Zambia travelogues

Getting the Zambia diaries out has taken longer than I expected, thanks to the continuous barrage of work that I was submerged in. During the closing phase of my project in Zambia, we were under so much work that I had actually begun to wonder if there would be anything at all to write in them. Fortunately, we got a breather in early march to go to the couple of relatively famous places in Zambia and an opportunity for me to flaunt them here. I will also try to highlight key points of a trip that we took to Lusaka, capital city of Zambia, in December. I will highlight the top places that we went, some of the activities that I will recommend and other such general stuff.

So without further ado, here we go…

Victoria Falls: The biggest attraction of Zambia; 1.7 km long falls at the peak season are a sight second to none. It was an exhilarating feeling to be so close to a thunderous waterfall, so loud that you can’t hear yourself even think. We were so excited to be at the site that we actually went again the next day so that we could enjoy it once more. We almost walked with the flowing water till the point it became the fall. Then there is a point called “Knife Bridge” where the falling water just flows underneath the bridge with the water droplets from this falling water getting caught in an upward draft and then falling like a rain. So, it would seem that the point was in a state of perpetual rainfall. So much so that despite wearing a raincoat, we were soaked to the inners. But the joy of standing defiant at that point is indescribable. In fact, after so many words, I still feel that I haven’t been able to do a justice to the wondrous nature of the falls.

Lion walk: By and far the biggest attraction to me. I love interacting with animals in a way most people would consider maniacal. While in the farm, we got a chance to hold, pat and otherwise interact with three leopards, two lionesses and one lion. And trust me! I milked the most out of it. And the thrill!!! Absolutely incomparable.

Elephant ride: We actually began our day with this ride. An hour long ride on an elephant across wild forest was a great experience. But an even better feeling was feeding them at the end of the trip and getting them to salute you. :)

Microlight: 15 minutes of open single seater plane, flying over the Victoria Falls and Zimbabwe with nothing to secure you to your seat than a flimsy seat belt. It couldn’t get any better than that. Actually there was another option to fly – through a helicopter but our group unanimously decided to go for the former option and have loads more fun. Like everything, a bit steep on price at around 9000 rs. (150 USD) but worth every cent of it!

Kalimba Reptile Park: On of my desire for a long time had been to hold a snake in my hands. Once, some 4 years back when I was in Orissa/India, I got a chance to almost hold a snake in my hands. So when I got a chance to hold a python in Kalimba Reptile Park, my joy knew no bounds. The park had a ton of crocodiles (largest of which they claimed was around 5 meters), several pythons and many other species of snakes.

I had a wondrous opportunity to hold a python the way you only see in movies but never get to do in reality and a smaller domestic brown snake. The smaller snake was so cute and pliable that I almost bought one for home. ALMOST because then I remembered that I will be disowned by my folks if they even realized that I was thinking about such a thing.

Chaminuka Game Reserve, Protea Safari lodge: If you go to Zambia and have a couple of days of spare time, I would strongly suggest that instead of staying in a hotel and then going for a safari ride; you book yourself into one of these two places. These are safari lodges which are situated in the middle of a safari range. This way, you get to have a night time experience of staying in the safari as well several side trips reserved for booked guests such as cheese tasting etc. Not to mention the surreal night time feel of the jungle, while you sip tea in a wooden terrace overlooking a lake where the animals are drinking water. I hope you get the idea!!!

Bungee jumping combo: This particular bungee jumping had 3 options – ‘Famous 111m Bungee Jump’, Bridge Swing & Bridge Slide. With a perpetual fear of dying in a high speed crash with something, I did not participate in this activity. My 3 friends, however, did and I could see how much they enjoyed it. At around 12k rs (USD 200), it was a bit steep but worth every rupee in the adrenaline and excitement it helps generate. And even better part of this was that this was done on a bridge after the falls. Hence there were sufficient water vapors in the air to cause beautiful rainbows with the right amount of sun. And I made my best effort to capture some of that.

Artifact shopping: Zambia has a lot of copper mines. So, one of the artifacts that you can look for are paintings etched, carved on copper plates and sheets. Like all the African nations, there are a lot of neat handicraft items which can be picked from the flea markets such as Wooden figurines, Carved chess sets, Cloth and Papyrus paintings, Tribal masks, Seed paintings etc. 

Being a numismatic, I always cherish a chance to collect coins of the country. With the coins being reintroduced in circulation after couple of years, the older coinage was hard to find. But fortunately, I was able to amass a complete set of Zambia coins. Not only that, I was able to assemble a complete set of Zimbabwe coins as well. And that was a difficult treat as the coins have not been in circulation there for some with current currency reaching up to the denomination of 5 trillion Zimbabwe. In fact, I saw 1 trillion and 5 trillion Zimbabwe notes.

