Hoi An, Vietnam felt like home to me when I first arrived there at the start of the pandemic. I keep coming back there. And am there now. It keeps shaping me.
Loved this. I think living anywhere new changes you, but Zambia sounds like a special place. My mother in law from Surrey did something like this back in the 60s. Always talks about Victoria Falls. We tell her to go back and visit. Instead she’s requested that when she dies, we all (that is, her sons and their families) go to the Falls to spread her ashes. Poetic. But I do wish she would just make the trip before that!
Absorbing from beginning to end. Of course, now I’d like to visit Zambia, but more than this, to welcome more challenges when traveling and take joy in the unexpected experiences that might open my mind and change my perspective. Thanks, Sam and Mikey!
☺️ thank you, Ruth! I am also now dying to see Zambia. I think Mikey is one of two people I know that have been there, and the other person also had nothing but wonderful things to say about it!
Two places have stuck with--and changed--me: Kabul, Afghanistan, when I was in my twenties, and Vienna, Austria, when I was in my sixties. I just finished writing about my experiences in Afghanistan on my Travel Doorways Substack: https://claricedankers.substack.com/t/memoir
Adding to Clarice's recs, because I can't help myself: Nick and I really enjoyed DaRose--they do an excellent cocktail and the ambience is hip but cozy and not pretentious!
Super! Can I make a couple of suggestions for restaurants? Here are our favorites: Sixta (https://www.sixta-restaurant.com/). The food is traditional Austrian--but a cut above--the atmosphere is warm and welcoming, and the wines (all by the glass) are lovely. Our favorite wine bar is Vis a Vis. It is a tiny, but charming, place in the first district where you can sample all kinds of delicious Austrian wines by the glass. (It is located on a narrow side street at Wollzeile 5. ) Let me know if you get the chance to visit either one. Prost!
Suddenly, I am flooded with Zambia memories after reading Mikey’s interview.
1. As newly arrived newlyweds in Africa, my bride and I were tasked with driving a little red Isuzu pickup truck from Harare, Zimbabwe to Lilongwe, Malawi, which was back before Madonna started buying her children there. After overnighting with a friend in Lusaka who had the windscreen stolen from his car at a traffic signal the day before, we headed across Zambia on the Great East Road to Chipata. Almost exactly halfway across the six hundred kilometer trek, we crested a small hill and witnessed an amazing sight on the other side.
An ancient lorry pulling a flatbed trailer overloaded with sacks of sugar, a rare and precious commodity in those days, ran out of power while climbing the hill, ground to a stop, and then started rolling backwards until it finally jackknifed between two cut banks and completely shut down the Great East Road. Drivers from the long lines of stalled vehicles were helpfully unloading the sugar and stashing in their cars. I don’t remember how long we waited or how the mess was finally resolved, but I do remember the happy faces of looters who would at long last enjoy their tea with sugar for weeks to come.
2. While living in Blantyre, Malawi in the days before Madonna bought her children there, a friend asked me to fly to Lusaka for two days with him to consult on a project, so we flew from Blantyre to Lilongwe, where we boarded a Zambia Airways flight. About 45 minutes into the flight, the captain announced that the Zambian government had just closed all borders and grounded all flights from the country for seven days to introduce a new currency. Zambians had seven days to exchange old currency for the new currency before the old became worthless. The intent was to put black market currency dealers out of business by making their hoards of cash worthless.
I looked at my friend and he looked back at me. I knew exactly what he was thinking, besides the fact we didn’t have enough clean socks and underwear for five extra days. He had only enough Coke in cans with him to last two days. Coke was his only joy in life and it was almost impossible to break into the Zambia Coke market without an empty Coke bottle to exchange for a full bottle. As with most things in Zambia in those days, Coke bottles along with clean new socks, underwear, toothpaste, car windshields and almost everything thing else was in short supply or nonexistent.
Immediately upon landing in Lusaka, my friend was already starting to panic about his rapidly approaching Coke drought, so at every bottle store along the highway, I stopped while he attempted to negotiate an empty bottle. No luck.
On the morning of the third day, he woke me early and off we went in search of the holy grail of bottles. No luck. No luck whatsoever. As a stopgap, he bought a couple of warm Cokes from a roadside vendor, but it only whetted his appetite for the luxury of a cold Coke in the luxury of sitting be-underweared in front of a fan on the sofa of the guest house where we stayed.
