my friend wrote blog.. here is a part..
We arrived in the early afternoon to Hargeisa, a town that was all extremes: extremely hot, dusty, sandy, sticky and sweaty, a hellish mix
The mantra is “Somaliland is safe, Somaliland is safe”, but if you want to travel outside of the capital, you must hire an armed guard. Huh? They are called Special Protection Units and the purpose is for tourists to not get kidnapped or killed and ruin their image and thus their chances at being recognized as a country. It’s a debatable precaution, but for travelers, we see this as ridiculous since locals don’t get such treatment and therefore we go to great lengths to avoid it, not least because the guards cost $15 a day plus expenses such as the $7 ticket to Berbera on the coast.
A Hungarian traveler I met, and I can count all of them I have ever met in my life on one hand, Gabor, a hardcore guy who has been to 120-plus countries, he somehow managed to hitchhike to Berbera and back without a guard and without a problem. The next day, French Nicholas and two Asian travelers tried the same, but were stopped at the first checkpoint out of town and sent back to Hargeisa. Nicholas mentioned Gabor’s success the day before and they said that he was “lucky” partly because he was alone.
The next day Gabor tried to hitchhike to Djibouti, an insanely long journey that is mostly through desert sands on four wheel drive vehicles, and he was arrested or detained or I don’t know what to call it, but I know it isn’t good because he hasn’t logged on to Couchsurfing in four days, I can tell, which is the sign of freedom.
If you want to avoid the guard you can go to Hargeisa police headquarters in the middle of nowhere and get a letter in Somali from the Big Cheese saying you have a waiver. It makes no sense, but that magic letter lets you pass through all the checkpoints.
You can tell how long someone has been in Africa by the shade of brown of their clothes, but in white
Berbera is especially intriguing as it has one of the longest landing strips in the world. The Soviets built it and then the Americans used it for the space shuttle. Since Somaliland doesn’t have post o
The most unexpected thing for me has been seeing women with prominent decolletage and crude tattoos of crosses on their forehead, cheeks and neck. I shouldn’t even mention it if I don’t have a photo, but
This stack of a hundred banknotes is worth about 40 cents. The 20 shilling note isn’t circulated much anymore. 500 shillings is the largest note, but the problem is that there are 5500 shillings to the dollar, and for all you non-UCSB graduates (sorry), that’s only 9 cents. When the largest note you have is 9 cents, you have to lug around bricks of the stuff. To pay a restaurant bill
Somaliland? Kinek jutna ilyen otlet az eszebe?? Mi van ott? Iszlam szelsosegesek, kalozok, polgarhaboru, vegitelet napja. Aztan wikipedian kutakodva lassan rajonnek, hogy ez nem azonos Somaliaval. Sot ! Igyekeznek elszakadni klantestvereiktok, ez idaig sikertelenul. Szoval a politikai terkepeken Somaliakent van feltuntetve, az utleveluk is Somaliai koztarsasagot ir, de mar vagy 10 eve elszakadtak erzelmileg a nagy testvertol, miutan a polgarhaboru alatt porig bombaztak Hargeisat, a fovarosukat. Persze senki nem ismerte el oket, s ez nem a nyugati hatalmak hibaja, ahogy azt legtobben itt gondoljak. Kideritettem, hogy az Afrikai Unio az aki nem akar elismerni uj allamokat, mert az egy lavinat inditana el itt Afrikaban, aminek nem lenne vege. Minden afrikai torzs kikialltana a maga kiralysagat. Del Sudan elismerese kivetel volt, de reszben olajkincsenek koszonhette ezt, meg a rendszeesitett haborujanak. ( de ezt ne keverjuk a Darfur regioval, az egy masik tortenet).
Szoval Somaliland elszakadt, kulon penze, demokratikusan valasztott es mindenki altal pozitivan fogadott parlamentje, koztarsasagi elnoke, bekeje, katonasaga es rendorsege van. Puntland egy masik kvazi fuggetlen Somali allam, de ott meg alakulgat a biztonsag, illetve a kalozok is arra teszik telephelyeiket, igy az neccesebb kornyek, de oda is kulon vizum kell ha valaki arra kivancsi.