Sunset cruise: To be very honest, this is one thing which I would suggest you skip. But that’s my view. I feel like spending half a day just to watch a sunset is a sheer waste of time; and time which could be wonderfully utilized elsewhere such as going to the falls once more or even one more trip to the safari lodges.

Several adjoining African countries: Zambia shares its border with several other countries like Zimbabwe, Congo etc. It is often a tourist thing to do to take a short trip to the border and crossover a 2-3 hr jaunt across the border. And in the process, if you get couple of good deals on the way; who is complaining, right?

Hope that the descriptions and the sights might have convinced some of you to take the trip at the next possible opportunity. And trust me; you would not end up regretting it.

Zambia diary – Part 1

So… this time around, I had the chance of visiting Zambia on an extended project. People kept on asking about my connection with Africa. And I didn’t know what to answer.

Anyhow, this time, I was headed towards the commercial capital of Zambia, Chingola for a copper mining project.

I was going to this project with my colleague, Sandeep though South African Airways. Unfortunately due to our travel team, we had to follow different routes. So we had a common route From Delhi – Mumbai – Johannesburg. From Jo’burg, my flight was directly to Ndola airport; whereas my colleague had to go to Lusaka and then follow another flight to Ndola.

The capital city of Zambia is Lusaka. Chingola is about hundred minutes’ drive from Ndola airport which in itself is about an hour flight from Lusaka via those teeny tiny 30 odd seater charter planes, of the utmost dubious quality; which convulse every time winds even displays the slightest signs of a movement.

So anyhow, I got off at the Ndola airport. And I swear to god that the closets of a two timer illegal immigrant in any country would still be bigger than the “Arrival Hall”. The “Arrival Hall” had the passport stamping, baggage, security check and visitor lounge – All in a 3000 sq. ft. area. I started having my share of doubts about the country.

The journey was still not complete as I still had an hour and a half journey with my cabbie for the day, ‘Cox’. Fortunately for me, Cox turned out to be a jovial fellow with a vocabulary of 4 – 5 hindi words, seeing as a lot of Indians were working in the company where I was heading to.

Cox assisted me in withdrawing a cool million from my account (Did I just see your jaw drop? Don’t! A million Kwacha is like ten thousand rupees); get a decent vegetarian lunch and a nice SIM card for my phone. My priority was of course to get a SIM card at the earliest, seeing that I wanted to call home before anything else. And I was surprised to see that there was no need for an ID proof. So I got my SIM card and it was “happy calling home” time for me.

Now… did you read that Cox help me get a decent vegetarian food? Not only was it vegetarian, but Indian food. Imagine my surprise when the guy took me to a restaurant which had “Kadi Pakora” and “Sabji Haandi”. I was just not expecting THIS, in Zambia of all places; and that too in a town which is a 100 minutes’ drive from the nearest airport, an hour’s flight further away from the capital city.

The journey from the airport to the flats was uneventful. Like most of the Africa, the drive consisted of going via a “highway”, a two lane two way road. The sides of the roads were majorly devoid of any population of any kind, dotted intermittently with people selling local art, grocery or sofa sets. YES! You read it correctly… sofa sets. I found it equally perplexing but that’s the truth. On and off, there would be spots where sets of sofas would be placed for sale. Other than that, most of the road side was lined with scraggy bushes, wide fields and tall trees.

With the lunch packed, I went with Cox to the company flats in Chingola. I had been allotted a bachelor accommodation for the next fifteen days. I went into the flat, unpacked and checked out the facilities. The flat was a modest enough accommodation with a front lobby, a bed room with TV and AC and refrigerator and decent amenities. I decided to lie down while I waited for my colleague to arrive, as I had no means of communication with him because of him not being able to get a local number by then. That was at 5 PM. And I didn’t realize how and when I fell asleep – Fully dressed, with my legs hanging off the bed and still wearing glasses. I woke up with a start when I heard loud knocking on the window and somebody calling my name. Still groggy from the travel, it took me a minute to realize that it wasn’t a dream but somebody actually calling me out. I woke and opened the drapes to seen my colleagues frantically trying to get me to wake up in time for dinner. That was at 9 PM.

Since I had Sandeep’s room keys with me, even he couldn’t go to his room and was parked temporarily with the colleagues who were here before us and were now to begin the handover to us.

