Wandering North

Romania Romania-Moldova Trip 2024

Bucharest Beginnings

For my November trip of 2024, I had planned to go somewhere a little more exotic than Romania, but after my excellent but slightly stressful trip to Eritrea and Djibouti, I felt that I needed something a little more basic. There were two countries left in Europe that I hadn’t visited: Romania and Moldova, and this seemed like the perfect time to go. And that’s how I found myself arriving at the airport in Bucharest on 11 November 2024.

I’ll say right now: this will not be my only trip to Romania. I think that Romania has so much to offer in terms of small towns and beautiful countryside, that I am definitely coming back. But on this trip, I would primarily be seeing Bucharest and a couple of nearby sites.

The First Night

I took a taxi to my hostel. I was a little underwhelmed by the hostel offerings in Bucharest, so I booked a hostel in the Old Town called the Antique Hostel. I booked a little late, and the room that was available was this massive room on the top floor with a small balcony overlooking the river. It’s not as nice as it sounds. The location was excellent, in that it was walking distance to the metro and to basically everything in the city, but it was fairly shabby and although my room was gigantic, it was mostly just empty space. No mirrors, no hooks, no hangers, no chairs. It was basically a bed and a sofa in a massive room of what at one time was probably a fancy apartment. The staff there were very friendly, and it had a grungy-looking but serviceable kitchen in the basement. I shared a bathroom on the floor with the other occupants. At all times of the day and night, there seemed to be men hanging around in the stairwell smoking cigarettes. And each night, someone tried the door to my room multiple times. So would I recommend it? No, but I would stay there again.

I arrived in Bucharest in the mid-afternoon, and it wasn’t too long before sunset by the time I got to my hostel. It was November, after all, and the days were short. It was also cloudy, cold, and pouring rain. Not ideal. I went for a walk around the Old Town. It has some charm for sure, but it is also very touristy and a little bit seedy. I think it would have made a better first impression if it hadn’t been such miserable weather. I wandered around a little and took in some of the churches and old buildings before settling at a Middle Eastern restaurant on their patio for a bite to eat, a drink, and a cigar.

The rain was coming down, and it was cold, but they turned on the outside heaters for me, and I sat under an awning and enjoyed some hummus and a cigar. Multiple local cats came and joined me on the warm benches and out of the rain.

On my way back to my hostel for bed, I stopped in at the bookstore. Bucharest has one of these bookstores that you’ll regularly see in lists of the world’s great bookstores: the Cărturești Carusel Bookstore. It was built in 1903 by a family of bankers. It was used for a time and then confiscated by the communists and used for a store and various other things before it was left abandoned. After many years of legal battles to regain the title to the building, the original family took ownership again and renovated it and turned it into this fabulous bookstore. It’s bright white and elegant; every view is exquisite. And of course, it has a little coffee shop upstairs. I went in for a browse and a cup of tea. I wanted to buy something, but honestly, I didn’t want more to carry around. It’s certainly one of the loveliest sites in the old centre of Bucharest.

The Next Day

The next morning, I got up early and went for a walk. It was still grey and raining. I strolled around the streets, which were mostly quiet. I noticed in the morning light how many lovely little churches there were. I popped into a few of them. The best was this one: when I went inside, it was lit only by candles, and there were four nuns gathered around a floor-standing candelabra singing the most beautiful hymns. I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be there, and I certainly felt like I shouldn’t be taking any photos, so I didn’t, but it was a special moment.

I went for breakfast at the Van Gogh Café. The Van Gogh Café is super touristy, and I would have skipped it except that it was raining, so sitting outside wasn’t an option, and the cafe just looked so nice and appealing. You can make reservations, and if you don’t, you’ll probably end up standing in a queue forever, but one of the nice things about being a solo traveler is that usually there’s a place in a restaurant or cafe for one person. They found a table for me upstairs, and I had some yogurt and fruit and coffee. It is a very nice cafe; I couldn’t resist taking a few pictures.

I continued my wander, seeking out some street art murals, which led me through some derelict neighbourhoods of the city. Bucharest is a city of contrasts. There are beautiful and well-maintained buildings and then areas of just boarded-up old buildings covered with graffiti and junk. It is, of course, a city that’s been through a lot.

I visited the Davidoff store and bought a few cigars. Great prices. I also took the subway to a different area of the city to visit a cigar lounge: the El Unico Deluxe Cigar Lounge on Boulevard Primaverii, a short walk from the Aviatorilor subway station. (There are other locations as well.)

Bucharest, surprisingly, is not great for smoking. Smoking indoors is completely banned, including cigar lounges, and if any of the patios have walls on them, such as plastic sheeting to protect from the cold and rain, then smoking is not allowed there either. I did, however, find a cigar lounge to visit. They had an excellent humidor with great prices and a beautiful interior with leather chairs and ashtrays, but sadly, smoking was not allowed inside there either. The owner ushered me outside onto the well-heated patio, which did have a cover and plastic sheeting to protect from the cold. I asked how they were allowed to smoke there, and he explained that he wasn’t. He said smoking was banned everywhere but that many politicians enjoy visiting his store, and so he’s allowed to remain open unofficially. I sat there cozily and had a couple of cigars. Delightful. A few men in dark suits came in and had cigars and espressos, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they were amongst the corrupt politicians.

I found a vegetarian restaurant for dinner, which was good.

I enjoyed this day and a half exploring Bucharest, but at this point, I was feeling a little underwhelmed. It wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t great. I’m pleased to report, though, that my final verdict on Bucharest is positive. The next day I would go on a day trip out of the city, and then after that, I would have another day and a night in Bucharest, and overall I think it’s a good place and worth visiting; it probably needs at least two and maybe three days to explore properly. It’s not the most beautiful of cities nor is it the most exciting, but it does have a certain charm that is best revealed through deeper exploration than I was able to do on that first day.

But my next day would be my favourite of my short trip to Romania. Into the countryside … read on here.

USA

24 Hours in California: Ojai, Burbank at Spooky Season & Venice Canals

Earlier in 2024, I discovered that there were cheap flights from Vancouver to Los Angeles and back that made for a perfect 24-hour visit to see my sister, who lives in Burbank. Last time we used the opportunity to drive to Palm Springs. This time we had our sights set north.

I was curious go to Ojai. My sister and my mother had visited a while ago, and it looked so lovely that I wanted to check it out. My sister, Dawn, and her trusty canine companion, Bear, picked me up at LAX and we immediately hit the road. Ojai is only about an hour and a half north of Los Angeles, but we a stop to make along the way.

Great Pumpkins

We stopped in Ventura at Great Pacific Pumpkins. A pumpkin patch run by 5th generation family farmers where you can go and buy your future jack-o-lanterns, or just wander around and take fun photos. The pumpkins are arranged in cute displays with bales of hay and seasonal decorations. It was delightful. We took a million photos and picked up a couple of small pumpkins for decoration.

