MagnusAndCheryl

The Illusion Of Time
Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Buying tickets and arranging transport generally just got a little harder when we reached the untouristed south-west of Tanzania, with few people speaking any English.

So it was that we went to buy tickets for the 6am bus, only to be told we should check in at 11:30! We thought a different bus was being scheduled and confirmed that we wanted to go on the 6am bus. The ticket seller nodded and told us that yes, the bus would leave at 12. Thoroughly confused we would have gone on like this for hours, had a friendly local not let us into the big secret - Tanzania have a different 24 hour clock than the rest of the world!

For some peculiar reason "Swahili Time" is 6 hours ahead of the rest of Africa, meaning the time Tanzania is the same as in Vietnam and that 6am is midnight! Most odd, and made worse by the fact that Tanzanians know this is a bit odd and switch back and forth between Swahili and "UK" time - so you can quite easily be 6 hours late for an appointment and not even know it.

On second thoughts, that sounds like a rather ingenious way to bend time to fit the natural African way of doing business!

Check our Latest Adventures section below for pictures and stories from South Africa or Botswana or Zambia.

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