On our flight from Qatar, we were lucky enough to have 6 seats to ourselves, allowing us to spread out and sleep through our six hour flight. We arrived into Nairobi early in the morning, and were greeted by signs announcing the 2007 World Social Forum. After obtaining our visa, and witnessing a European man fly off the handle about the requirement that he pay for his visa with exact change while impassive Kenyans bounced him from supervisor to supervisor, we got our bags and looked for a cheap way into the city.

At the World Social Forum table, we were told that they could arrange transport for us for $50 into the city. Saying that was way out of our price range, she said she would do what she could to get it down to $20 each but that there was no other cheaper transportation. Dismayed, we started changing some money into Kenyan shillings when we decided to mosey on over to the taxi counter, and were quoted $20 for the both of us. Uh huh. So much for solidarity. (more…)

When Beth and I were looking for flights out of India to Africa, we found that the most affordable way was through the Middle East, and that most of these flights had a layover of 12 hours or more. Having just told Beth a few stories about Matt, an Australian ex-pat living in Qatar who Abby and I had met in Cambodia (See “Bada Bing!”), I instantly thought of emailing him to see if he’d be up for some tour guiding. A prompt reply included an enthusiastic “yes”, so we booked our tickets with a 12-hour stop over in Qatar.

We arrived at noon to find Matt waiting for us with his white Jeep Cherokee ready to go. We jumped in, and took off for the city… a long 5-minute drive from the airport. Matt showed us around the coast by driving us past the new museum set out on the water and bringing us to a lookout point where we could see the tall skyscrapers a few miles away rising out of the crystal blue sea. (more…)

Back in December, I had a 14-hour layover in South Korea on my way to Hawaii from Thailand, and decided to make the best of it. I arrived at 6 in the morning into Incheon, where I napped for 3 hours, waiting for the sun to come up and for me to recover from my 7-hour flight from Bangkok. I then cruised through immigration, asked for the best sites to see in Seoul at the information counter, pulled out a few thousand Won from an ATM, and caught a bus into the city.

The only thing I didn’t plan for: snow. I forgot to check the weather, and having skipped fall and winter in my cozy SE Asian corner of the world, I failed to consider the phenomenon of seasons elsewhere. Although I had scarves and a jacket in my big bag that I had checked, I had to make do with a long sleeve shirt and my thin fleece in the 30-degree freeze. (more…)