Great Pacific Pumpkins
(the one that looks like it B&W isn’t; it is just white pumpkins on grey stones)

Oh, hi, Ojai

We arrived in Ojai quickly. And it is charming. Ojai is a small city northwest of Los Angeles in the Ojai Valley. Population just under 10,000 people. Ojai is known for organic farming and spiritual practices and yoga and healthy living. It’s the sort of place where you would go and do a yoga retreat and live off organic vegan foods and buy expensive locally made crafts before going on a hike. I’m not into the spiritual side of things, but as a vegetarian, the healthy food side of it really appealed to me. I could imagine going there for a week of relaxation. (I’ll never do that though, as I seem allergic to relaxation, but I can imagine it.)

When we arrived, there was a farmers’ market on selling all the usual farmers’ market items. We both enjoy a small town farmers’ market. At the market, we saw Donald Glover AKA Childish Gambino, who apparently lives there part time and has a creative incubator in a citrus orchard on a farm he owns. I think Ojai has become kind of a popular place for some Los Angeles celebrities to live a quieter life. We wandered over to a vegan restaurant and had a bite to eat. We had coffee and wandered around some more. It’s a lovely town and a great day trip from Los Angeles.

I think the best thing about Ojai is Bart’s Books. I love bookstores and it is always interesting when they have done something sort of architecturally creative or thematically unusual. In this instance, Bart’s Books is unusual because it is entirely outdoors. It is behind a low wall of ivy, although there are books for sale on the outside of the fence, with a little sign that says just to leave some money if you take one. Inside, all the bookshelves are outdoors, with occasional awnings to protect you and the books from the sun. This gives you a sense of how good the weather is in Ojai. It was started in 1964 by Richard “Bart” Bartinsdale, whose collection of books was so expansive that he started selling books from outdoor bookshelves outside his home.

We browsed around and I picked up a book that I probably didn’t need, and we made our way back to Burbank. (We made a stop on the way back at the Ventura Cigar Lounge so I could pick up a few cigars.)

Evil Clowns in Burbank

Back in Burbank, it was evening, and we had another plan. As I have written about before, Burbank is home to lots of movie production studios, which means it’s home to a lot of movie people. They live in beautiful houses on perfectly manicured streets, and they go all out for the holidays. I’ve been there both at Christmas and Halloween previously and it’s incredible. At Halloween, the houses are all decorated. Some with modest conventional decorations but others are extreme. They have elaborate setups with animatronic figures, music, fog machines, and some have live actors. One even had a small ferris wheel. It’s amazing. And it is all free, although some of the bigger ones do take donations.

We didn’t stay up late enough to take in all of them, but we tried to hit some of the highlights. The best was the Burbank Clown House, which was incredibly decorated and also had some live evil clowns wandering around terrify you. Dawn and I, as lovers of horror movies and all things spooky, were in heaven.

*Aliens, Autopsies, Skeleton Bands, and more Evil Clowns*

Burbank really doesn’t get enough credit for being a fun city. I wouldn’t recommend anyone go there unless you have a reason to go there, but once you are there, there are things to do; and if you’re already in LA, at Halloween or Christmas, I think it’s worth going to Burbank to check out the decorations.

Morning on the Venice Canals

The next morning, my flight was at about 10:00am. Fortunately, both my Dawn and I are insane morning people. We got up before the sun and drove into Los Angeles, through Hollywood, and past all the landmark buildings. There wasn’t another car in sight.

Thankfully, at least one cafe was open (La La Land), and we stopped in and grabbed a coffee, before heading over to Santa Monica for another coffee (Dogtown) where one fellow was talking about skateboarding and another about rescue dogs, and then to Venice.

One of the things my sister likes to do is go paddleboarding in the Venice canals, but I had never seen them, so we parked the car and went for a walk.

The Venice Canal Historic District was built in 1905 as part of the planning for the city of Venice, as they wanted to make it feel more like the Venice of Italy. It doesn’t feel anything like the Venice of Italy, but it is splendid. The canals are entirely in a residential district and there are small footpaths on either side and then little bridges crossing. All of the houses are modest but beautiful and there are lovely plants and flowers along the way. The waters were calm at that time of the morning, and small boats and canoes were tide up along the shores. It was wonderful. So serene and beautiful; it is incredible to think that it is in Los Angeles. I loved just walking along it, but I look forward to going back one day and kayaking around the area.

And with that, it was time to go to the airport. It was almost exactly 24 hours since I arrived. As usual, when I told people I was going to Los Angeles for 24 hours I got the typical lecturing about how that isn’t enough time to go anywhere. But when I look at how much we were able to accomplish and how much fun we had in 24 hours, there’s no question that I am going to do it again.

Eritrea-Djibouti trip 2024 United Kingdom

London Layover: Mayfair Morning

I left Djibouti city late afternoon, had a short layover in Dubai, and then a seven-hour layover in London. Never one to miss a London layover, I caught the Heathrow express to Paddington and then walked Mayfair.

If you read my blog at all regularly, you might know that I always go into London if I have a layover of at least five hours. The longer the layover, the more I can do. (Check out this post for my best ever London layover.) Seven hours is a decent amount of time. It gives me an hour from wheels down to arriving at Paddington, and then I usually give myself three hours before my flight to head back to the airport (because i am paranoid about missing flights) so I only had about three hours in the city, but it was worth it.

Every time I go into the city, I tend to pick a different neighbourhood or activity, although often that activity involves cigar smoking. With not very much time, I decided that a little coffee crawl around Mayfair would be a good idea. My flight landed at 7:00 in the morning so it was a perfect time to hit up the cafes. The air felt cool and refreshing after having been in the scorching heat of Djibouti. I sauntered leisurely around the streets and hit up a few cafes.

I went first to Cardinals Café. Nothing too extraordinary, but I liked it, an Italian café tucked down a side street and busy with people off to work. I had a double espresso and small cigar outside on the patio where a man awkwardly told me that my backpack had caused my dress to ride up above my bottom. Is there a word in English for being both mortified and thankful? There should be.

I went to the charming and fancy H.R.Higgins, a tea and coffee merchant in business since 1942. There I got a little adventurous and I tried some concoction that was a mixture of orange juice and espresso. Honestly I didn’t really care for it, but I also I had a croissant before carrying on with my stroll.

*H.R. Higgins (I resisted the urge to make any Magnum PI references)*

I visited Everbean x BIBI’S for my third espresso of the day, a nice neighbourhood café. I sat outside and was feeling so relaxed and in the moment that I even forgot to take a photo.

