One year ago today: Sept 19, 2005 (Boda Boda adventure)

The psychological dislocation that occurs when flying from one place to another can be quite jarring. One moment you're in modern London, and the next moment you're in equatorial Africa. A shift in geography always occurs more quickly than a shift in one's mind.

Our overnight flight was on British Airways, which ended up being Kim's favorite. Great leg room and cheery service. The cynical businessman sitting next to Kim consumed copious amounts of free alcohol throughout the entire flight. On the other side of the spectrum, a group of eager, idealistic kids embarking on a gap year volunteer project also accompanied us on our flight. I wonder how those kids are doing, since it's also one year since they began their project.

Kampala is at the northern end of Lake Victoria in Uganda. We were surprised by how lush and green it was as we drove to the Kampala Backpackers Hostel. Upon checking in, we promptly fell asleep for a long nap.


Kim outside the Kampala Backpackers Hostel.


Ian sits on our bed at the Kampala Backpackers hostel. I forget exactly how much it cost, but I believe that one nights' accomodation was about $12US.

After we woke up from our nap, we decided to head into town. We needed to obtain some local currency and reserve our bus tickets to Rwanda for the next day; our goal was to track gorillas. We didn't have a very good map and didn't really know the way, so the walk into town was stressful. At that point, we weren't used to the high people density and many intense stares we would receive. We also weren't used to being surrounded by Africans, although by the time we left Africa it was completely natural. I think that was a good experience for me in undoing prejudice.

Eventually, we made it into town and obtained some Ugandan schillings. When Kim and I recount the most chaotic places and craziest traffic on our trip, Kampala is near the top of the list with India. We still needed to book our bus tickets, but we and weren't really able to walk because of the traffic. So we decided to try out the preferred method of local transportation, the boda boda. Kim was scared for her life; I had a blast on the boda boda. At some point, a local man on a motorcycle rode up beside me and said, "Ni Hao!"

[Note: the classic photo of Kim on the boda boda, posted during the trip, is found here. Here are a few more boda boda photos]




We decided to take a taxi back to the Backpackers, and hung out there for the rest of the afternoon and evening. We drank a few Fanta Orange, which would become my drink of choice in Africa, along with Krest Bitter Lemon. It's funny, I'd love to have a Krest Bitter Lemon now, just to remind me of our travelling days.