After racing through spectacular desert, sleeping under the stars and enjoying boundless hospitality, three Westerners on a motorbike odyssey say they are convinced that Sudan is Africa’s next tourist paradise just waiting to be discovered.
President Omar al-Beshir may be the first sitting head of state in history to face a possible international arrest warrant for alleged genocide and war crimes, but two Canadians and an Englishman are spellbound by the country.
“I’m convinced that in a few years’ time Sudan will be right up there with the other big African countries in terms of tourist spots,” said Tom Smith, on three months’ leave from the Bank of England to bike from London to Cape Town.
PHOTO: AFP
“If it stays like this, you know, has the same appeal, then yeah — I think they’ll be flocking,” added the 25-year-old, on a pit stop in Khartoum with the desert behind them and a two-day run to the Ethiopian border ahead.
More than two years in the planning, their 24,000km ride through Europe, the Middle East, Sudan and down through Africa to the Cape is costing Smith and his Canadian mates a self-financed total of US$60,000.
Inspired by film actor Ewan McGregor and his close friend Charley Boorman who rode BMW bikes from Scotland to South Africa for a television series, the intrepid three are also raising thousands of dollars to help HIV sufferers.
PHOTO: AFP
They were apprehensive about the security situation in Sudan, bogged down in war in Darfur to the west and also trying to recover from a 21-year north-south civil war.
But such fears quickly dissipated after their arrival in Sudan by ferry from Egypt across Lake Nasser.
“The perception of this war-torn country has been the focus of the media, but the experience that we’ve had — nothing could be further from the truth,” said Tyson Brust, a 30-year-old medical student from Toronto.
“It’s probably one of the safer areas in the world, and we found that when we went through. The people were incredibly friendly — everyone was waving us in, wanting us to have breakfast with them and giving us drinks,” he added.
Such comments are music to the ears of a country slapped with US sanctions, blacklisted by Washington as a sponsor of terror and on a diplomatic offensive to save Beshir from the dock of the International Criminal Court.
After driving dirt bikes through Europe, Syria and Jordan and enduring a horrifying crash that left 32-year-old Yarema Bezchlibnyk in pain and weary of “being completely shafted” in Egypt, they say their adventure really began.
Yarema, also a medical student, described the journey from Lake Nasser to Dongola, site of a mediaeval city, as a “spectacular ride, the landscape almost lunar” with rock formations jutting from the desert and blasted by the scorching heat.
“We got into the desert. The sun started to go down and I was thinking ‘wow, I’m in Sudan riding through the desert.’ Just spectacular scenery. This is what it’s all about, this is the adventure,” added Tyson.
They expect to be in Sudan for another week. They have slept under the stars, been invited to stay overnight in village huts and rested at a guest house recommended by a friend of a friend near the UN headquarters in Khartoum.
But it has not all been plain sailing. Stomach upsets from the local cuisine have plagued their advance since Turkey. None is a trained mechanic, so just a flat tire can take half a day to repair. And the heat can be intense.
They are a week behind schedule and need to get to Cape Town in time to fly back for medical school and work. They’ve been away for a month and a half, but at 10,100km have completed only two-fifths of the route.
Smith likened one hotel they stayed in — apparently the best in town — to a POW camp with cell-like rooms where they awoke “absolutely sweltering” because the air conditioning had conked out in a power cut.
Despite having just one guidebook, they are finding their way without GPS and stumbling across tourist gems quite by chance — such as lazing under palm trees next to an ancient Egyptian temple after lunch.
Sudan’s attraction was being able to realize the dream of getting off the beaten track — the trio’s blog is at www.ditchthecomfortzone.com. But from Wadi Halfa to Dongola they also witnessed Sudan’s march to development on the back of oil profits.
“You can see that in a couple of years that (new road) is going to be finished. You won’t need any of the dirt bikes that we’ve kitted out — you can do it on anything,” said Smith.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had