From there I just meandered about before going to Selfridges to visit the James J. Fox cigar store at that location. Usually I go to the James J. Fox location on St. James’s St., which has an excellent cigar lounge upstairs. This is simply a small retail outlet inside the Selfridges, but I wanted to pay to visit. I went in and picked out a few nice cigars. I was feeling a little bit sheepish because I looked a little rough. After traveling around my clothes were a bit dirty and rumpled and I had the look of someone who had been on a red eye flight, and I was still wearing my backpack, but I still received a polite reception and the people were very friendly as I chatted with him and told him about some of my recent adventures. Cigar people are lovely people.

At this point, I didn’t have much time left, so I leisurely walked back to Paddington station, smoking a small cigar. Did I do any sightseeing? No. Was it still worth it heading to London for this short time? Yes. Thought that maybe the espressos talking.

It was a perfectly pleasant way to end my trip to Eritrea and Djibouti. Even with all the things that went wrong on this trip, it was my favourite trip of 2024.

(My next trip would be to Southern California for some Halloween fun.)

Djibouti Eritrea-Djibouti trip 2024

Two Great days in Djibouti City

Djibouti was my destination after Eritrea (following my brief and unplanned overnight in Dubai). Djibouti is right below Eritrea and above Somali on the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. It is a tiny country, just 23,00 square kilometres with just over a million inhabitants. A former French colony. It is an important shipping country and as a military base, due to its location. The capital and main city is Djibouti City.

The flag and the map. That’s Djibouti on the horn of Africa in green.

Day One – Arrival and Impressions

I flew in from UAE to wonderful views, having a whole row of the plane to myself.

I applied for and received my e-visa for Djibouti without issue. I provided my hotel booking and an invitation letter from a tour that I booked – not a tour for the whole stay, but for an overnight trip to remote Lake Abbé – and the visa was issued. No problems at arrival in Djibouti City. I caught a taxi and went to my hotel.

I was staying at the Ras Dika Hotel, which is right in the middle of everything. There was noting fancy about it, but it was clean and air conditioned and had a little seating area out front where I could have a cigar and watch the very busy street. The owner is apparently Canadian and the manager is from the Philippines. He was a very nice guy and helpful. I told him I needed to change some money, and we walked me a block away to a corner where older women sat in the street in chairs with large handbags on their laps. The money changers. He helped me get a good rate for my money. (I changed US dollars.) I had my walking around money and so I was off to explore.

Shortly after I arrived in Djibouti City I got a text from a friend, and she asked me if it was nice. I really hesitated before responding to that text message because I knew that the person who asked this question would most certainly not think that Djibouti city was nice. They would probably think it was awful. And a lot of people do say Djibouti City is awful. It’s hot. So very hot. It is a bit hectic and lacks infrastructure. Like ATMs, unbroken streets, good public transportation, lovely parks. It does have a beautiful sea front but attempting to walk along it is difficult because of the heat and the path is at one point blocked off causing you to need to take it ridiculously long detour away from the shore. Djibouti city is loud, and might be a little bit scary if you’ve never visited other African cities. But I have visited other African cities, and I thought Djibouti City was OK. I don’t think I’d recommend it to people. There’s not a lot in terms of attractions. Museums and art galleries and whatnot are basically nonexistent. But it does have basic infrastructure. Running water, air conditioning in some businesses, restaurants that look like restaurants, and importantly, sidewalks. Not sidewalks in all places, but sidewalks in areas with lots of vehicles.

I always feel like sidewalks or a good test of how well developed a city is. Sidewalks show a level of planning and thought for the citizens that live there. Sidewalks also give a person the ability to walk down the street without constantly having to worry about being run over. Where you can walk down the street without worrying about being run over your mind can turn to happier thoughts and generally leads to a more relaxed state of mind.

Anyway, Djibouti City had those things. And while I wouldn’t describe it as beautiful, I did enjoy my wander around.

Half of the city feels relatively developed and half of the city feels relatively underdeveloped. My hotel was just a few blocks into the more developed area. On my first day in Djibouti that was the side that I visited.

The buildings are not all in good repair, but there are some attractive ones, with Islamic style arches in some designs, some attractive mosques and a couple of nice cafes. There is also the market, which as far as markets go isn’t that picturesque, but it’s lively and authentic and gives you a sense of the place.

On my first day I walked around this neighbourhood taking pictures, stopping for generally substandard coffee, and exploring.

Finally, I felt like I needed a bit of a respite, so I walked from my hotel to that of the Hotel Kempinski, which is on the sea at the end of sort of a peninsula. It was about a 40 minute walk and quite pleasant as a lot of the streets had trees.

I arrived at the gorgeous hotel and made my way to the seaside where there was a bar and restaurant overlooking the ocean. I sat and had a juice and a coffee on the bar side with my cigar, before moving to the fancy Italian restaurant side for dinner and a drink and another cigar. Inside the restaurant it was cool and air conditioned, and outside it was hot, but I wanted to smoke my cigar, and I enjoyed watching the sunset over the sea and the rustling palm trees. It was exactly the relaxing visit that I needed.

I wasn’t sure if it was safe to walk back to my hotel at it was quite dark, so I had the hotel called me a taxi, which wasn’t particularly cheap but I appreciated the convenience.

Just a comment about the cost of Djibouti. It is not cheap. Sure, you could go to some hole-in-the-wall restaurant and have a bite to eat and it won’t be that expensive, but things like taxis and hotels and meals in restaurants that look like restaurants are all quite expensive, as are most of the tours that you can book. It’s sort of place where most people traveling there are doing so on a business trip, and so the nicer hotels and restaurants can afford to charge inflated rates.

The Final Day

I had four days in Djibouti city, but two of them I spent doing an overnight tour, which I’ll write about separately. On my fourth day, I had to be the airport rather late in the day, so I spent my daytime visiting the other side of Djibouti City, the less developed area.

I walked a bit more near my hotel and then crossed over. The less developed side was very interesting. It was a different world from the part I had already seen. This side of the city had no charming colonial buildings no paved streets no sidewalks, and really virtually no basic amenities. The streets were dirt and the houses were built out of corrugated metal and leftover timber. The streets were filled with roaming goats and chickens, people washing their clothes in buckets or cooking their food over fires. There was a market selling basic household supplies and tools. There was not much in the way of restaurants or cafes, but there were little shops selling basic essentials.

I really enjoyed visiting this neighbourhood. Despite how poor it was, it was pretty. Colourful. There wasn’t a lot of litter and the houses were all different bright colours. The sun was shining and it wasn’t hectic or crowded. I definitely stood out. And I wasn’t entirely sure if I was supposed to be there, so I didn’t take a lot of pictures. People stared at me but did not seem unfriendly.

