I have seen some sights on my travels. Most of today I spent wandering around downtown Dar es Salaam and thinking again what a splendidly nice place it is. I recommend it to anyone who would like to experience user-friendly Africa.
But then I got to the airport. I love train stations. I love ships. But my dislike of flying is matched by my hatred of airports, which is exacerbated by my antipathy towards airports where it takes an hour to get through the door into the check-in area, and where the system known as Third-World-Queueing takes place. Ie. it doesn't. The ruder the behaviour the better. After hours of watching people jump the queue so far, it was a distant memory, my mood was steaming, though then calmed by a thoroughly nice Australian gold-mining engineer called Tam Tang (he is joining my two-syllable-name club) chatting and chatting and chatting in the seat next to me. Even the crapness of Breaking and Entering didn't disturb my nice new calm mood. Until Dubai. At 1am, I stood at the top of a flight of stairs in Dubai airport and couldn't see the floor below. Not because Dubai airport isn't clean. It has open litter bins and everything. But because the floor space was covered with shoppers. Every shop is open and every shop and establishment is packed. At 1am. It looked like shopping centre Tokyo in daylight. But so global it included a quartet of noble, terrible and beautiful - sort of - Pashtun tribesmen sitting crosslegged next to their briefcases and looking like they were lacking horses and weapons.
But I am exhausted and awake and the Irish Village pub was full and I couldn't think what else to do so I changed the 50 dollar traveller's cheque I've been meaning not to change, was given some currency I've never heard of in return, and spent it on a bag of mini-Cadbury's caramels, a packet of Fruitella and, because I feel filthy, a small exquisite aquamarine-ish eyeshadow which I don't need and am far too filthy to try on. I have 100 of the unheard of currency left. Enough to buy the Pashtuns an Arab steer or two. They look grounded on the floor.