Then something extraordinary, perhaps miraculous happened. Under a sink, in the dark back corner of a cabinet, he found an overlooked empty Coke bottle. Such joy! Such animal happiness!
And that’s how we survived the next five days, dirty socks and underwear and all. The moral of this story? Don’t pray for miracles, expect them.
Thanks so much for sharing these stories--I got a good giggle out of them! What a wild time to be in Zambia. I'm glad your friend found that Coke bottle. I have a couple friends who are Coke/Dr. Pepper addicts, and they are something else when deprived of their morning can (though I'm hooked on coffee, so I guess I can't talk).
When we would return to Africa after our home leaves, I always brought a six pack of Dr. Pepper with me for those days when everything seemed to go sideways. The problem was that I usually used up my stash within a couple of weeks.
It is always a pleasure to share the odd things that I somehow experienced in life. It’s like I just stand there and I see all these things, but I always wonder if people will believe me and what did I do to deserve to see such odd things?
For example, I was driving down the long country lane where my wife works, it was raining heavily and I saw something large climbing a power pole next to the road. I watched it and realized that it was a bobcat, which when it reached the top, seated itself and looked very unhappy about the rain. I decided to not say anything about my I saw at my wife’s office because who would believe me?
A few minutes after I arrived at the office, a staff member who was apparently not far behind me told everyone he just saw a bobcat with a very unpleasant attitude sitting on top of a power pole in the rain. That was my story and he shamelessly stole it.
So now I try to be the one who tells about these odd events first. It may be the only glory I get in life. I do have an advantage, because I have witnessed far more than my share of oddities in life, but I don’t know why.
This was wonderful! Perfect way to start a Saturday!
🤗 thank you for reading, Aoife!
Absolutely my pleasure, Samantha! 🥰✨
Hoi An, Vietnam felt like home to me when I first arrived there at the start of the pandemic. I keep coming back there. And am there now. It keeps shaping me.
I have never been to Vietnam and it's high on my list!
Feel free to reach out when you go.
Loved this. I think living anywhere new changes you, but Zambia sounds like a special place. My mother in law from Surrey did something like this back in the 60s. Always talks about Victoria Falls. We tell her to go back and visit. Instead she’s requested that when she dies, we all (that is, her sons and their families) go to the Falls to spread her ashes. Poetic. But I do wish she would just make the trip before that!
I hope she takes your advice and goes!! I'm sure revisiting would be so special--maybe Mikey's words will inspire her to do it!
I’m actually from Surrey too! Yes that does sound a bit morbid, she should definitely return before it gets to that point!
Ha. I’ll send her your interview. Kindred spirits.
Absorbing from beginning to end. Of course, now I’d like to visit Zambia, but more than this, to welcome more challenges when traveling and take joy in the unexpected experiences that might open my mind and change my perspective. Thanks, Sam and Mikey!
☺️ thank you, Ruth! I am also now dying to see Zambia. I think Mikey is one of two people I know that have been there, and the other person also had nothing but wonderful things to say about it!
Also, after reading this post, I am now making plans to visit Zambia. It sounds amazing.
Two places have stuck with--and changed--me: Kabul, Afghanistan, when I was in my twenties, and Vienna, Austria, when I was in my sixties. I just finished writing about my experiences in Afghanistan on my Travel Doorways Substack: https://claricedankers.substack.com/t/memoir
I have been loving your memoir about life in Kabul, Clarice!
Thank you, Samantha. That means a lot to me because I love your posts--and your writing.
You're so welcome! Your story is so interesting and deserves to be read 🥰
I’m in Vienna as we speak!
Adding to Clarice's recs, because I can't help myself: Nick and I really enjoyed DaRose--they do an excellent cocktail and the ambience is hip but cozy and not pretentious!
Super! Can I make a couple of suggestions for restaurants? Here are our favorites: Sixta (https://www.sixta-restaurant.com/). The food is traditional Austrian--but a cut above--the atmosphere is warm and welcoming, and the wines (all by the glass) are lovely. Our favorite wine bar is Vis a Vis. It is a tiny, but charming, place in the first district where you can sample all kinds of delicious Austrian wines by the glass. (It is located on a narrow side street at Wollzeile 5. ) Let me know if you get the chance to visit either one. Prost!