Eventually I walked back towards my hotel. Grabbed bite to eat at an Ethiopian restaurant with a rooftop patio, strolled around a bit more, enjoying the crumbling architecture and hand painted business signs and numerous chat markets and then returned to my hotel to kill time before going to the airport.

At the hotel, the manager introduced me to another guest who had just arrived, coincidentally, another lawyer from British Columbia, Canada who is traveling by himself. This fellow was traveling from Egypt Southward with the idea to keep going until he ran at a time and had to be back at work period the nice guy we sat and chatted while I finished my cigar, at that point I went back to the airport, to fly home via London.

If you haven’t read about my truly excellent overnight visit to Lac Abbé, Djibouti, you can do so here.

Otherwise, this particular trip is nearly at an end. All that remains is a pleasant layover in London which if you care to read about you can do so here.

Djibouti Eritrea-Djibouti trip 2024

Overnight at Lake Abbé

I enjoyed two days in Djibouti City, but the real draw for me was the countryside. There are a number of excursions that one can do on a tour in Djibouti. You can do long treks, wildlife encounters on the land, whale sharks in the sea, etc. The thing that I wanted to do though was travel inland to Lake Abbé, so I looked for a tour operator to do an overnight visit to that destination.

There were a few offering this service, but the one that I found eventually had the best price and itinerary combination. Africorne Travel, run by a pleasant and professional French guy, Alain, living at least part-time in Djibouti. Sometimes he runs the tours himself and if he is not around then he has a local run it. I was in the latter category.

The Journey

On the day that we left, my guide picked me up in a big 4×4 off road vehicle, driven by a driver whose name I can’t recall. We set out. We stopped at a market to buy some fruit and then drove past some large Chinese infrastructure building roads, and then we were out in the countryside.

The drive was excellent. There are some small towns and villages along the way as you drive to the lake. We stopped at one to have lunch, before continuing on our way. But as we got away from that small town, the land just became barren. Some small rocky hills or sometimes just miles of flat cracked earth. Little to nothing was growing, there was no water to be seen, aside from the odd camel, very little in the way of wildlife. The roads disappeared and we were entirely off road. The temperature was in the mid 40s. It was desolate.

*my crew: stopping for cigarettes and snacks*

What I found amazing, was that in this very inhospitable landscape, there were still small villages. In these small villages people seemed to live of houses that resembled rounded piles of sticks and fabric. There would be one or two shops, that were sort of like cinder block cubes. We stopped at one to pick up some water and cigarettes. But I just kept thinking, why live here? No shade or water, electricity or any conveniences. Surely like would be better in a town or at least somewhere where you cold grow food or fish, but you have to respect the resilience.

I was enjoying the journey, but what was unusual was that we were collecting people along the way. It had started with just three of us, but after our lunch in the small town a man with an orange beard joined us, and for a time another young man joined us. I gather we were giving them rides to other places that we were going. It was fun and I was happy for whatever was going on. I have since then had people ask me if I felt safe as a solo female traveler with all these strange men in the middle of nowhere; and the answer is yes. Without reservation.

The drive should have been about 6 hours not including lunch. So I was counting on it being maybe 7 hours or so. Even as I thought that, I did recognize that things can always go sideways, especially where, as here, there are no roads, but I was keeping my fingers crossed that in about 7 or 8 hours I would be at my destination camping out by the lake.

Unfortunately, things did take a bit of a turn. We got stuck in the mud. It’s funny to say “mud’’ because there was nothing remotely wet or muddy about the ground, but we got stuck in layers of dirt that had formerly been mud I suppose. We all got out of the vehicle and tried to help rocking it back and forth to get us unstuck. That was to no avail. And then we walked out from the vehicle into the landscape looking for large branches that we could use to put under the wheel to make sort of a ramp to drive out on. But the landscape was nothing. It was like the moon. There were no trees, and any bits of wood were just little twigs. Finally, two of the guys decided that they would walk back to the last village that we had passed and ask for help. The last village we passed was a ways back, but I figured that was the only option. (It’s worth mentioning, that in this landscape not only is there no Wi-Fi of course, but also no cell signal. Is the sort of place where you could imagine just dying if you didn’t have the right provisions.)

While we waited for them to return, I sat on the ground in the shadow of the vehicle and smoked cigarillos whilst being bundled up on a long-sleeved hoodie and brimmed cap. It was roasting, but I wanted to stay out of the sun.

I was expecting my travel mates to return with a vehicle with 4-wheel drive and a winch to pull us out of the hole, but what they returned with were three skinny young men in sandals, and with a collective weight of about 300 pounds, and a shovel. How was this going to work?

They got to work, digging a bigger hole and then filling it in with dirt, packing it down and adding more. And then with a bit pushing from all of us, we were out. Two of the guys walked back to the village with the shovel, but one guy joined us for the trip. Now we were six.

The new guy took over for the designated driver and it was clear why; he skills to navigate the terrain far exceeded that of the original driver. We drove in and out of deep crevices in the earth where water once flowed, we scaled hills that seemed to be nothing more than piles of boulders. A couple of times we briefly got stuck again, but he freed us quickly.

Of course, this delay had dramatically extended our journey and by the time we got to Lake Abbé, the sun was setting, but first I got a preliminary view of what I had travelled so far to see.

Lake Abbé

Lake Abbé is salty lake at the border of Ethiopia and Djibouti and is considered to be one of the more inaccessible places on earth. The landscape is flat and then towards the edge of the lake are these craggy natural chimneys and a small, dormant volcano. Because of the late hour I would have to wait until the morning to visit them, but I got some nice views from the camp.

The camp consisted of some igloo-shaped grass huts with cots inside, a covered patio area, cooking area, and toilets that worked if there was water.

I sat on the patio area with my companions. Only two spoke English, but we sat and ate dinner and drank tea, watching the landscape disappear into darkness. I enjoyed a couple cigars.

*On the right, that is me trying to take a selfie and being startled by a flying insect.*

Because there is no electricity and nothing for miles, the sky was spectacular with stars and in the distance there was occasional lightening. I went to bed but quickly realized that the huts were like tiny ovens, so I dragged my cot outside and slept soundly under the stars.

In the morning, before everyone else got up, my guide and I walked to the lake. The ground was crazy. In places it was hard and cracked with dried salt and in other places you would sink into mud past your ankles. There were fissures in the earth in places where hot water boiled up, producing steam. It was so cool; truly like being on another planet.

We could not get right up to the lake as the mud was too thick, but we got to see a lot.

Back at the camp, we had breakfast and then four of us walked to a different part of the lake, where the water appeared pink – because it was covered in flamingos! I had never seen so many. It was incredible. We couldn’t get too close without scaring them off, so my pictures are a bit lacking In quality resolution, but in person it was beautiful.

