Okinawa

This year´s Japan trip went south, to Okinawa. Okinawa, the former Kingdom of Ryukyu, conquered by the Japanese in 17th century, about at the same time as our home province, Skåne, was conquered by the Swedes.

The Ryukyu was a major long distance sea trade hub, and to be allowed to trade with China, it had to accept the Chinese view of the world - that the Son of Heaven, the Chinese emperor, is the supreme ruler of the entire world and foreign places have to submit to him. (Chinese annals record tribute from places as far away as India and Portugal). From Ryukyu ship convoys would go to China with the Kingdom’s tribute to the Emperor, who would graciously send back gifts of  larger value. But trade was the important issue. Even the Japanese kept their conquest secret, not to jeopardize the trade (Japan itself did not submit to China, so no direct trade existed). Thus until the Meiji revolution, the Ryukyu king would privately swear allegiance to Japan, but would be formally enthroned by Chinese envoys in an elaborate investiture ceremony. The Okinawan languages are close to Japanese, but Ryukyu culture was greatly influenced by China and formal documents were written in Chinese - so the treaty of 1854 between Ryukyu kingdom and United States, shown in Naha museum, has a parallel text in English and Chinese

There are some striking differences between the island and mainland Japan. One is the presence of lion dogs, shiisaa, warding off evil spirits.

They are  everywhere - on private house roofs, in front of hoses, bank offices and castles, in parks, often in pairs, a female with mouth open and a male with mouth shut.

A masculinist would take it as an evidence of a dominant culture striving to silence males. After all the Ryukyuans believed that spiritual power is the domain of women and had a hierarchy of women shamans/priestesses, noro, at all levels of society and they were the only ones allowed to enter sacred places..  

Carribean cruise with Costa Mediterranea

Our first go at a cruise, so this will probably sound obvious to old hands

The ship, Costa Mediterranea

Obviously Italy inspired, on an Commedia dell´arte theme, a  gaudy cross between Las Vegas and La dolce vita. Apart from a few blemishes well kept, and the public premises conspicuously well cleaned. Our cabin, in a "superior" class, was about the style of a midrange hotel room shrunk to a minimal size (Two persons could hardly pass each other anywhere on the floor). 

But the public spaces, dining rooms, bars, theater, pool decks were generous. There was a fair size gym, and even a library with a copy of "Gone girl". WiFi existed on board, but was atrociously expensive

.

The staff
I had expected (correctly) a lot of Phillipinos and Thais, but found to my surprise many Indians, and quite number of Chinese. In China we always felt that hotel hospitality was not the country´s strong suite, but our waitress and assistant waiter were both Chinese and did very well.

The guests
A fair number of European old people, (my initial guess was an average age of 60+) but to our great surprise even families with small children. Italian was the language heard most often, with perhaps French almost as common. Among French speakers very elegant dark skinned families predominated - we got to exchange  a few words with an extended family of grandparents, parents and small children and it appeared that cruising is a popular passtime for the middle class from francophone West Indies. Many German speakers of course, and even a sprinkling of Russians.

The food

To my  unschooled  palate, the food was excellent. Italian style ala carte dinners, with a good choice of meat, fish or vegetarian entries, a huge choice of different breakfasts, from omelettes, egg and bacon to croissants and waffles with whipped cream and jam (my favourite) and a good choice of different  dishes for self-serve lunches.

 However I found the choice of deserts during the day limited, hardly a dozen, and only two flavours of ice cream.

The entertainment
There was live music in several bars practically the day long, and evening shows in the theatre, but especially in the theatre, the music - clasic, soul, or whatever style - was only bearable with earplugs, and we did not bring enough of those.

The excursions
We had been forewarned that the cruise organized excursions are overpriced, but could not have quessed the size of the difference. Booking similar excursion in port was almost half the price, and it turned out that some of the ship´s excursions´ intinerary (" a tour of the island and a beach") was easily covered by taxi for a quarter of the price, and with better flexibility.

Grand Turk

One unsung amenity of Grand Turk is that the cruise ship quay leads directly to a beach, so for swimming, it was by far the most convenient stop, but the island itself is flat and dusty, with salinas along the cost. Salt production apparently used to be a good business, one can see 19th century wooden houses of "salt barons" but many not very well kept.

Samana, Dominican Republic
The island is hillier and greener, so it makes a good background to the sea. The thing to do in Samana - when in season - is to go whale watching. We missed the established company´s multi deck boat and had to make do without the whale science explanations, but on our small plastic 4 bench boat, we went to the same spot, saw the same whales and felt very close to the sea. The whales were few, far between and kept their distance, even if our fast boat did its best to get close.