So the four of us went to the company canteen in the flats; had a nice dinner and then went to their flat – a two bed room, hall and kitchen setup. We chatted for some time, caught up with each other, and shared our tales of the journey while they told different tales from the project. We took our leave at around midnight for our respective rooms and crashed on the bed for, what I anticipated to be, a sound sleep.


Thus ended the first day in Zambia; with us looking forward to the joining formalities the next day, ID creation and gate pass access etc.

More in the next one!!!

Johannesburg Diary 2 - Stereotypes in a casino

 In my trip to South Africa, I had the chance of visiting several casinos. Before you make any assumptions, let me clarify that we visited casinos due to the fact that A) It was a novelty to us; B) Every nook and cranny had it; and C) In a place which practically closes down at dusk, casinos seemed to be the only mode of “entertainment”.

And that’s not all; the casinos that I went to had spas, four star restaurants of all cuisines, cinema halls, swimming pools and various other attractions for the entire family. So even if you don’t want to play in the casinos, there would gazillion other things that you just might find equally interesting. How about that Prada bag that you were ogling at? Why not a game of golf? Maybe even catch a movie!

But what takes the cake is the Casino itself. The moment you walk in to a casino, you are welcome by a variety of sounds ranging from ding-ding-ding and ding-dong-ding of the slot machines to the “biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig win” of a person winning something on machine; to kachink 

sound when pulling the lever of a slot machine to the dealer saying “No more bets please”. There is melee of people roaming around playing on slot machines and roulette tables and poker and what not. Even if you don’t like being in a casino, the very presence of so much human emotions around makes it kind of an infectious thing to be. To see people win and lose; smile and cry.

And being in that atmosphere did give a lot of insight into an environment which I was entirely unfamiliar with. It gave me a lot of “masala” and a good understanding of the human behavior in such an environment.

So without further ado… here we go!

The thinker: A very rare variety, this person would look at the roulette table, calculate the probability of a number appearing on the basis of its position on the spinning wheel, numbers gone by and number of times that number has appeared previously. A slight variation in this is that frail, elderly gentleman that you see standing behind you who has a neatly ruled sheet with him on which he scribbles god-knows-what and wins bet after bet.

The aggressive bet(ter): This person is now so habituated to the games and the betting and all that the small wins (or most likely the losses) do not faze him at all. So, in roulette table where everyone would be betting 10 each on the multiple numbers inside, this person would put up 500 on any random number. They are hooked to playing for the sake of it and not for the wins or losses. They often overlap with “The Hopper” (See below).

The passive bet(ter): He likes to just sit around in the casinos and would much rather observe others playing the game than involve themselves in it. Off and on they might play a game but only when they feel like the odds are in their favor of winning. Their overall sum involved too doesn’t go to a high level.

The Hopper: You can easily guess by the name that this one hops. Well.. not physically like a grasshopper but hops between the table from one table to the other table. Putting a tener on one and collecting 100 from the second table while losing some at the third. A distinguishing feature of people in this category is that they are rarely anxious or flustered. Those who prefer to venture into the tedious waters of “hopper”ism are amongst the most calm and collected individuals; regardless of their winning or losing in the game. An anxious hopper is a losing hopper and, thus, a rarity.

The anxious one: In contrast to the hopper covered above, this genre of casino players is anxious to the extreme. And their anxiousness has got nothing to do with their winning or losing. They get anxious just by playing and even more so when they are not. And it is at this point that they are bound to get irritated at each and every incident happening around them. At one table, there was an old gentleman who somehow had developed the belief me being in his proximity was somehow, in a twisted way, leading him to lose. So whenever I would approach the table, his face would be nothing short of that mask you see in Scream. At one time, he actually said “Shit! You are back!!!”

The one with ATM card: This is what the Casinos live for. These people are the bread and butter for Casino industry. These are the boon that every casino ever hopes for. At the very outset, let me warn you. It is ALWAYS foolish to take your card(s) to the casino. Not because somebody might rob but because you yourself might rob yourself of all the money that you have by repeated betting. So essentially what these people do is that they keep on betting, low or high, on the games. As soon as they run out of money in their wallet; and in their shoes; and in their secret pocket inside their trousers; and god-only-knows-what-places; they run off to the ATM to get fresh money to bet! A point to note here is that GENERALLY these are also the people who rake in big moolahs. It is a different thing altogether that they might have lost twice that amount already before winning some.

