office/retail development that looks absolutely nothing like most of the city. It is how business leaders want Johannesburg to look and how community leaders know Johannesburg will never look. I do not and should not have a dog in this race, but if I had a vote, I would say the city should try to keep its traditional feel and not look like a pedestrian shopping mall. The entire Melrose Arch area reminded me of the outdoor pedestrian part of the Southpoint Mall in Durham, though only in appearance. Johannesburg feels nothing like North Carolina.

One of the first things I noticed about the Melrose Arch was the overt security presence. One thing we had been warned about before leaving Taiwan was the high crime rates in South Africa, especially Johannesburg. From what I could tell, it was all private security. That did nothing to make me feel safe. I know nothing about South African police training, but anywhere else I have ever been, private security companies do not generally hire the best of the best. In Jerusalem's Old City, you sometimes see armed soldiers. If you want safety, they are the way to go. Their training is some of the best in the world. Any job that pays the bills is something to be proud of, but mall cops are not going to take a bullet for you.

Not that we ever needed anything that extreme. Johannesburg was like New York or Los Angeles. There are some neighborhoods you might want to avoid at night and some you should probably stay out of altogether. Most of the city is perfectly safe for anyone not walking down the street waving large wads of cash. To the Taiwanese, none of that made any sense. You can walk any street in Taiwan at any time with the Hope Diamond in your gold crown and no one will look at you twice. Unless you are a foreigner. Then they will stare at you all day, without any violent intent. I never noticed anyone staring at us in South Africa. Then again, Johannesburg has the largest Chinese population in all of Africa, and people who look like me are nothing special.

We were two to a room in the hotel, which was not a problem at all since we spent most of our time either at work or visiting some tourist trap. I can barely remember what the room looked like. There was a lot of gray and beige. I suppose those are the fashionable colors right now. By South Africans standards, it was exceptionally dull and lacked the vibrant colors we saw all over the country.

The biggest disadvantage to traveling with a large group of Taiwanese is that they love guided tours. The larger the group, the better. When I go somewhere new, I want to wander around and get a little lost. The things I have accidentally stumbled across are far more interesting than anything some stranger booked in advance. When Taiwanese go somewhere, they want to shop, see the most popular sights in the travel guides, and eat at mostly Chinese restaurants that have been approved by previous Taiwanese tourists.

Since Johannesburg was our first stop on this African Tour, and I am a supervisor of sorts, I chose to stay with the group more than I wanted. In between rehearsals, shows, and all the driving back and forth, we piled into a charter bus when we had some time off and saw tiny slivers of Johannesburg that taught us almost nothing about the culture or its people.

Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens
We went to the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens, which looked more like a park than a botanical garden. Apparently, they used to have a nursery, but it closed a few years ago. Its biggest selling point is a small waterfall that flows from a hill where some eagles live. I never saw any eagles, but we were in South Africa. Plenty of animals were right around the corner.

We went to the Old Kromdraai Gold Mine, one of the mines during South Africa's gold rush that put Johannesburg on the map. They still call Johannesburg the City of Gold, but only on brochures. No one actually called it that in person. While the history is important to South Africans, no one in our group was especially impressed by rusty old mine carts and the dirt entrance of a tunnel.

We took a walking tour of Sophiatown, a cultural and artistic haven at the beginning of the 20th century, much like Montmartre in Paris or Dashijie in Shanghai. At the time, artists of all races and backgrounds could mingle, drink too much, and discuss all the vast intricacies of life. Unfortunately, most of the original buildings were bulldozed when it became a white neighborhood and the black population was violently relocated to the Soweto township.

One of the better guided tours was the Alexandra bicycle tour. We rode bicycles around the Alexandra township, which is one of the poorest neighborhoods in Johannesburg and borders Sandton, one of the richest. There was a bit of a history lesson, but our guide mostly ignored the poverty around us and the fact that what we paid to ride bicycles could have bought books for a few families.

Soweto
The best and worst guided tour we took in Johannesburg was in Soweto. With a population of over one million people in two hundred square kilometers, it is by far the largest township in South Africa. The tour covered a small area while the tour guide tried to cram a lot of history into a short presentation. Most of my Taiwanese colleagues were completely unaware of South Africa's history. Apartheid was never something they studied in school, but it was a word they heard a lot in South Africa.

