What I did on my summer vacation.

[Rain Man]

So for those of you who don't ever look at me, I wandered away for a while. A sample of vacation photos will follow.

[Subterranean Alien]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

First off, you know it's a long trip when your airplane has to make a fuel stop partway through. They wouldn't let me off the plane, so here's my only photo of Dakar, Senegal.

I was on the second-longest commercial flight in the world - Washington DC to Johannesburg, South Africa. The flight originates in New York, and the New York-Johannesburg route is the longest flight in the world. It was 17 hours on the schedule going out, and 18 coming back due to differences in winds. About an hour is spent on the ground in Dakar refueling.

I love the plane window photo. I do not envy an 18 hour flight. I flew to Ireland last June from Kansas. The flight home was absolutely brutal. The human body isn't conditioned to that much air travel, no matter who you are.

[Rain Man]

Banana-carrying dude. That's got to be pretty heavy.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Subterranean Alien

I love the plane window photo. I do not envy an 18 hour flight. I flew to Ireland last June from Kansas. The flight home was absolutely brutal. The human body isn't conditioned to that much air travel, no matter who you are.

Yeah, I was really envying the business-class and first-class seats. I did some research and booked early enough to get us some bulkhead seats, though, and that gave us a fair amount of legroom, which helped a lot.

It also helped that they had movies on demand and also some (pretty bad) computer games in the in-seat consoles. I played mahjong for about three hours on the flight back, and was playing chess until I decided that the chess computer was simply incompetent.

[stumppy]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Banana-carrying dude. That's got to be pretty heavy.

He looks kind of short. I wonder if that is caused by a lifetime of carrying things on your head ?

[Rain Man]

They still had their Christmas decorations up, or at least I assume they were Christmas decorations.

At the end of the street, you'll see a park. We went into the park, which was a huge mistake. There were some of the most pathetic homeless people in there I've ever seen, and we were harassed enough that I put the camera away and kept my hands in my pockets for fear of pickpockets or robbery. I don't think I'll soon shed the image of this one homeless little kid wrapped in a tattered blanket, lying on the sidewalk and shaking. It was not a good scene.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by stumppy

He looks kind of short. I wonder if that is caused by a lifetime of carrying things on your head ?

It can't help. Seriously, that's got to be like 75 or 100 pounds of bananas.

[Rain Man]

The Antananarivo skyline.

The city is probably the most spread-out city I've ever seen. The housing is all built on small steep hills, and in a lot of the parts outside the central city the flat areas between hills are rice paddies (photos later).

[Rain Man]

Wandering the streets. Since it was Sunday, it was pretty quiet.

[Rain Man]

Off the main streets, it was a little more downscale, but with a greater agricultural presence.

[Rain Man]

I'm not sure what this was. We walked past it and it seemed like I should take a picture of it.

[Rain Man]

This was next to the red thing in the previous picture. I'm not sure what this was, either. The wife was walking over to check it out.

[Rain Man]

Our initial reaction to Antananarivo was "creepy". It seemed to have a pretty negative and scary vibe that first day. However, we came back a week or so later and were there on a weekday, and it had a much more positive feel to it.

I don't know if it'll work, but I'll try. Here's a three-minute video where I just stuck the camera out the window on our way to the airport. It's an AVI file, which is not on the list of supported files in the "Manage Attachments" menu.

Edit: Not loading, though it's a big file. Let me see if I can upload it to youtube.

[Bearcat]

Great pictures, thanks for sharing!

The pictures of Antananarivo remind me of the train ride through the poor(er) areas of Rome, or taking a wrong turn in Detroit.

Where does the trip rank on your list of world travels? I assume it ranks pretty high in terms of culture shock, since Denver isn't really known for its wildlife or abundance of African-American communities.

After a couple of trips to London and one to Rome, I've thought about maybe going to Singapore or Tokyo or Hong Kong/China... or maybe Egypt. Hadn't really thought about South Africa though.

Too many places, not enough PTO.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

Great pictures, thanks for sharing!

The pictures of Antananarivo remind me of the train ride through the poor(er) areas of Rome, or taking a wrong turn in Detroit.

Where does the trip rank on your list of world travels? I assume it ranks pretty high in terms of culture shock, since Denver isn't really known for its wildlife or abundance of African-American communities.

After a couple of trips to London and one to Rome, I've thought about maybe going to Singapore or Tokyo or Hong Kong/China... or maybe Egypt. Hadn't really thought about South Africa though.

Too many places, not enough PTO.

I went to India in 1989 and that still tops the list of culture shock. In part, that may be because it was my first overseas experience and it was also 20 years ago before India really started making strides, but I still think it would win. Varanasi, India, was the place that I've visited that is the most "foreign" to me. However, Antananarivo may be second on the list. It was out there.

South Africa is so well-developed that I don't even think I would consider it to be culture shock at all. For the most part, it didn't even require adjustment, and English was spoken very widely. Interestingly, too, race kind of disappears in these situations. When 80 percent of the people you see are another race, their race ceases to be an identifying feature and so you really see them as individuals and not necessarily "black" or "white" or whatever.

I went to Egypt in 2001 and would heartily recommend it as a first non-European trip. You'll get hassled by the salespeople, but that's minor compared to the spectacular things to see. Plus, Egypt has a really strong tourism infrastructure, so it's a good initial third-world trip because you get to see the Third World without really having to deal with it too much.

[KChiefsQT]

Sweet. I've always wanted to go on a Safari!