Flightless Dave | Where Have All The Saffas Gone?

There was a time, I recall vividly, when you couldn’t catch a tube in London or set foot in Europe without bumping into a marauding pack of South Africans off seeing the world. Post 1994 that’s just what a lot of people did: got out of the box to see what else was there.

In Australia estimates report that as many as 20% of the country’s youth is outside their borders travelling the world at any given time. I was pretty sure that this would become the same thing for South Africans over time.

But so far I have encountered not one. I reportedly missed a group in Ghent by one day. Unusual I thought. But then I think about my friends who are out of SA… nearly all of them stay in one place, pursue professional careers and travel way above backpacker class in short bursts around the world. Not likely I will bump into this category traveler down where I am.

Of course the weakness of the rand has a lot to do with it. But so do Commonwealth visa restrictions, the basic unobtainability of the two-year working visa in the UK and the cost of visas for other territories as well. It’s just way more expensive for us.

When contemplating crossing the planet cost is always going to be a major factor. When you factor additional Visas into this, things can get really out of hand. For example, the Trans Siberian railway. If you want to do the far cooler sounding Mongolian trip, you need 2 extra Visa’s… (Not just for SA but everyone) and each sits at about 150 euros (depending on where you are from). Stack that up against the 150 euros for just the Russian Visa plus the 500 euros for the ticket and things start looking very expensive.

All of this adds up to me not really seeing many of my countrymen drifting around. I might rectify this on Saturday by finding a pub in Amsterdam that is showing the rugby against New Zealand.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I am homesick at this stage, but it would be nice to hear a familiar accent again.

After traveling through Spain, France and Belgium and not speaking any of the languages, it would be nice to hear some Sef Efrican English! And seeing as my next destinations include Berlin, Prague, Copenhagen and Geneva, this will be one of my last opportunities to do so.

Anyway, today I am en-route for Amsterdam where I will base myself for a couple of weeks and engage in some day-tripping in order to rest up, save some cash and plan the next leg of the trip in detail. I am still finding it way easier to travel by rail than anything else, and in Belgium the trains are WAY cheaper than France and you do not have to book in advance. Far simpler.

Follow the whole story of my travels on www.davidchislett.co.za