Expat travel with a teenager

My last major trip was to the UK in April where my 15 yo son and I travelled by train, coach, bus, car and foot between Leeds and Bath while he was on his easter holidays. We stayed with family, friends and in hotels. Since then I’ve had a trip to Kruger which was a working holiday and this week the teenager and I are heading off to Cape Town Friday till Wednesday.

We are travelling by train and leave Johannesburg central station at 12.30pm arriving in Cape Town at 3.30pm the following day. We have booked accommodation a 5 minute walk from the waterfront and are flying back home Wednesday night with avios collected with British Airways.

The whole trip has cost less than R5000/£278. While we are in Cape Town we will be travelling on the Big Red Bus, taking a trip up Table Mountain, visiting the aquarium, whale watching and a helicopter ride over the bay. We’ve yet to book these excursions and have approached companies to see if they’d be interested in a sponsored blog post or two with numerous tweets, face book updates and instagrams thrown in at random.

Hubby will be dropping us at the station Friday an hour before the train leaves, due to the barriers closing prior to departure, we have a bag of snacks and food packed for the journey as this is South Africa and one ever knows what will happen, don’t want to be stuck with no food or drink for over 24 hours. I wonder if they'll let us braai on the train. We are also taking bedding with us, although it is provided at R55 pppn, there have been disputes recently, if bedding is available hubby will take it home, which will make our flight back a lot easier without sleeping bags and pillows.

Both the teenager and I are very excited about our upcoming trip, especially as public transport isn't available in Gauteng apart from the Gautrain which is quite expensive. Watch out for photos, tweets and blog posts. I'm not sure we'll have a lot of internet access, especially on the train, but we do have free wi fi in our apartment.

Geography lesson for stupid people

There's not much doubt that most people know where England is, but what a lot of people don't know is that the land mass they refer to as England is actually called Great Britain and contains 3 countries called England, Wales and Scotland.

I'm fed up of being asked where I'm from when I travel and I usually reply England for 2 reasons. If if say 'Newport' a lot of people have no real idea where Newport is and if I say Wales, I'm often asked where that is. A twitter friend told me the other day that when she was in Spain and said she was Welsh, the other person replied 'Oh that's in England, isn't it' her eye is still twitching.

In America once a woman told me of her trip to England, she meant London, then proceeded to tell me she loved the Eiffel Tower, I told her that was in France and her response 'Oh I didn't know that' never mind that the currency and the language was different, she was near enough in her mind.

So to clarify things

Britain is England (yellow) and Wales (pink)
Great Britain is England, Wales and Scotland (yellow, pink and green)
United Kingdom is England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (yellow, pink, green and purple)
And France (red) is bottom right........

and while we're at it, people....Africa is NOT one country, it is a continent.

My view from above

After a recent trip to Dubai and a journey in the lift to the 'at the top' experience 452 meters above the ground, I realised I've been 'at the top' of a lot of places in a lot of places. I've seen many things from above and I thought I would share some of my photos from 'up above' and ask you 'what have you viewed from above?'

Dubai

 Table Mountain

 To the left, South Africa, the right, Mozambique

 The Grand Canyon

 Hoover Dam (picture taken from the road bridge, not the air)

 A Hippo in South Africa

Is Expat Life Glamorous?

The next person who tells me that expat travel sounds glam will be beaten to death with a selection of plane/train/coach/bus/parking tickets.

I have an 8 hour flight, 2 hour stop over and another 7 hour flight to reach the UK, I'm then required to catch a train or a coach after 20+ hours of flying and transit, get my mobile working, call everyone to say I've arrived safely and arrive at my 1st destination.

Having arrived in the UK 2 weeks ago I started the UK tour by saying Hello to everyone. I know the next time I see them again will be to say Goodbye before I return to South Africa and not see them again for 6 months. I started my tour from Manchester to Leeds on the train, then a coach and a bus to Gloucester, lifts from friends to Monmouth, emergency dash back to Leeds as son was in hospital, Bath to see family and stay with friends and the return trip starts on Thursday, before flying home on May 1^st.

Visiting your home country as an expat is not a holiday, it's actually rather stressful, trying to fit everyone in, the cost, living out of a suitcase, travel, sorting out bills, post etc.

Travel as an expat isn’t glam, in fact it’s not an awful lot of fun, it’s hard to say goodbye all the time, it’s hard for the people I say goodbye to also.

Lots of expats advise that you rent a house in the UK and plan for everyone to visit you. It’s good advice but there are 2 issues here. 3 weeks in the UK over Christmas is £1000.00 per week and at most other times it is £450.00 per week. You need to rent a house big enough so your children/family/friends can stay over when they come to visit you, because lets be honest….expats don’t tend to have simple lives and you can guarantee family is spread far and wide.

So if you can afford the above the next issue is getting times and dates to get people together. I’ve lost track of the number of people that would love to see me as long as I travel to them on the date and at the time they stipulate and of course sort out my own accommodation. Even when I’ve been in the area and knocked on the door it’s been obviously you’ve come at the wrong time, so I just don’t bother with a lot of people any more.

Travel and Phones

The youngest returned for Christmas from the UK with a new phone, the eldest had a new phone also, it took 3 trips to Vodacom and cost R100 to perform a SIM swop, which failed and then purchase 2 new SIM cards, which both needed a further visit to get them activated and when I say 'them' I mean only one of them. The kids return to the UK soon and they'll have the same issues when they put their Vodafone SIMs back in.