*Me and the original guide and driver and the substitute driver*

We packed up and started the journey to another lake – Lake Assal. On the way we met lots of camels and a small troupe of curious monkeys.

Our group dwindled as we dropped off our add-on travelers and again, we were three.

Lake Assal

Lake Assal is relatively close to the city, but on the other side. (It is easily visitable as a day trip from Djibouti City.) It Is notable for being a hypersaline lake, like the Dead Sea, and also for being the lowest place in Africa. I had had the experience of floating in the Dead Sea and didn’t feel like getting all salt encrusted so I didn’t swim in it, but it was beautiful. Like nothing I had seen before. Blinding white and reflective; like ice. We could walk out quite far on the salt before it turned into a lake, but with the water on top of the sale it became like a mirror.

At the shore were a few young men and boys selling salt and items, like animal skulls, that had been submerged in the lake and were now salt-encrusted artifacts.

*this would have looked so cool in my office*

We drove back to the city, stopping at a massive gorge and a view of the landscape.

It was an excellent experience and while it was not cheap, it was worth the money.

Back at Djibouti City, I would have another day before heading home via London.

For my post about Djibouti City, click here.

Move on to my layover in London here.

*friendly kids in a village in Djibouti*

Eritrea-Djibouti trip 2024 United Arab Emirates

Melting Down in Dubai

This post won’t make a lot of sense unless you’ve read my previous ones about Cairo and Asmara on this particular trip, but you can read on anyway and I’ll try as best I can to sum up why I found myself sobbing in a hotel room in Dubai.

I arrived early in the morning at the airport in Dubai, having flown from Asmara, Eritrea on a spontaneous flight after other flights were cancelled. I knew I needed to get to Djibouti the next day, but I didn’t have a flight booked. I immediately sat down at the airport, got a coffee and logged on to Skyscanner. I was looking for any flights that would fly me to Djibouti and get me there, at the very latest, by the end of the next day. The day after the next day I had a rather expensive overnight tour booked to go to Lake Abbé and I wasn’t going to miss it. (Of course none of this would have been a problem if all of the flights out of Eritrea on Ethiopian Air hadn’t been cancelled, which is what led me having to book an emergency flight to Dubai in the first place and why I was sitting at the airport without any flights or hotels booked. The previous post sets this all out.)

I found a flight: one flight from Dubai that met my needs. It would be early the next morning and was a direct flight from Dubai to Djibouti city. It was like $800 US. The amount of money that I spent trying to reorganize my trip itinerary after the flight cancellations and Eritrea was significantly more than I originally paid, but what could I do?

I booked the flight online. Of course, now that meant I would be staying the night in Dubai, so I got online and found a hotel. I didn’t spend too long looking, I just booked a Radisson Blu (Dubai Deira) that was close to a stop on the metro so it would be easy for me to get back to the airport in the morning, but also it was within walking distance of the Creek.

I took the metro to the hotel. The hotel was big new and fancy, and not my sort of usual place but I was glad to see it. I was happy for all the comforts and conveniences. They let me check in very early, at like 8:00 in the morning. I got to my room feeling pretty pleased with myself for getting everything back on track. And then I checked my e-mail.

As I said, I had booked an overnight tour to visit Lake Abbé in Djibouti and camp out overnight, and it was kind of expensive, particularly for one person, but I had paid for it ahead of time by a wire transfer. When I opened my e-mail, I had a message from the tour company saying that they had not received my wire and I would need to pay for the tour in cash on my arrival. This was exactly the sort of reason that I always carry extra cash on me, but I no longer had my extra cash because I had to spend it all buying my emergency plane ticket out of Eritrea. I also didn’t know if I could get more cash because I have a $200 CDN per day limit on my ATM card. And here’s where I melted down.

I just started to cry. And I don’t mean that my eyes filled with tears, or I was subtly boo hooing. I started sobbing. I think it was all a bit too much. Since going on the trip I had the strange man enter my hotel room at night in Cairo, I lost my ATM card in the bank machine in Cairo, flights was cancelled out of Eritrea, and I had to spend all of my extra cash on a new flight, and I had just had to book a new another new flight to Djibouti and book a hotel, and on top of all of it, I had only been having about two to four hours of sleep per night for many days. And I just melted down. I cried so long and so loud that I actually got a call from the hotel reception asking if I was OK. I felt so worn down and defeated that I actually thought about just giving up and booking a flight back to Canada but I didn’t do that because even in my despair I knew that all of this was temporary and I know that the things that goes wrong on vacations are usually the things that we talk about later and wear as badges of honour. So I stuck it out, but in that moment, I felt lousy and weak.

I finally pulled myself together and left the hotel. I decided that what I would do was get the cash that I needed for the tour as an advance off my credit card and then use online banking to pay the credit card back right away. It was a solution. (As it turns out, the guy from the company wasn’t trying to scam me, it’s just that the wire transfer never did get there. And about a month after I got back from the trip the bank returned the money into my account.)

I walked down to the Creek, my face puffy from tears, and I hopped into an abra (one of the little boats) and went to the other side. I walked around a bit but I was still feeling pretty low, so I just went to a café by the water that I had been to twice before ordered some shisha and juice and a platter of delicious vegetarian treats and I just sat there listening to podcasts and relaxing. Eventually I went back to my hotel. I had a nap and went out in the evening for a walk and a cigar and talked to my sister on the phone, which also made me feel a bit better.

*lunch and shisha* *(eyes still puffy from red eye flights and crying)*

I think it’s important to remember that things are going to go wrong when you travel and that it’s generally temporary and you just need to tough it out; but also, that sometimes it is ok to cry and feel bad. Not everything with travel is fun and beautiful. Anyone that says it is, is lying.

I had a terrific sleep in my giant fluffy bed at the hotel. I awoke very early, and I went back to the airport to catch my flight to Djibouti, only about 24 hours later than my original schedule.

Sobbing in my hotel room in Dubai was definitely the low point of this whole trip and things would only improve from there, but even with all the things that went wrong in this trip to Eritrea and Djibouti, it ended up being my favourite trip of 2024.

On to Djibouti…

Eritrea Eritrea-Djibouti trip 2024

Escape from Eritrea

This is the tale about how I was briefly stranded in Asmara but was able to get out quickly through some sheer luck, kindness, and quick thinking.

