Day 1: Dar Es Salaam via Dubai

Dubai airport is massive! Emirates have the entirety of Terminal 3 which is a massively elongated rectangle. All races and nationalities are here, it almost feels like a casting call for an overly PC corporation's promo material. Africans in tribal dress, others in suits, kawaii Japanese girls on laptops, Emiratis in their flowing white robes, Indians, Asian businessmen, women in burqas, Germans in socks and sandals, a French girls hockey team and the odd bogan in a Billabong singlet.

Queues everywhere as well! Waiting for security checks, waiting for the toilet, the coffee machine, any kind of food or drink. Even at 5am on a Sunday it's very crowded. Duty free liquor is very cheap - $20 USD for a 1L bottlel of Smirnoff! Will be stocking up on the way back.

The free wifi isn't working for either of us which is annoying, no idea what's wrong with it. Had a look at the McDonalds menu but the only non-standard item was the "McArabian Chicken". The picture looked interesting but I didn't feel like eating Maccas or waiting in a 10-minute queue just to find out, so I guess we'll never know! Annoyingly, most of the free services are Terminal 1 and our flight arrived early, so we're just chilling at the departure gate.

The flight to Dar was fairly uneventful. I played games, fiddled with my phone and watched football clips on the plane's video system. Shandos slept most of the flight. The plane cautiously avoided Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Spectacular scenery of desert canyons around the coast of Oman! Flew over much of Somalia as well, but the last leg was over the ocean. Approach to Dar was over the city, giving us a good idea of what to expect.

On arrival: chaos! Buying visas beforehand was a great idea - the line was very long and not moving. The arrivals hall was extremely hot - a/c units everywhere but I don't think they were running. Baggage eventually arrived, so first major fear was averted! Found a taxi easily enough, I was a bit nervous but they were wearing Taxi ID badges and were up-front with the fixed prices.

The drive from the airport took about 20 minutes, traffic isn't thick but the drivers are very reckless. Everyone beeps frequently and doesn't bother with indicators or lanes. It seems to work. For some reason 90% of the vehicles are Toyotas. There's the odd Suzuki, Nissan or VW but almost exclusively Toyota. Even spotted a few riced-up Celicas!

By the time we arrived at Jambo Inn I'd accepted that the cabbie wasn't goingn to rob us, but felt very intimidated at being obviously tourists, the only white people around and in front of a lot of people just sitting around on the street.

Checked into the hotel which is nice by Tanzanian standards I guess, went up to our room and the gravity of the situation sunk in. Felt pretty down for a while, but eventually we went and sat on our balcony overlooking the street and started to warm up to the place.

People that I first thought were wandering aimlessly actually all had a purpose - most people were carrying something or selling something. The people who were just hanging around were usually sitting and laughing/chatting with friends. We saw a few tourists as well who nobody gave any heed to, despite sticking out like sore thumbs. After an hour or so we worked up the courage to head out for a walk, so off into the late afternoon we went!

Walked down to the waterfront which took about 20 minutes, not much there except a small park and the ferry terminal surrounded by taxi touts. We wandered back to the hotel as it was gathering dark and we didn't want to be out in it. But it was good to get out into the city a bit.

Dar is an interesting city. Almost all the buildings are semi-decrepit relics from the 1950s, covered in wires and rust. Most of the locals seem to ignore the buildings, doing their business out on the street. It's not squalid, but not all that clean either. Most pedestrians walk on the road as the pavements are pretty destroyed. A moderate amount of construction is happening, we saw one building with the upper floors completely held in place by sticks!

Ate dinner at the hotel's Indian/BBQ restaurant. Decent food, cheap and tasty. Went to sleep very early, woke up from jetlag at 2am and the call to prayer from the nearby mosque at 5:30. Eventually got up at 6 and did more traffic watching.Read more