What I did on my summer vacation.

[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.