In my previous post I wrote about my arrival in Eritrea and the splendid first day that I had visiting the sites of Asmara. I was poised to spend another two days in the capital enjoying being off the grid and relaxing at cafes and checking out historical architecture. I awoke that second day feeling slightly more rested. I’d slept for about four hours, and I headed out in search of coffee. I had an espresso and was just walking down the Main Street when I ran into my guide from yesterday, Selihom. I said “Hello,” and she almost immediately asked me if I was affected by the flight cancellations. “What flight cancellations?” I asked. She told me that Air Ethiopia had, effective immediately, canceled all flights in and out of Eritrea after some perceived sleight. While Ethiopia and Eritrea aren’t technically at war, they are in sort of an administrative standoff and have been for decades. “Huh,” I thought, “that doesn’t sound good.” But I didn’t immediately panic. Yes, in two days’ time I had a flight out of Eritrea on Air Ethiopia flying to Addis Ababa and then to Djibouti, but that was in two days; “Surely things will get sorted out by then,” I thought.

I went and had a cigar and one of those excellent tiny little macchiatos that they make in Ethiopia and Eritrea and I thought about the situation. It quickly dawned on me that this was actually quite bad. There were only three airlines that fly in and out of Eritrea and Air Ethiopia was the main one. If the flights were grounded I had no way to leave. (Land borders were not an option.) And while sometimes I wouldn’t mind being stranded abroad, Eritrea is not one of those countries. It’s not that isn’t lovely, but it has certain disadvantages: the lack of Internet means working remotely is impossible, the very high price of accommodations makes it impractical, and the fact that they don’t accept credit cards means that my cash would very quickly run out. I realized that I needed to get out of the country right away before any remaining flights filled up with people trying to do the same thing.

Fortunately, I had downloaded an offline map of Asmara ahead of time and consulted it and found three airline offices in the city. The first was Air Ethiopia. That very quickly turned out to be a non-starter. The office was closed and there were about 100 people outside angrily yelling and demanding service. Then there was an Air Emirates and a Fly Dubai office side by side downtown. The Air Emirates office had two very stressed out looking representatives working and a massive queue of people waiting for assistance. These were all people that were affected by the flight cancellations looking to get out of the country. The Fly Dubai office only had one customer service representative but had slightly fewer people in the queue. So I decided to wait there. With me in the queue was a woman living in Tanzania who had come to Asmara on business; she was a conservationist working with the government. She was in the same situation as me. She was very pleasant, and we had a lovely chat while we waited. She travels to Eritrea a lot and confirmed that these flights were going to fill up quickly and once they did there would be no way, easily, out of the country.

When it was my turn, I went up to the representative and said that I was looking for a flight out of the country later that night or the next morning to Dubai or Istanbul or Addis. (I didn’t want to fly back to Cairo because I didn’t have a visa for re-entry.) From any one of the three cities I would be able to get a flight to Djibouti.

The woman said we have a flight to Dubai tonight at approximately 11:30pm. “Terrific,” I said, “I’ll take it. How much?” “$714 U.S. dollars,” she said. I froze up for a second and asked hopefully, “Do you take credit cards?” “No,” she said, “only local cash and US cash.” OK. I had an envelope of cash with me. I pulled it out and started counting out my US money. I started by counting the 50s, then the 20s, then the 10s, by the time I got down to the ones, I realized I wasn’t going to have quite enough. I was $7.00 short – but I had euros. “No euros,” she said, “only U.S. dollars.” I did have the option of leaving and exchanging the euros into local money and coming back, but she wouldn’t hold the flight for me. I tried to bargain with her, but she wasn’t budging and the others behind me waiting to book flights were getting impatient (I imagined). Thankfully my conservationist friend from Tanzania handed me a crisp US $10.00 bill and allowed me to make the payment. Hallelujah. The woman was booking herself on the same flight to Dubai later that night.

I paid for my flight and headed back to my hotel with $3 in my pocket.

A few pictures i took that day before i got the bad news

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. I was able to act quickly figure out what I needed to do and get a flight out of the country, all without using the Internet or credit cards. Just old-fashioned map reading quick thinking and cash carrying.

I still had no idea how I was going to get to Djibouti, but I was going to figure that out once I got to Dubai and had the Internet access.

I exchanged €10, which gave me enough to have dinner and get a ride back to the airport.

At my hotel I ordered dinner. Some vegetable pasta. However, when they brought it to me it was meat pasta. I normally wouldn’t care about these things, and I would just send it back and ask for what I ordered, but I was running out of time before I had to go to the airport and there was no time for them to remake the dish. Nor were they willing to give me a refund. It was all very frustrating, but I didn’t have time to argue with them. So I just left my food and my money, hungrily, grabbed my bag and caught a ride back to the airport.

The airport in Asmara is quite bare bones. There are no lounges. There are a couple of souvenir shops that may or may not be open. Other than that. it’s just benches. Like an old-fashioned bus stop. However, the mood was fun. I saw the faces of many people that I had seen throughout the day at the different airport offices. We were all smiling at each other and happily saying things like “Oh you made it!” and feeling sort of a general camaraderie about having gotten out of a bad situation. I sat with my conservationist friend and chatted until the flight came. Oh, and I had a shot of Eritrean vodka from the small bar/cafe at the airport, which cost me about $1.

Once I was on the plane with the wheels were up, I felt a more relaxed. I didn’t get to spend my three glorious days in Asmara, but I got to spend one very enjoyable day of sightseeing and another rather exciting, albeit stressful, day of problem solving. Even though it was a bit stressful in the moment, I knew that later on I would look back on this experience fondly.

Plus, this really reinforced a lot of my travel habits, including: always have cash (more than you need); know your maps, and have a printed or offline one; know how to get around and generally do things without the use of cell phones and Wi-Fi; and be flexible.

As we left Asmara very late and we landed in Dubai at about 6:00am, I had little or no sleep again that night, which made probably five days of having less than four hours of sleep. I would land in Dubai without any fixed plans but knowing that I needed to get to Djibouti in about 36 hours so I would not miss out on the rather pricey overnight tour I had booked to visit Lake Abbé. I was up for the challenge.

Read on here for my overnight Dubai layover and how I managed to get myself to Djibouti.

As a postscript, about a month later, my Air Ethiopian flight was refunded in full. Although I ended up spending far more for my last-minute tickets to Djibouti than I had originally. Air Ethiopian flights eventually did resume to Eritrea, but I wouldn’t count on it. If I was doing the flight now I would probably pick a more reliable airline.

Eritrea Eritrea-Djibouti trip 2024

Back in Time in Asmara, Eritrea

When I told people I was going to Eritrea, all but the most die-hard travelers had not heard of it. Fair enough. Although Eritrea is famous for a long-standing conflict with Ethiopia, it is not well known to your average person. Eritrea occupies a sliver of land northeast of Ethiopia, just above Djibouti, and along the Red Sea.

Eritrea has been notoriously difficult to visit. You need a visa and someone on the ground to arrange it for you. At the time I went, you had to go as part of a tour, but the tour needn’t occupy all of your time. You needed a permit to leave Asmara (the capital). There is little to no wifi, no ATMs, credit cards are not accepted, and the country tightly controls the information coming in and out. It is often referred to as the “North Korea of Africa.” Not exactly inviting.

