By Yin Ee Kiong
Cape Town
Changi is one of the most user-friendly airports I can think of. You can spend hours there without being bored – shops, movies, free city tour and if you are tired check into one of the two airport hotels; have a swim and catch up on your sleep. But don’t try the food; it’s diabolical – espy the local fare. I always thought Singaporeans know nuts about good food and Changi confirms it.
The wanton there gives wanton a bad name. The only saving grace is that they are miniscule which means you can swallow it like bad medicine.
Maybe it’s the food that has lost Changi the title of Best Airport to HK where the food is considerably more palatable.
“Take my seat” I said to the fat man standing round the corner charging his mobile phone on the outlet.
“It’s okay, I am almost finished”
We got talking and by chance he was also going to Cape Town. He was going home.
“Come and stay at my place if you like” he surprised me. “I am going home for a day and then off to Joburg for my niece’s birthday. But you can stay on, my housekeeper will take care of you.
Consideration? Charm? An honest face? Just plain lucky? All of them? It doesn’t matter, Allah is looking after me, I think.
Philip Harris was born in London but moved to S. Africa when he was young. He’s in the shipping business. He goes round the world contracting out vessels as bulk carriers.
Mohd is a Cape Malay many times removed. He only knows two words of Malay – Terima Kasih and Selamat. With a name like Mohammed van der Rheede no wonder.
He would be what the Apartheid Government officially classify as a Coloured. Today people are still unofficially referred to as Blacks, Whites, Indians/Asians and Coloureds.
Blacks cover Zulus, Xhosas, Basothos, Setswanas, Ndebele and Vendas. Whites are Caucasians (Afrikaners etc), Cape Malays are descendents of indentured labourers brought over by the Dutch from Indonesia. Cape Malays live in the Bo-Kaap area noted for the quaint and colourful houses. Then there are Indians (no explanation needed here but any other brown or even yellow buggers are put in the same category ie Asian) and the Coloured are largely mixed descendents of Afrikaners and Khoisans but probably embrace all mixed races espy when the skin colour is not white.
A guy I spoke with (see “Out of Cape Town”) said that he had twins in the class where one was fair and the other dark. One was classified as white and the other coloured and they had to be separated. This was in the bad of days when racial classification applied.
Anyway . . . Philip’s house is in Simon Town which is another town some way from Cape Town. It’s on the coast and one can watch penguins nest on the beach. It’s a modest house with a great aspect – perched high on the slope of the hill fronting the sea. According to Mohd even a modest house in this part costs zillions.
“It’s better that you stay in Cape Town” Mohd said. “It will cost you 500 rand a day just to go to Cape Town and back. And what about the time spent traveling?”
Mohd arranged for the cheapest hotel he could get and took me there. On the way he gave a running commentary on Cape Town. He is an official tour guide. He registers himself as The Ultimate Tours. He also hires himself out as chauffeur to companies and the various embassies when they need transport for visiting dignitaries.
“Don’t ever take the mini bus taxis. You’re jammed in with all sorts of people – sweaty bodies, unsafe. Always take a cab. He obviously does not like mixing with the hoi-polloi. And don’t go out at night. Beware of pickpockets in crowded places.” He warned me to avoid the riff raff. Casting an eye on the Table he said, “Looks like you will have a nice stay in Cape Town, the table cloth is laid out for you.” he pointed to Table Mountain where the mist was starting to cover the top. The local belief is that if the table cloth is laid on one’s first visit a good time is assured.
If not everything Mohammed said to me was right, he was right about the distance and the cost. He only charged me 400 rand for the ride, the commentary and advice were free.
The hotel was too expensive for my pocket and too far from the waterfront. After one night I moved out. You don’t travel third class all your life and not be able to suss out hotels El Cheapo. I found a place in Green Point for half the price of the hotel Mohammed (with his posh taste – that’s what mixing with the embassy type or people with expense account does to you) got for me. Furthermore it was walking distance to the Waterfront.
Cape Town is not one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Capetonians will tell you. It is the most beautiful city!
Local pride and bias aside, there is substance to that claim. Cape Town is probably the only city in the world with a national park plonked in the middle of it (Table Mountain National Park). It has the sea, vineyards, parks, interesting architecture, art galleries, museums, performing arts - the lot.
It’s also a city that is easy to get around – not too big. The city bowl (centre) is very walkable.
Whether or not Cape Town is the most beautiful city, it is certainly a well run city – clean and efficient. Helen Zille (now premier of Western Cape) was voted World Mayor in 2008.
CT has everything except great food. But then South African cuisine is nothing to crow about. Too much ersatz European if you ask me and nothing authentically African if you discount biltong and snoek (the local fish) and boerewors (meat preserved with spices and vinegar). Snoek is quite okay it’s like trout. But biltong is like eating worn out soles of smelly shoes.