Every time I travel to the UK I spend a fortune on getting my mobile phone to work.
I have O2 and orange SIM cards for the UK. I arrive at the airport, purchase airtime having swopped the SIM mid flight and turning off everything that uses up the data allowance.  Load the £10 airtime and by the end of the day it’s all gone.

As a result the first thing I do is go without ringing anyone to say I've arrived, try and find a spot of free WiFi to FB, email and message home to say ‘I’m here’ or ‘I’m on my way’

As I fly into London or Birmingham then rely on a train or coach to get to my destination and understandably family do not realise my need to sort my phone out it is usually 2-3 days before I get to a high street store and explain the problem.

And every bloody time...yes you’re on the ‘so and so package, just top up and it’ll be fine’ and every bloody time I end up with 2-3 trips to the store to complain all my allowance went within 2-3 days to be informed ‘that’s because your I phone used up all the data and it takes 2-3 days for your plan to activate’ Well FFS that’s what I said when I came in the store in the first place and asked for your help.

Finally getting the Orange EE phone sorted, I then discover that for some reason when my 1G data allowance runs out I can’t top it up, seriously, the woman in the store in Worcester, then the guy in the branch in Manchester just looked at me and said ‘ooohh it’s very expensive to add more data just for a few days’ and didn’t bloody sell me any and had I been given the price I could have made the choice as to whether I could afford it or not.

 

Apart from a bit of driving across Europe and a road trip on the west coast of America I’ve only ever driven on the left hand side of the road. On arrival in South Africa it was one of those things that I never gave any consideration to and was pleasantly surprised to discover they drove the same side as us in the UK. Make sure if you have a foreign licence it's translated into English.

The speed limit in SA is 120km and there are fixed and portable cameras everywhere. We’ve all had speeding fines now, caught on camera and the advice is ‘don’t pay it’ well we ignore the advice and have paid all 3. There’s a  50% reduction if you pay within 32 days but it usually takes 2-3 months before you receive your notification and we just pay the 50%.

I’d strongly advise that if you get stopped by police with a mobile camera you accept the fine and follow the instructions for payment. Apparently you can just bribe a police man and he’ll make it go away, I’d strongly advise you don’t do this. Everyone who tells you that, when pushed further, will admit they’ve never offered a bribe, but a friend of the friend’s cat told them about it.

The rules of the road are similar, keep left, and pass right, the use of mobile phones whilst driving is illegal. These are ignored by most, people weave frequently in the traffic and I’m afraid to say I also do this, usually to avoid crashing into the back of a stationary vehicle in the outside lane.

There are no official rules about vehicle maintenance and the only time a car is required to have one is at point of sale. There are too many vehicles on the roads without working lights, wipers, indicators and bald tyres. Accidents are frequent and can involve numerous deaths in double figures.

Sights like this are common and it’s usually the sheer volume of people in the back that prevent them falling out.

 

Navigation is via GPS, people often give out GPS coordinates which rarely reflect their actual physical address and can take you through townships and off road rather than around, so always check the route before you travel. The first journey I made with the GPS it yelled ‘warning’ and displayed a picture of skull and crossbones at the junction. At areas of hijacking risks, police will sit in their cars with lights flashing as a deterrent. Police also drive with their blue light on which I still find confusing. Driving past townships in the day light is safer although best to avoid 1^st thing in the morning and late afternoon, this is because of the number of taxi’s (mini buses) probably the most unsafe vehicle on the roads ,due to as I mentioned before, no road vehicle checks.

People here navigate by road names not a letter and number apart from the national Roads, N1, N2, N3 etc. The Municipality roads are known by their names and have recently under gone a name change in Pretoria, making it a constant adjustment for me, when people give me directions.

There’s no public transport in Gauteng apart from the Gautrain and the local buses that service the station, the first time I went to use it I discovered I had to have a card and have it pre loaded, similar to an oyster card, no cash is taken on the journey, you just scan in and out. It was very expensive and took me far longer to get to the airport than the car would’ve, plus valet parking at the airport is exceptional value.

One of my favourite things about driving here are the storms and the power outages. This often means the robots aren’t working. Robots are traffic lights and work slightly differently to what I’m used to. They change from red straight to green, missing out the amber light. When there is a power outage and the lights fail as they do often, the roads turn into 4 way stops, please note most people treat roundabouts and traffic circles as a 4 way stop and at busy times of the day OUTsurance manage the flow of traffic.

It’s always best to do your windows up at the lights and 4 way stops, not so much to do with safety but to stop endless people selling you useless items and begging for money and food. I like to put my sun glasses on and remain aloof. Try not to fall for the classic trick when someone points at the front of your car and you open your window to hear what they’re saying, before you know it a Hello kitty sunshade will be thrust upon you.

I drive at night, but it’s not something I’d recommend you doing unless you know the area well and stick to the main roads, even if it does take slightly longer. You must stop at a red light at night, if you feel unsafe and have checked the road is clear, and then proceed but you will need to prove you felt unsafe if you get a ticket. People told me after 11pm I can ignore the red lights and drive straight through, but again they got this info from a friend of their cat.

Don’t stop to pick anyone up or to help anyone who has broken down, this can be tricks used in hijacking. A few weeks ago a guy tried to flag me down, I swerved and drove past. I drove straight into a high jacking and shooting that had gone wrong, the police turned me round fairly quickly.

Don't forget to stay in your car at the fuel pump. They fill your car for you as apparently it's not safe to do it yourself.