But I was so curious to visit this secretive nation that I planned a trip around it.

I booked a day tour and visa support through an Eritrean travel agency called Adulis Travel. They were very helpful. All I had to do was send them my info and agree to pay them in cash and they took care of my visa, hotel, and tour.

I planned to spend a few days in Asmara. One day on the tour and then two days to myself being gloriously offline; relaxing at cafes and taking in the architecture.

I arrived from Cairo (written about in my previous post). I arrived after midnight and my guide, Selihom, was waiting for me and thankfully so. With her help, I was able to get my visa in my passport in about 30 minutes. Others waited for more than an hour. I paid $70US cash for the visa and Selihom dropped me off at my hotel, promising to pick me up in a few hours for my day tour. Sigh. Another night of only a few hours’ sleep.

I stayed at the Crystal Hotel. There are other and cheaper options, but they are located farther from the centre. The Crystal Hotel was not cheap, but central and well staffed. My room was huge and devoid of any character.

My first glimpse of Asmara was that it was completely empty of people and quiet at this time of night. Also, the streets were immaculate. Well-paved and free of trash. It looked quaint and I could not wait to go see it tomorrow.

The next morning, Selihom picked me up with a driver. The tour would be a walking / driving affair. It was a good introduction to the city. Of course, were it not for the need to have a tour to get the visa, I would have visited on my own and that would have been fine, but we did see a lot on that first day and I got a good sense of what the place was like. What was allowed, what people’s lives were like, etc. As much as you can in a day.

We visited Medebar market – always a favourite stop of mine. We went to a local scrap area where people were taking discarded items and making them into new things. Old paint cans, scrap metal, barrels et cetera, all became something new. They told me this is because of their environmental concerns, and I am not saying that is untrue, but it is certainly also because they do not have a lot of money or access to world markets.

Medebar Market and a welder there with a homemade mask

We visited a video store and electronic repair shop. I know, but it was really interesting. Because there is little to no wifi in the country, people are not streaming their media; they are renting it. Ah, nostalgia. The guy fixing the TVs and phones said he could fix everything and did. Again, in a limited economy things must be reused, but it is also a good lesson to those that throw things away and replace them without a second thought.

We walked the streets of the downtown area. This was terrific. Asmara is full of 1940s architecture, and little has been upgraded. It is a UNESCO site for these reasons. Part of what makes it so appealing is that the Italians occupied Eritrea, built terrific theatres and cafes and then left and the country has been more or less frozen in time since then. Those cinemas and cafes are still in use. The coffees and atmospheres are wonderful. All of Asmara has this suspended in time feeling and in a lovely way. No billboards or flashing signs, people are not on their phones constantly (because no wifi), there are old cars, clean streets, and everything is quite well taken care of. It reminded me a little of Havana before they got wifi.

This was the atmosphere I wanted to enjoy for a few days.

The only downside is that Asmara has very strict smoking laws. No smoking indoors or on any patios. Period. And I only found one place (a courtyard at a hotel) that was willing to break the rules. That was a bit of a disappointment. I had imagined myself on patios with tiny Eritrean/Italian coffees, puffing on a Ramon Allones. Oh well. I still was able to smoke outside my hotel in the evening sitting on a chair they let me borrow.

We continue our tour by visiting the thing I was most excited to see: the Fiat Tagliero Building. The building was designed as a petrol station by Giuseppe Pettazzi and was built in 1938. It has an art deco/futurist style and is intended to look like an airplane. It is fabulous. It is no longer in use but is very much intact and you can enter and climb up to the roof for a different perspective. It was this building that first made me want to visit Asmara and it did not disappoint.

But there was more to come!

We visited the tank graveyard; a pretty field littered with piles of tanks, trucks, and other army vehicles. They remain there as a symbol of Eritrean independence and its victorious struggle against Ethiopia in the war of independence (1961 to 1991). The site is just out in the open but there is a cabal of taxi drivers who monitor the comings and goings and charge a small fee. It was super fun to climb on all the old wrecks and play with the tanks.

Amongst the things frozen in time in Asmara is the bowling alley. Built in the early 1950s for American using a base nearby, it exudes vintage charm. Vintage photos of long deceased leagues adorn the walls. Translucent red brick detail on the walls and lanes where the balls are returned and the pins reset by hand. By children. Of course, Selihom and I played a round. There was no one else bowling at the time, but the billiards tables next to the lanes were packed.

We stopped by a cemetery and walked the tombstones and then we had lunch.

Traditional Eritrean food is similar to Ethiopian and I had a platter of vegetarian treats served on spongy injera bread.

We made a final stop, which was up in the mountains for views of the valley and to try a local cactus fruit that is picked and sold by the local kids. Honestly the fruit was only so-so, but I had several of them.

It was a marvellous day. I learned a lot of about Eritrea, saw ‘the sites’, and enjoyed Selihom’s company. And then I was set free.

I went out for dinner – pizza (hey, it was an Italian colony) – and had a walk and a cigar before bed. I couldn’t wait for the next day of wandering around at my own pace and enjoying the city. Except…that didn’t happen.

Sorry for the cliffhanger, but read on, for the tale of how quickly things can change in Eritrea.

Egypt Eritrea-Djibouti trip 2024

Return to Cairo

I planned a trip to Eritrea and Djibouti. On the way there I would have a 24-hour or so layover in Cairo. I was delighted. I hadn’t been to Cairo since 1995. Even more excited because when asked what my favourite country is, a question that is impossible to answer, my standard response is Egypt. I loved Egypt I travelled from to Cairo, Aswan, Suez, Sharm El-Sheikh, and Dahab in ‘95. I loved everything that I saw and did. So I was thrilled to be going back, even if just for a short visit.

(Right about here, I would normally provide a link back to the previous posts that I had done about my past trip to Egypt. But I was there in 1995. This was before blogs and international ATMs, digital cameras, Google maps, text messages and GPS. I think that is part of the reason that Egypt is one of my favourite trips ever, because it was all done solo and without all these modern day conveniences. I really had to figure it out as I went. And it was an amazing adventure.)

*Flashback to me in 1995 heading out on my first solo trip to Israel & Egypt*

Returning to 2024, Egypt and Canada were having some sort of a row, so they had done away, temporarily, with the e-visa and visa-on-arrival systems and I had to spend nearly $300 CDN sending my passport away to the embassy for a more traditional visa. But I had it in place and was ready to breeze through immigration. Which I did.

