South Africa

Afternoon all,

I am in sunny South Africa today. Knackered as hell as I left my house in England at 03:00 am on sunday morning. I arrived in Johannesburg at 21:00. My rep from the other company was there to pick me up. It was a 2 1/2 hour drive from Johannesburg to Klerksdorp where I stayed the night in a motel. As per usual when I arrive in a new country the next morning it was pissing down like the clappers. As the restaurant was in a different building from the motel I had a nice extra shower running from the motel to the restaurant.

The flight here yesterday was OK. I flew with KLM and for a change the food was good, the stewardesses weren't too fat to fit their arses between the aisles, everything was on time and we actually arrived on schedule. I don't remember too much from either flight as I was asleep for most of it. That did mean the buggers kept bypassing me with the food, bastards. I mean, what trouble is it just to put the tray in front of somebody who is sleeping???

This morning my new best pal Hannes drove me from the hotel to the site while giving me a running commentary on the social and economical developments in South Africa. Hmmm, this country still has a way to go before all aspects of the population are integrated. Never mind, tonight I'm off to my guest house which is called 'Little Dreams' guest house. According to the site people it is a nice place... we'll see... I think it has a website as well....
http://www.roomsforafrica.com/establishment.do?id=919

It don't look too bad from the online ad... Best of all it has a bar in the place so a chance to test the South African beers, Castle, Windhoek, Amstel etc....

I believe here is a Wildlife park a few kilometers up the road but after my experience with wildlife in Thailand (See entry 'A monkey ate my glasses...') I am staying well away from things that can bite, scratch, kill, eat, etc if I don't have a gun.

Speaking about guns I was asking Hannes about personal security and he stated that it is pretty safe here now and then proceeded to pull a handgun from underneath his seat. Hmmm, safe 'ey? So safe that he doesn't leave the house with a 9 mill strapped to his driver seat.... I think I might be staying in tonite hahahaha....

More later,

Alex in Lichtenburg.

Waldringfield rules!

Afternoon!

We have just come back from a camping trip to Waldringfield. It was good as usual. The campsite we use is very quiet and they don't mind dogs. So we brought the mutt along.
It was his first time camping and he took to it like a duck to water.

This is the caravan all set up. It was nice weather contrary to the forecast. Snow and rain was forecast but all we got was sun. On the friday when we arrived we went to the pub down the road. The Maybush Inn does Adnams Broadside, my favourite, and they do it well. We had some dinner there too...

At home the missus can never be bothered to cook me breakfast but whenever we are camping she does the whole greasy spoon bit, bloody ace! On the saturday we had to take Jay to the vet as he managed to rip a dew claw of his left front leg. They just clipped it off and gave him a penicillin shot. He didn't whine or whinge about it after that. We went to Felixstowe to do a bit of shopping and then spend the rest if the day at the campsite.

This is Jay looking pathetic with his dew claw hanging off....

The last night it got very windy and the awning was flapping around like mad. The first evening he had happily slept outdoors in the awning but saturdaynight he was adamant that he was coming inside the caravan. We had put him outside but he soon started hollering so in the end we had to let him in. He spend the rest of the night in our bed, the little bugger....

So a great weekend at Waldringfield again, Chris, Thanks!

Cheerio,

Alex.

Off again... To Egypt...

Afternoon all,

It's been a while since I updated, been busy... Tomorrow I'm off again. This time I'm going back to sunny Egypt. I'm going to a place called Beni Suef. Its about 120 km south of Cairo. Should be there for about 5 days.

I looked the place up online and the only thing I could find was a travel article that said that it wasn't worth getting off the bus there. Nowt to be seen. Only one hotel in town.
Its got hot running water. Running down the walls that is.... if the sun shines....

Off tomorrow morning, I fly via Paris to Cairo wher I stay the first night in Le Meridien, which is good. At least the first night I won't be bed sharing with cockroaches....

The work is standard, a normal new system commissioning so should be straightforward. (Famous last words 'ey?)

Check out the new Blog of one of my oldest friend s in the UK, Mick.
His Blog is at: http://mickthewanderer.blogspot.com/

We worked together for years working telecoms. I spend an eight week stint in Hong Kong with him, which was eventful.... to say the least. We got the world record for the highest telephone exhange ever build. We stuck one in on the 28th floor of a skyscraper on Kowloon. Our subway rides back to our appartments usually were eventful as we stuck out like a sore thumb on the HongKong underground. We quite often had to get off before our stop to prevent us from having to kill locals... On memorable time I got a wallop from a woman who must have at least been 80- years old... She didn't appreciate hanging of a strap with her face in my armpit after a good day of sweating at work.... That caused us to get off, still on Kowloon, where we proceeded to try to drink the New Territories dry and consequently missed the last subway and ferry back to the island. The taxi through the tunnel cost us a bomb.... Like I said Good Times!

Also got the next trip lined up, In a coupple of weeks I'm off to South Africa to meet the people that mangle my original language (Dutch) into their own version, zuid afrikaans...

OK, gotta go, tickets to be organised,

Cheerio,

Alex.