Tortola, British Virgin Islands
This was one of the high points of the cruise. A taxi took us over the green crest of hills to Cane Garden Bay beach, we had a "happy hour" taste of the local rum punch,  and enjoyed the sea. A particularly novel experience were the seabirds, brown pelicans and one other species, watching from a tall tree and then diving vertically for fish in complete disregard for the bathers - one hitting the water two meters from us.

Antigua

A beautiful view from the sea. A taxi roundtrip gave us the views of a ruin of sugar mill, a gleaming cricket stadium, rain forest, annanas in the free, the famed Nelson Harbour and local population in their best clothes for the Sunday services before taking us to a beach. On the return trip, the taxi driver picked up his fiancée to get her a lift to town, so we got a good picture of the "normal" villages on the island, not Denmark, but reasonably prosperous.

Guadeloupe
Another of my favourites. The cruise ship docks right in the centre of a real city (Guadeloupe is a an overseas department of France and Pont á Pitre its commercial hub) so apart from the tourist market (we bought beautiful gift sets of local spices there) there are real fishermen selling slices of a man sized tuna on the dock and there is wonderful choice of shops for everything, from rum to swimsuits (Annika bought two). Local bus took us to a beach opposite Ilet de Gosier. Swimming was great, seabirds flew around and in a tree, we got to see a huge lizard, green iguana.

Lucaya/Freeport Harbour, Grand Bahama
People rave about Lucaya, I found it the least interesting of our ports of call. The harbour facility is just a few tourist shops, neither Freeport nor Lucay, each of those is twenty minute´s taxi drive, and the taxi "queue" at the port shambolic and the taxis not quite in prime conditions, which was surprising.  All along the wide roads to Lucaya the impression was of riches, fancy bungalows set in large gardens, clubs, hotels. made me think of expensive sunny parts parts of the US. We ended up on  a free beach next door to the Casino and one of the resorts, Grand Lucayan. The beach was ok but the water cooler than in the other islands, and the mammoth hotel complexes at our back spoiled some of the fun.

All in all - cruising is fun when you enjoy your company (which we did) and it would be perhaps even more if we had made the right preparations (which we did not). Fodors Caribbean Ports of Call in our tablet was definitely not enough, and with the astronomic cost of onboard Internet connection, you would not be Googling the sights of the islands at breakfast.

Maputo, Mozambique

Strangely, it was more convenient to fly north to go to Africa. We were lucky with weather and timing, we enjoyed evening views of Stockholm (and Lidingö!),

and were in Addis Abeba in the morning. A bustling, not too well organized airport (On our way back, the lights in the airport went out, flickered and went out again and again. The waiting passangers just laughed.)

Lake Malawi

Kilimanjaro and Mt Arusha

Flying south the views were mostly unimpeded by clouds, and we had a good look at Mt Arusha and Kilimanjaro, Lake Malawi – as huge as the sea, the uninhabited spaces and the prominent greens of irrigated fields in parched red and yellow landscape.

The outline of Maputo from the air was right out of a glossy broschure.

Maputo

Matola

Maputo is a strange mix. One part well kept old Portuguese buildings - the railway station, designed by Gustave Eiffel is considered one of the 9 most beautiful railway stations in the world -  some of the hotels, some former private houses and mansions now serving state institutions or the new elite, one part "socialist" apartment blocks in various degrees of disrepair, one part gleaming new department stores and bank buildings  - and an enormous number of informal housing, huts with corrugated iron roofs, stretching as far as you can see in all directions. The house walls facing the major roads are neatest - painted with ads for the dominant phone company. And everyone carries a phone, you can see a woman carrying a huge can of wallpaint on her head talking on the phone as she walks

One of the most prominent features of the city center is the disastrous state of the sidewalks - you can literally not walk ten meters along the city´s central avenues without encountering a deep hole or a few square meters of pavement missing. Walking is made even more difficult by the parked cars which in daytime block the sidewalks. The cars are many, often large and surprisingly modern (we are told most are second hand imports from Japan), and the morning and evening traffic slows to a crawl for several hours.

The huge amount of garbage all over the city - on the pavements, in the streets, on every green spot and contruction sites - is another striking feature, the most amazing thing being that these makeshift garbage dumps are seen even just outside the city´s better hotels. 

All the streets in the city are named for the African

heroes of the liberation wars, Of course you find The Eduardo Mondlane avenue and the Samora Machel Avenue but also Julius Nyerere, Robert Mugabe, Kennet Kaunda, Patrice Lumumba, etc, etc have their avenues.Except for such prominent communist leaders as Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Tse Tung and Friedrich Engels the only non-Africans to have an avenue named for them (as far as Annika could see) are Salvador Allende, Olof Palme and – Kim il Sung..