Arrival and my Night in Cairo – Things go a bit wrong

I landed late. Hopped in a taxi and went to my hotel downtown. The Eileen Hotel. By the time I got to the hotel it was about 11:30 at night. I should have just gone to bed because I had a full day of sightseeing that I wanted to do, and I was already tired from having flown from Vancouver to London to Cairo, but as the taxi zipped through the city and I saw all the people out at cafes smoking shisha and lights on the buildings, I thought “I should go out for just a little while.” And so I did – and here’s where things started to go wrong, as they did repeatedly on this trip.

I didn’t have any Egyptian pounds. I had American dollars and some Euros. But since many things were closed I didn’t see a place to change money, so I went to an ATM. A proper ATM at a bank. I inserted my card, tried to take out money, and the machine would not return my card. It gave me an error message. And when it became apparent that my card was not coming out, I started to panic a bit. This was my only source of getting cash. Yes, I had cash on me, but I was going to two other countries that were primarily cash-based economies, and I needed that money to pay for things like hotels and tours and food. If I couldn’t get some extra cash, I was going to be in a bad way. Plus, I was tired and not thinking that well.

I waited in the ATM vestibule as person after person came in to use it and discovered it was out of service. I tried to ask for help but most of them didn’t know what I was talking about. Finally, the machine made a loud kerchunk sound and powered down and powered back up again. The next person that came in was able to use the machine no problem, at that point I knew my card was gone.

I was stressed, and I walked back to the hotel and told the guy at the desk what had happened. He said that I should go to the bank in the morning to try to get the card back, but in the meantime, he said, “I’m just getting off my shift why don’t we go out and smoke some shisha?” And he said he would pay.

The next thing I knew I was on the back of his tiny motorcycle flying through the streets of Cairo to the Khan el-Khalili area, where we went to a second-floor rooftop outdoor cafe, and before I knew it I had shisha and juice, and we were watching performers dance and twirl capes above their heads. It was good fun. And they took credit cards, so I paid for everything. (Not that it was much money.)

He dropped me off at the hotel. At this point it was about 2:30 in the morning and I really needed to get to sleep. My alarm was set to go off at 6:00 AM, as I had a lot to do the next day before I would leave for the airport. I fell asleep immediately.

I woke up not long after when the door to my small room flew open and there was a figure, a man, in the doorway. I didn’t even think. I’m not even sure if I was fully awake, I just jumped out of bed, shoved the guy back, and slammed the door in his face. I then opened the door, yelled “fuck you!” and then slammed the door in his face a second time. (I’m not sure that second door opening was really necessary, but I was angry.) I tried to go back to sleep but my heart was beating so fast, and my adrenaline was going, and it was a while before I could fall asleep again. I slept for maybe two hours total.

A New Day in Cairo

The next morning, the hotel apologized profusely and said they had made a mistake and thought the room was empty. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but nevertheless it was an upsetting disruption to my sleep. And that was the second thing that went wrong on this trip. Perhaps more importantly, this was my second night in a row I was not really sleeping.

After breakfast, I did as the hotel worker had suggested, and I went to the bank. His advice to me was to tell them about my card but not to remain calm. He said that I should appear panicked and that I should cry if I could and tell that I needed this card for my trip. I couldn’t bring myself to cry, but I did work myself up into a nice state of anxiety and told him the situation. After about half an hour I had my card back. So, the first problem was resolved thankfully.

With that done, I set out to explore Cairo. It would have been really nice to have visited the new museum but that was way too far away, over at the pyramids, and I didn’t want to spend that much time in traffic, so I just walked around downtown and went for some nice shisha and coffee, and went back to the Khan el-Khalili bazaar and wandered around there, having a cigar and a coffee, I visited a couple of mosques, and then went to the citadel for more mosques and a view over the city.

It was just a quick downtown sightseeing jaunt, but it was terrific. Cairo was wonderful. It didn’t feel quite as foreign and exotic is when I was there 29 years before. I suppose both I and the city have changed. But it had a good energy and lots of interesting things to see and do.

One thing that made it much easier is that rather than spending half my time haggling about taxi prices, I was able to cover long distances in an Uber. Some of the drivers will still try to negotiate a price with you in cash, but if you tell them that you were only paying through the app, that ends that conversation. It made things a lot easier.

Finally, after dinner, I went back to the airport, for a late-night flight to Asmara, Eritrea.

*views of Cairo and me at an outdoor shisha cafe*

Vietnam Vietnam Laos trip 2024

Hanoi: Vintage Motorcycle Tour

On my second evening in Hanoi, I realized that I had done most of what I wanted to do but that I still had a half a day before I went to the airport the next day. So I looked into what sort of walking tours perhaps I could do. But I found something even better: a tour of Hanoi on a vintage motorbike. This was offered by Hanoi Backstreet Tours and I booked it immediately.

I was picked up at my hotel by a fellow riding a vintage-looking army motorcycle. We were joined by another two guides each with a guest on their motorcycles. A couple from Japan. And off we went. It was terrific. It took us through areas of the city that I had not visited and gave me some small photo opportunities. They also took us through tiny little back streets, that we skilfully wound through on the motorbikes. They took us to some interesting shops including one that made wedding cakes and another that made replica luxury goods out of paper for burning to achieve good luck in the afterlife. We went to a market and saw chickens and fish and other creatures. A lot of interesting historical details were shared.

We even left the city at one point and went across a bridge and saw some of the shantytowns down by the river.

While near the market, we passed a small square where young men were smoking big bamboo pipes. I had seen this already the day before in my walk around but I wasn’t sure what they were smoking in them. The guide explained that they were smoking tobacco, called thuoc lao. It’s not cigarette tobacco. It is closer to the sort of tobacco that you would use to roll a cigar, though it is not fermented in the same way. The pipe, made from bamboo and called a điếu cày, Is kind of like a water pipe. Of course I wanted to try it.

The guide spoke to one of the young men who agreed to let me try his pipe. He lit it for me, got it going, and then handed it to me. I placed my mouth over the end and inhaled deeply, taking in a lungful of the potent smoke. I am a daily cigar smoker but I have never smoked cigarettes, so inhaling is not a natural thing for me. I immediately started coughing and laughing at the same time, much to the amusement of the small crowd of young men that had gathered around to watch the idiot tourist try the giant pipe. Below is a still from a humiliating video of me trying the pipe. Still, it was a fun experience I’m glad that I tried it.

It all wound up with an excellent lunch. It was superb. We covered more ground on the motorcycles, and it was just fun.

Rather than having them drop me off at my hostel, I asked her to drop me off at the La Casa del Habano, that I had passed earlier. I had just enough time for a cigar. I went in and had a Quai d’Orsay in a very civilized environment before catching a Grab back to my hostel and a taxi to the airport. It was a terrific way to wind up my time in Southeast Asia on this trip.

My next trip would be to Eritrea and Djibouti, via Cairo.