Big, Bad Durban
Wednesday, May 9th, 2007I think it’s funny that everyone we ran into before Durban warned us about how Durban was really awful and all that. But then we end up staying at this cute little place called the Hippo Hide. I mean, I guess they can’t really call a place “Don’t even think about leaving this hostel because you’re going to die” Hostel. Probably bad for business.
Anyway, we landed in Durban in the evening at the Hippo Hide which is in a place called Berea, just a bit outside of Durban. We got there in the dark. And after all the warnings we received and the warning from the lady that checked us in to not take anything except for a bit of cash with us we decided to just stay in and wait until it was light out.
The next morning things seemed not as ominous. It was light. We followed the directions to get something to eat and to the mall. To a westernized mall. With a Woolworths. Not sure if they’re related to the department store that went out of business in the states a while back but if so, they’re raring to go in S Africa! Anyway, apparently this area is fine to bop around in. And we ate at this awesome Indian restaurant that night. John was in heaven.
While here we went downtown and went to a Hindu temple where you had to wash your feet and hands before you went walking around. But major oops. This woman gave John some “sweets”. Which he took a bite out of. I guess I forgot to mention to him that you’re supposed to give offerings to the various gods (I’m assuming it’s the same as a Buddhist temple) and he didn’t realize that the “sweets” were supposed to go onto the altars. But we left a few rand too so hopefully we didn’t offend the powers to be too badly…at least he didn’t eat anything off the altar!
We also went to the Victoria Market which is this Indian market – kind of reminds me of those Mexican markets but, well, you know, Indian instead. Tons of little stalls with handicrafts, food, etc. etc. John bought some curry powder and then turns to me and says “how do I prepare it?” Hello, do I look like the Joy of Cooking is sitting next to me? So he went and asked the woman who sold it to him and she told him what to buy. He made a curry over ramen noodles that night (without the ramen spice packet) – it was pretty darn good! Woohoo!
We also talked a lot to some fellow travellers. One British couple was just finishing a 13 month round the world trip. On their trip they went to the US. They bought a 90 day Greyhound bus pass. Oh my gosh, I have to give them credit. They went all over the midwest and the eastern seaboard and travelled from the east to LA. Oh my gosh, I can’t even imagine. They finished off the west coast with planes though.
Another British guy decided to move to Africa so he had shipped a Land Rover to Durban and was waiting for it and he had met this other girl from NYC on Lonely Planet and they were going to travel all over the place.
And last but not least we met this family of Afrikaans. John got into this friendly, but heated discussion of politics. For hours. Unfortunately, I was sitting at the table trying to avoid this discussion and this woman was feeding her toddler. She starts talking to this other woman sitting there and starts going off about how the black people were bringing down the educational system and that they didn’t have the mind-power for higher education. She started citing examples of how whites were having to compensate the blacks in South Africa…at this point I was like, I’m so out of here before I wanted to pull out my knife and hack at her. So I dragged John out of there and we went out to grab the strangest Chinese food I’ve ever eaten.
Anyway, next destination….Coffee Bay…
JohnCin