Our tour guide told us that Soweto was essentially a ghetto for black people, many of whom were evicted from their homes and forced to live in the township. They could only legally leave when going to work in the mines or other parts of Johannesburg. Someone in our group asked how the white people could control the black population that outnumbered them six to one. The convoluted answer was a long history of colonization and oppression by my ancestors. By the time Apartheid was the law of the land, the black majority was used to being treated like criminals. As the only white person on the bus, I did what my people have always done. I oversimplified a complicated situation for my Taiwanese colleagues and told them the whites had all the money.

As the only person on our tour group who knew anything about the history of South Africa, albeit not nearly enough, I was not at all surprised by anything our tour guide told us in Soweto. What surprised me were the living conditions. I expected a Hooverville of tin shacks with dirt floors, which do indeed exist. I thought Soweto would look more like Alexandra. But there were also plenty of paved roads, wood framed houses with tile roofs, lots of garages for all the cars, and ample electricity and indoor plumbing. At least in the daytime. Nelson Mandela's house is a small but sturdy brick and mortar building.

When I saw a tour group of white people strolling through the township, I wondered if their tour guide was showing them the real Soweto or the tourist version we were seeing. I never felt guilty while I was with Taiwanese people who had nothing to do with Apartheid. Had they lived in South Africa at the time, they would have been classified as Coloured, which sounds terrible where I come from and was even worse in 20th century South Africa. I could not help but look disapprovingly at the white tourists who were treating this home to a million people as some kind of tourist attraction, even though I was doing the same thing. My internal defense was that I never wanted to go there. I wanted to explore Johannesburg's vibrant present, not learn even more about its appalling past. When I go to Hiroshima, I visit the Peace Park, but I spend most of my time in the mix of near future and distant past.

In Johannesburg's present, we ate a great deal of food. That is unavoidable if you travel with a large group of Taiwanese. If they love anything more than shopping during their travels, it is easting. The food in South Africa was something I was not looking forward to at all. Most of the time, in my daily life, I can ignore the fact that I have no sense of smell and cannot taste flavors. When I go somewhere I have never been, especially somewhere as famous for its cuisine as South Africa, that reality hits me in the face at every meal. Had I been able to taste anything, I probably would have eaten like a Taiwanese.

Most of my colleagues wanted to try the local Chinese food. There was a basic, all over the place “Chinese” restaurant near the hotel. None of their dishes were familiar and no one was impressed. It never stood a chance anyway because it was not in the travel guides. Not the most adventurous people in the world, my traveling companions were really only interested in eating pre-approved food.

Oriental Plaza
Luckily for them, not so much for me, Johannesburg has more than a few shopping malls. They reminded me of every shopping mall everywhere in the world, except for the metal detectors at the door and private security guards checking bags before anyone could get in. The one mall I might remember in years to come was the Oriental Plaza, just down the M1 from our hotel. I thought the name was interesting because where I come from, it would be seen as insulting to the Chinese. The Chinese shoppers I was with could not have cared less. They were there for deals. Unlike most malls, shoppers could haggle on prices at the Oriental Plaza. Taiwanese love to haggle, even though prices are set at all malls in Taiwan. As for a taste of the Orient, nothing in the mall reminded anyone of home. They were mostly disappointed that it was run down and looked like it had seen better days.

Further east is China Town, several blocks of restaurants and shops that did not look the least bit Chinese. But there were Chinese signs all over the place, which I found strangely comforting, and most of the shops were owned and operated by Chinese immigrants. My colleagues loved it because they could speak to people in their language and eat food that was far more authentic than any of the upscale “Chinese” restaurants in town.

There were plenty of extremes in Johannesburg. We went to the poorest neighborhoods and some of the richest. We drove past car dealerships selling Maseratis and young men standing on the side of the road selling cell phone cases and plastic toys. There are roadside stalls selling fruit in Taiwan, but usually in rural areas. The most you will see in the city is someone selling flowers. In Johannesburg, larger than any city in Taiwan, you can buy anything at a stop light. Which are called robots, for some reason.

We also did some work here and there, but Johannesburg was more about adjusting and adapting. The work was nothing new. The audiences were, and they seemed to enjoy a look into a culture very different from theirs. Johannesburg will always be my gateway into Africa, which is probably not the best position to be in. I vividly remember my first visit to Tokyo, but the Ginza was sensory overload. There was too much to take in all at once. I get the feeling Johannesburg will feel the same way a few years down the road.

Johannesburg

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I took thousands of photographs in South Africa. It is going to take a while to sort through them all. But since I will be describing some photogenic places, it feels wrong to not show any pictures. I will use placeholder photographs until I can replace them with my own, and give credit to the photographers when I know who they are.