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The story so far
The previous post from our boat trip on Lake Malawi led to numerous emails and text messages from worried parents as well as some people suggesting it all just happened in my imagination after having one beer too many and falling asleep on the sun deck. For our parents, we are still alive and currently at home in Norway with you, eating your food, sleeping in your houses, driving your cars and spending your money, thus, it is time to be worried in an all different way. For the rest of you, I can assure those who doubt what happened that my imagination is rather non-existent after too many beers and that my story is a true story of those events that took place that dreadful night on November the 18th, in the year of our Lord, Two Thousand And Five.

Safari from the train window

Robinbye
2006-01-05 20:54:41

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men and women are not allowed to share cabins. This came as no surprise, as we knew this from reading our invaluable Lonely Planet travelbook. Considering the train trip would take nearly 36 hours it would very boring not being able to share the same coupe. Thus, following Lonely Planet's advice, we simply paid for an entire first class coupe with four beds! There were quite a few people exchanging looks behind us and even the ticket salesman had troubles hiding his surprise. He accepted though and received the money for one half-price (I had an ISIC card) and three full price tickets, around USD 75 total.

The Tazara railway is supposed to be a classic and runs all the way from New
Kapri Mposhi (not too far away from Lusaka) in Zambia to Dar Es Salaam on the Tanzanian coast. One of its main features is that it enters the Selous Game Reserve about two-thirds of the way from Mbeya to Dar. I unpacked my binoculars, digital camera and video camera and positioned myself with my head out of the window 30 minutes after leaving Mbeya. 'It might be a little early for game viewing, dear,' Helene said, but I patiently explained that animals don't care about humanmade game park borders and that you only get a glimpse of the animals before they disappear. Two hours later I withdrew my head with a funny hairdo and an extremely sore neck. Not a single animal had appeared, however, some action had occurred, as I nearly chopped my head of against poles and trees placed dangerously close to the rails.

Enjoying a cold beer in the salon and being served dinner in our coupe sounds fantastic but this Orient Express cliche doesn't really work that well on the Tazara. First of all, the food is very average. Second, the beer isn't really cold. Third, please abandon your idea of a train where you hardly notice you're moving --- The Tazara rocks from side to side, simply going from the coupe to the bathroom takes three ...