Tag Archive for 'MV Ilala'

A stay in paradise

Published on 7th September, 2008 in Africa. 0 Comments Tags: , .

I slept on the bench come bed that I’d used my bags to claim for the grand total of about 3 hours. Second class had got more busy and added noise and people (including a woman that fought her way onto my bench) made any hope of sleeping after that impossible.

The boat arrived at Nkhata Bay, our departure point, very early although it was delayed by a few hours. It must have been about 5:30 am when we finally got off that wretched boat. Craig had told us where to find him and we were escorted there by a few of the locals out to earn a finders fee. Mayoka Village described as paradise by Craig, and once we were shown to our water front chalet we had to agree! It would be all to easy to stay there for weeks.

Nkhata Bay itself is a small fishing village on the western shore of Lake Malawi/Nyassa. It has a completely different feel from Senga Bay just down the coast. Senga Bay is more of a traditional lake side holiday destination consisting of a string of hotels and lodges where as Nkhata Bay is a backpackers retreat or should I say paradise?


Our waterfront chalet at Mayoka Village

MV Ilala

Published on 7th September, 2008 in Africa. 0 Comments Tags: , .

I now no longer have anything nice to say about the MV Ilala, the decrepit Glasgow made ferry. I can only assume it features on the list of Malawian highlights because of the frenzy it causes when it comes into port. It’s a complete free for all with people pushing their way and manners forgotten just to get off as quickly as possible.

Our day was largely uneventful. We eventually sneaked up stairs to the first class deck and spent much of the afternoon there. This offered the best views and a welcome relief from the overcrowding of 2nd and ordinary class (and a welcome break from the horrible stink of dried fish).

This afternoon we docked off three Mozambican villages (only 2 places on the entire lake have docks) and picked up a kiwi guy called Ashley. He’d been travelling the world for the last 8 years and this was him working his way up the east coast of Africa having gone down the west coast already. His attitude to travelling was rather different to ours and he found it both amazing and funny that we only had two months to see 8 countries and that we were on course to do it. It would be easy to envy his lifestyle but to me it’s more of a curse. In response to my question “Where out of all the places you’ve been would like to live” he said no where and that he’d just get restless and bored. I couldn’t imagine being on my own with no friends, support network, very little money and and no home. My attitude to travelling is completely different. Sure I’d like to visit almost every country in the world but not in one go. I like having fixed dates for arriving and going home so I can make the most of the time I have and not just day dream through it. Not many people look forward to going home unless they’re not enjoying themselves but I find that when I’m abroad I do look forward to going home as well as wishing I didn’t have to. It’s good to have a break but I get really motivated to get on with things on my return. Being in a different country/culture also makes me appreciate the UK more. We’re lucky people, many of us just don’t realise it.


Looking into “Ordinary Class” (3rd)


One of the 2 boats ferrying people ashore

Day trip to Mulanje

Published on 5th September, 2008 in Africa. 0 Comments Tags: .

We left our bags at the backpackers and took a minivan down to Mulanje where we wanted to see the mountain (preferably from the bottom) and tea plantation skirting its base.

Mulanje is a small town with the main road (the Robert Mugabe Highway) running as might be expected straight through it. It wasn’t difficult to find the tourist information office and the Italian owned pizzeria below.

To the man in the tourist office Bhavneet sounded like a Dutch name, when corrected he assumed I was Indian too! It was a change from people assuming we were either brother and sister or married.

I’ve done a tour of a tea plantation and it’s factory before in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia so I wasn’t in for anything new for me. After a really good and authentic pizza we headed off for what was a trek round the plantation. Whilst I enjoyed the tour more in Malaysia it was still a nice walk without any other tourists around.

Our goal for the evening was to try and get to Monkey Bay at the bottom of Lake Malawi so we could catch the weekly ferry leaving at 10 am the next morning. On getting back to the bus station in Blantyre we discovered that there wasn’t any buses in that direction till the morning, so keen to not stay another night under the roof of the rude owner from the day before and to not miss out on the ferry, we decided to get the bus back to Lilongwe and catch the ferry from somewhere else.

The idea of an overnight bus appealed as it would also provide our accommodation for the evening. Buses, like minivans don’t run to a schedule in these parts but instead leave when full. Our bus eventually left at about 8 and arrived around 1 am in Lilongwe. We were relieved to find that we could sleep on the bus in the bus station until morning. We awoke that morning at 5:30 am and walked into town in search of breakfast. The problem was that almost half the population are muslim and it was the start of Ramadan.

We eventually headed off to Selima en route to Chipoka a little later than we should and we were getting a bit worried that with only a few hours to go before the ferry set sail we were still stranded in Selima without a reservation for the boat. When we eventually made it to the Chipoka turn off we had 45 minutes to go and had to travel the final 2km on the back of a bicycle.

The ferry, built in Glasgow, is one of the highlights of Malawi. Guidebooks talk about sailing under the stars. We didn’t think that sleeping on the exposed deck warranted 3 times the price of 2nd class, so we found ourselves 2 benches to sleep on and dumped our heavy bags.

Sleeping was a challenge and I wasn’t particularly successful. The novelty of being on a boat had worn off the old rust bucket already.


Looking from the tea plantation towards the mountain