Thank you, will check those out!
I just posted pictures of the two places in Notes so you could get a feeling for them!
Thanks for having me!
Suddenly, I am flooded with Zambia memories after reading Mikey’s interview.
1. As newly arrived newlyweds in Africa, my bride and I were tasked with driving a little red Isuzu pickup truck from Harare, Zimbabwe to Lilongwe, Malawi, which was back before Madonna started buying her children there. After overnighting with a friend in Lusaka who had the windscreen stolen from his car at a traffic signal the day before, we headed across Zambia on the Great East Road to Chipata. Almost exactly halfway across the six hundred kilometer trek, we crested a small hill and witnessed an amazing sight on the other side.
An ancient lorry pulling a flatbed trailer overloaded with sacks of sugar, a rare and precious commodity in those days, ran out of power while climbing the hill, ground to a stop, and then started rolling backwards until it finally jackknifed between two cut banks and completely shut down the Great East Road. Drivers from the long lines of stalled vehicles were helpfully unloading the sugar and stashing in their cars. I don’t remember how long we waited or how the mess was finally resolved, but I do remember the happy faces of looters who would at long last enjoy their tea with sugar for weeks to come.
2. While living in Blantyre, Malawi in the days before Madonna bought her children there, a friend asked me to fly to Lusaka for two days with him to consult on a project, so we flew from Blantyre to Lilongwe, where we boarded a Zambia Airways flight. About 45 minutes into the flight, the captain announced that the Zambian government had just closed all borders and grounded all flights from the country for seven days to introduce a new currency. Zambians had seven days to exchange old currency for the new currency before the old became worthless. The intent was to put black market currency dealers out of business by making their hoards of cash worthless.
I looked at my friend and he looked back at me. I knew exactly what he was thinking, besides the fact we didn’t have enough clean socks and underwear for five extra days. He had only enough Coke in cans with him to last two days. Coke was his only joy in life and it was almost impossible to break into the Zambia Coke market without an empty Coke bottle to exchange for a full bottle. As with most things in Zambia in those days, Coke bottles along with clean new socks, underwear, toothpaste, car windshields and almost everything thing else was in short supply or nonexistent.
Immediately upon landing in Lusaka, my friend was already starting to panic about his rapidly approaching Coke drought, so at every bottle store along the highway, I stopped while he attempted to negotiate an empty bottle. No luck.
On the morning of the third day, he woke me early and off we went in search of the holy grail of bottles. No luck. No luck whatsoever. As a stopgap, he bought a couple of warm Cokes from a roadside vendor, but it only whetted his appetite for the luxury of a cold Coke in the luxury of sitting be-underweared in front of a fan on the sofa of the guest house where we stayed.
Then something extraordinary, perhaps miraculous happened. Under a sink, in the dark back corner of a cabinet, he found an overlooked empty Coke bottle. Such joy! Such animal happiness!
And that’s how we survived the next five days, dirty socks and underwear and all. The moral of this story? Don’t pray for miracles, expect them.
Thanks so much for sharing these stories--I got a good giggle out of them! What a wild time to be in Zambia. I'm glad your friend found that Coke bottle. I have a couple friends who are Coke/Dr. Pepper addicts, and they are something else when deprived of their morning can (though I'm hooked on coffee, so I guess I can't talk).
When we would return to Africa after our home leaves, I always brought a six pack of Dr. Pepper with me for those days when everything seemed to go sideways. The problem was that I usually used up my stash within a couple of weeks.
It is always a pleasure to share the odd things that I somehow experienced in life. It’s like I just stand there and I see all these things, but I always wonder if people will believe me and what did I do to deserve to see such odd things?
For example, I was driving down the long country lane where my wife works, it was raining heavily and I saw something large climbing a power pole next to the road. I watched it and realized that it was a bobcat, which when it reached the top, seated itself and looked very unhappy about the rain. I decided to not say anything about my I saw at my wife’s office because who would believe me?
A few minutes after I arrived at the office, a staff member who was apparently not far behind me told everyone he just saw a bobcat with a very unpleasant attitude sitting on top of a power pole in the rain. That was my story and he shamelessly stole it.
So now I try to be the one who tells about these odd events first. It may be the only glory I get in life. I do have an advantage, because I have witnessed far more than my share of oddities in life, but I don’t know why.