My Travel Adventures

 Since I only work for half a day on Friday, I left my hotel-cum-office in Malindi not long after noon. I arranged with the hotel to find me a tuktuk driver who would take me to the town’s matatu stop, but once I climbed into the rickety three-wheeler and we started talking, he easily convinced me that it would be much faster to travel all the way to Gedi with him. His price was not exorbitant, and he very reasonably pointed out that if I took the matatu to Gedi, I would still have to either walk or take a tuktuk from the matatu stop to the site itself.

Dating to the 9 th century CE, Kilwa Kisiwani is one of the most historically significant settlements in East Africa. It flourished between the 13 th and 15 th centuries as the seat of the Kilwa Sultanate, a political entity that controlled much of the Swahili Coast and with it, much of the trade that went on between Africa and other civilisations across the Indian Ocean: The Arabian Peninsula, India, and even China. Ibn Battuta, who visited the island city in 1331, described it as one of the most beautiful in the world. It was destroyed by the Portuguese in 1505, who built a fort and stayed until they, in turn, were forced out by the Omanis. 

Since breakfast at my hotel began at eight o’clock, I started the day later than I usually do. The day before, I asked the receptionist whether there was a bus to Kairouan, but she recommended I take the louage instead. “Louage” (which simply means “rent” in French) is the most popular form of intercity public transport in Tunisia and functions a bit like a shared taxi. The system works like this: A person buys the ticket to their destination at the corresponding counter at the louage station – usually a separate station from the bus station and the train station. Then, they go outside to find their van, where the driver usually stands ready to begin ushering them in. The van departs when it is fully occupied, which means there are no fixed schedules for louages, but the vehicles take little time to fill up on high-demand routes.

I woke up at five o’clock in the morning as I bought a 6:05 train ticket yesterday to El Jem. Since I packed up faster than I expected and checked out quickly as well, I arrived at the Tunis train station at half past five. The train did not, in fact, leave at 6:05 but instead arrived at 6:05, at which point the amassed crowd thronged the doors and rushed into the two wagons, paying no heed to the seats written on their tickets. I managed to board quite early and participated in the general chaos by sitting down one row behind my original seat to get a better view from the window. The train did not leave for another fifteen minutes, during which time several people passed in and out of the cab for a friendly chat with the conductor. At one point, the cab held at least four people, two of whom left the train before it even departed.