I have yet to eat a good Cape Curry – they have been so compromised to suit White palates that it has no kick anymore.
The Blacks mainly eat mealie pap – like thick porridge made from maize. Totally bland.
I must admit though that the fish and chips in Long Street (in the City Bowl) was good. It’s the best this side of Yorkshire. The guy gave up his job in banking in London when his father passed away recently to run the chip shop which has been going for the past 50 years. He just opened and I must have been one of his first customers. Good on him for taking up the family business – beats sitting in an office counting money. You have to wish someone like that all the luck.
The Waterfront is an example of what can be done with a lot of imagination and a little money. A group of British entrepreneurs has turned a derelict dockland into the numero uno attraction in Cape Town. It is an exciting place with free entertainment, shops, eateries, an aquarium, a hotel, marina etc. It’s a tourist trap designed to suck every rand out of you.
It’s great sitting in the sun drinking Castle beer and listening to jazz played by a street band. The sun is up but it’s not hot – at least not humid. I was minding my own business, feeling the sun on my face, the breeze ruffling my hair, a cold beer in my hand when into my vision danced a lone figure. She moved to the syncopated beat of the quartet. Why is no one dancing with her? But before I could do the gentlemanly thing of asking her for a dance someone beat me to it. Somehow I felt strangely jealous that she would dance with a stranger. But soon she rejected her partner and danced on alone.
The band played on but she stopped dancing. I went over.
“Of all the gin joints in all of Cape Town you have to walk into mine” I made Bogie’s line my own.
Her wrinkled face cracked into a smile. She extended her hand “Salma”
Salma is a 17 year old in a 70 year old body. Her exuberance and natural curiosity and interest about things have kept her young I am sure. Well young in spirit anyway. She wanted to know where I came from and what I did and how I view life and so on. She comes to the Waterfront most days to listen to the band and to dance. “I walk here – saves money.” “No I am not a Cape Malay”. Her head scarf fooled me.
We talked some more and then she left with the double bass player.
“Every time we say goodbye I die a little
Every time we say goodbye I wonder why a little . . . “
The next band played their first song and my last. No point hanging around.
You can either walk up the Table Mountain or you can take the cable car. My excuse for not walking is the lack of time.
Besides the view there’s nothing much up there - unless you like hiking and climbing.
It’s great when the mist comes on. The possibility that you may put a foot wrong and come down faster than the cable car is an exciting prospect.
But Cape Town is not just the Table Mountain and the Waterfront.
You can go to Camp Town (?) by the beach where apparently Tom Cruise and other Hollywood types chill out. It’s full of poseurs, conmen, Hollywood wannabes and gushing wide -eyed groupies hoping to spot a celebrity. I ponced around on the beach exposing my torso – no one asked for my autograph. Must be the dark glasses, no one recognised me!
It’s not just on the Waterfront that you have music. Round street corners in the city centre are groups literally singing for their supper. Some of these ‘gangs’ are as young as 5 to 12 dancing and singing their hearts out while one of them go round with a hat. This is better than the begging and pestering street urchins one sees in many cities.
Taking the mini buses is easy. Barkers will shout out their destinations if they see anyone standing on the pavement. From the city centre to Green Point costs only 5 rand (a taxi will cost five times as much). Sweaty bodies there may be but no riff raffs (unless you consider everyone who is poor or working class that) and no pickpockets.
The odd times I have taken a taxi I have not met a Capetonian driver or a South African driver for that matter.
“Where do you come from?”
“Uganda”
“Habari zako” I said.
He laughed at my Swahili. I had an Ugandan classmate I told him.
He leveled with the next taxi at the lights and chatted with the driver in Swahili.
“He’s from Rwanda” he said.
The guy at the roadside beer stall is from the Congo, the girl at the Bird Park from Zimbabwe. Everyone is from somewhere except South Africa it would seem. They all think the streets of Cape Town are paved with gold.
The best two hundred rand you can hope to spend is on the City Tour buses. For two hundred rand you can take both the red route and the blue route – one for each day.
You get to see the Constantia Vineyards, go wine tasting, go round the outer fringes of CT, Table Top Mountain, the Botanical Garden, Bird Park, go to Camp Town, watch the sunset on Signal Hill, see the historical and other interesting places within the city, visit a township. Two action-packed days. You can take it at your own pace, getting on and off as it suits you.
There’s enough to see and do in Cape Town to take up 5 days at least; but Cape Town is not South Africa. There’s plenty more out of Cape Town.
(All ìPostcardsî are written off the cuff – unedited, so please bear with any typos, grammar, etc )
Copyright Yin Ee Kiong 2011