The guesser: Frankly I found this category of the people to be the most fun to be around. Now this category has two further sub-genres: Mr Theory and Mr. New-game-each-day. Mr. Theory would keep on formulating one theory after the other to explain the outcome of a game so that one might have a winning combination… eventually. Some of the theories I hear were “66% Theory”, “2nd dozen Theory” and “Odds make me even Theory”. Needless to say that, while successful at times, these were theories nonetheless as otherwise Casinos would have gone bankrupt long time back and as we all know that doesn’t happen… except perhaps in some random casino heist Hollywood movie. Mr. New-game-each-day is a very fickle character. He likes to hop from one slot to another; from one game to the other; from one strategy a day to some other the next day. 

The I-Couldn’t-Care-Less-About-Casino-But-I-Will-Bet-Anyways: The compulsive gambler. There is always one in a casino. In a day, they will easily spend a hundred times any normal person, forget where they bet and their winning be given to them by a random casino staff who happened to spot them somewhere. They are often the high rollers with swanky shades and a drink in one hand.

The one at home: And then there is a peculiar variety of casino goers who have a unique attraction for the casino. The ones that you see as frequently as 5’O clock in the morning as midnight. These are the ones which practically, in some cases inside their car parked overnight at casino, live in the casino itself. They are the ones which may not even be a high spender. They however sustain the casino in a small, every day way. They keep on playing different slot machines and tables; making multiple small bets throughout the day; winning some and then losing some. The casinos, on their part, sustain them by providing an odd meal and drink to them on the tables so that continue to play their games. Kind of a symbiotic relationship!

Sometimes the sight and sound that you will be greeted with, when entering a casino, might be overwhelming. But worry not! I am sure you will enjoy yourself!!!

PS: One phrase displayed prominently in all the casinos was “Winners know when to stop” (Read more here). I always felt it should have been “Losers should know when to quit”. :D

PPS: One word of advice to anyone planning to go visit a Casino. SOMEONE has to lose in order for someone else to win. Because there is now way that the casino is losing, since the odds always favor casino.

PPPS: I will try and get some images for each of the stereotypes. Just feels like it will add a lot of zing to the content. Feel free to comment in case you know where I can find some.

Disclaimer: This is a collection of various observations that I made across my trips. This is in no way a reflection on anyone and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Read the earlier post on Johannesburg here.

Images Courtesy: bartonsclub93.com, diamondcasinosavannah.com, grassodefense.com, eurocasino888.n, onlinecasinomasters.com, visualeditors.com

This is an entry for the "Around the World with Expedia" blogging contest with Expedia and Indiblogger. If you like it please vote for me here

Johannesburg Diary – 1

As a part of a project, I was required to go to Johannesburg. Being in the line of profession that I am, traveling is an inevitable part of the job. I loved to have this opportunity to visit the country.

Hence I thought of putting a brief travelogue for the trip. This would be a series of posts in which I will describe some of the focal points of my journey. If, in the process, it helps some souls; all the better for me!

So here it goes… ‘Johannesburg Diary – 1’

We left India on a Sunday. Our flight schedule was arranged in such a way that we would reach J’burg on the same day (as per local time). Our total travel time was 13.5 hours; with in flight time of around 11.5 hours.

We had a brief stopover in Dubai. While landing in Dubai, I switched on my in flight camera and watched it for a couple of minutes prior to the landing. A lot of ‘deserty’ vastness. The inside of the airport was, though, a different thing altogether. The Dubai airport is huge in size with a lot many departure gates. So a lot of walking area! And all the major brands have a presence in the airport. All the major food icons, fashion icons and not to mention those in-numerous jewelery shops; all that made The Dubai airport a big shopping mall with an in-built airport. :D

The stopover being a brief one, I did not get a chance to stop and have a closer look and feel of the things. So my plan is on my return trip, I will try and make an extended stopover to enjoy the airport even more.

The we sat for an arduous flight of around 9 hours; after which we landed in the OR Tambo airport in J’burg, SA . One thing which struck me was the wide and bold combination of colors they have used in the airport and even on their own self. More about that later.

 

So we had booked a hotel for the night before traveling to our next destinations, a town around 120 odd kilometers outside J’burg by the name of Secunda. We had a hotel booking there but we would leave in the morning as we were advised against traveling in the middle of the night anywhere in SA. Again, more on that later.

Our first stop in SA was at ‘City Lodge Hotel’ at the airport. Despite being aware of the fact that the hotel was remarkably close to the airport; being unfamiliar, we had booked a cab driver to take us to the hotel.

Unfortunately, the driver didn’t turn up. So we were uncertain as to what to do next. Fortunately for us, a very helpful airport employee took us to the hotel; which turned out to in the same building structure as the airport itself. That close!

So we stayed in the hotel for the night, enjoyed a nice buffet in the morning and set off to Secunda in the morning for our next destination – Graceland Casino and Hotel. Boy! This was looking like a fun trip already!