According to our guide book Maputo should be a city ideal to explore by foot but it seemed that the author had not taken into account the poor state of the pavements and the traffic (no driver payed attention to traffic lights, let alone to pedestrians). The prudent way to cross a street was to hang on to a mother with small children, hoping she knew what she was doing. During daytime, all streets are crowded, but except for the traffic Annika felt safe exploring the city by foot and truly enjoyed her 4 hour-long walk.until she happened to go an avenue too far and ended up on Avenida de Guerra Popular where a huge street market was going on and the people were practically packed solid. That led to the sudden disappearance of her iPhone from her backpack, which could have happened in any crowd and she just blames herself for being careless. But one does not expect to be robbed, almost all shops have guards, many wielding submachine guns, and as there are ministries and presidential compounds in the neighbourhood, military is much in evidence.

Maputo does not boast many traditional sights apart from the old Portuguese fort and City Hall, but the city as such is a great experience. Quite striking is a statue of Samora Machel, a gift from North Korea, that stands in Praca Independencia and the railway station really deserves its reputation.

The main roads leading out from the city are, apart from garbage, lined by stalls selling everything imaginable, fruits, fast food, grilled fish, drapes, dresses, car exhausts, furniture, doors, concrete blocks...

 A huge amount of building is going on everywhere. Roads are being built with foreign capital and whole new districts of family housing by private owners, at far edges of Maputo and in its satelite city of Matola. All land is state owned in name, and can not be bought or sold, but "traditional owners" exist, and house builders must compensate them either directly or via the municipality, and are considered to obtain some type of permanent land usage right.

We had the opportunity to see the houses being built by two of my students(middle age university teachers with professional wives),  in Maputo and Matola. The striking feature was the large size of the lots and the houses (one with a pool and an outer kitchen and staff quarters in an outhouse), and the high building and equipment standard. However there is no mortgage financing, and the families bury most of  their spare cash in the house projects which may take ten years or more. Home owner associations with compulsory membership finance all water, electricity, roads etc which are nominally the responsibility of the city, but would never materialize. They even built the police station and supply food to the policemen. It is a strange sight to see rows of beautiful houses along a dirt street which may become unpassable in heavy rain.

Domestic staff is not covered by minimum wage rules, thus all my students had at least one full time help to do the chores and the cooking - we were told that there are cases of people who would even work for just food and lodging.

An interesting experience was a retail/wholesale fruit and vegetable market at the edge of the city. Apart from those selling oranges from lorries, practically all the sellers were women who apparently trade on their own account. All trade is by volume, we saw no scales at all. Some of the prices were ludicruously low - you could get a perhaps 20 kg box of local tomatoes for 5 meticales, about 0.20USD.

The middle class eateries in central Maputo are surprisingly expensive, on par with capitals of western Europe, and even the very basic university cafeteria was definitly not cheap - particularly when seen in relation wage levels (a trained nurse salary 200USD/mo, medical doctor´s starting salary 600USD/mo), let alone to to the country's GDP - 1200USD per capita at PPP, almost 50 times lower than Sweden.

Fish, peixe vermelho and garoupa, and prawns are the flagship dishes, very good taste (excellent in Annika´s opinion), but no real surprise. Petr tasted for the first time bacalhao, and the taste was very similar to "lutfisk". He enjoyed the more surprising part of the cuisine, sauces that go with fish or chicken, based on pumpkin or cassava leaves, with groundnuts, coconut milk and prawns. A common fast food were puff pastry pies, Petrs favourite was spicy beef and cheese filling. To his delight, European style cakes were common.

Our hotel, Monte Carlo, billed itself as 5-star at 3-star prices, we would say the other way round, but hotel prices are outrageous in Maputo. Service standards are good compared to Sweden, but "service with a smile" seems to be a slogan no one has ever heard, although people were not unfriendly, ”simply doing their job” as a guidebook put it. Trying as heard as we could to be friendly, we elicited some response at best in one of ten cases.

Petr`s students took us a bit around by car, one of the interesting experiences was the life along Avenida da Marginal, a main road leading out of the city center along the edge of the ocean. All the coastline was at ebb a wide sand beach. We could see people digging for mussels by the bucket (we did pick up a few shells as memories and Annika  was presented a beautiful shell by a schoolboy), large groups of people being baptized, some, very few, boys play in water - its early spring, after all.  Near the city there is a promenade walkway along the  waterfront, beloved by guidebooks. Annika decided to walk back to the city along it, but apparently the guidebook authors did not see the walkway in real life, just copied from a description from times long past. Not surprising, after all Mozambique is one of Africa´s poorest countries and the walk way as such, lined with palms and with a view on the Indian Ocean was beautiful.

At the airport on our way home, we were surprised to see a stewardess carrying a huge round cake past the security. Eventually, we learned that 11th Sept is Ethiopean New Year, and aboard Ethiopean Air, everyone was treated to a piece of cake, a perfect end to a great trip!