A few days holiday to use and the hunt was on for a cheap flight to a not too far distant city that I had yet to explore. The Internet came up with a £50 flight to Copenhagen, so I hit the buttons on the PC and the next morning that nice little ticket came through the letterbox.

Despite being a cheapie, the Maersk flight departed Gatwick on time and actually landed early. After collecting my bag, it was quite a walk from the gate to the baggage area. I bought a train ticket to Copenhagen Central Station, 25 Kroner, yep the Danes still use proper money, not silly Euro Roubles! The efficient train takes around 15 minutes to the city.

Next to find my hotel, the first thing to say about accommodation in Copenhagen is it ain’t cheap. My hotel The Cabinn was located a 10 minute walk south of the station and cost around £50 night including a good quality buffet breakfast. The rooms were small, but excellently designed, though the beds are a bit narrow, I did role out one night!

Well off to explore, first stop obviously the Tourist office. They are extremely helpful, lots of information and maps. The walking tours which leave from the Tourist Information at 10 am each day in the summer are excellent. They cost 75 Kroner and take around 2 and a half hours. They are in English explaining the city via its most famous son Hans Christian Anderson. One tip is that you are better off doing the tour on a week day as you can get into courtyards and see parts of buildings not open at the weekend. You also learn gems such as why the knee of the statue of Hans Christian Anderson is so shiny, its because tour buses full of oriental visitors pull up, and they sit on his knee to have their photo taken!

Nyhaven is what you see in all the postcards, a lovely area full of sailing boats and little waterside cafes.

Another tour worth doing is the 50 minute boat trip that leaves from Nyhaven (50 Kroner), you get a close up view of the new Opera house and you get to see the Little Mermaid statue from a different angle, you also get a riverside view of the new “Black Diamond”, this love it or hate it building is the National Library. The boat then heads into the canals of the Christianhavns area. Christiania as the area is known is home to an alternative community, which did have a reputation for drugs, but has cleaned up its act to some degree, though you can still walk down Pusher Street.

For a great view over the city it is hard to beat the climb up the tower of the Trinity Church (20 Kroner), some great views, but the protective fencing at the top does get in the way of photos.

If you want to explore further afield as I did you cant beat making the train trip to Helsingor up the coast to see Elsinor castle, famous in Shakespear’s Hamlet, it is expensive to enter, but the views around it are great. It was during a wander here that the lovely sunshine disappeared and a deluge of rain began, so I headed into Helsingor city and visited the town's museum, which is quite interesting, though there is little in English.

Another trip I made was west to Roskilde, this town is home to a spectacular cathedral, but of far more interest to me was the Viking Ship Museum (75 Kroner), there are Viking ships, well bits of them in the museum and out on the water are new ones built in the old way. You can walk around and see the ships being crafted, there are areas where children and the young at heart can try their hand at crafts from the Viking era.

Back in Copenhagen if you want to chill out after all that sightseeing The Rose Garden in Copenhagen’s second biggest park, Valby Parken is the place. There are quite a few themed gardens to wander round, number 3 has a maze and another has a Japanese theme.

Copenhagen is perfect for a long weekend and if any of you Globies are into Geocaching, there are around 20 to do in the cities environs.

The Beetle had told me Copenhagen was a bit boring when she had visited!

This is a picture of me in the Rose garden, Valby Park Copenhagen. Beetle: where are the roses, Kev?

Not sure what to buy your loved ones next Christmas? Why not buy a Ryanair cartoon? This one, see: shows a picture of a man booking a budget flight. The booking agent is grinning frantically and says: the flight is only 99p but it will cost another £120 if you want to do it inside the plane. Yes, quite.

An interesting article in http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=68464 about a man in the US calling a help line to make a complaint to Ryanair’s head office in Dublin. Before calling he noticed that the charges were quite high – 1.75 euro from the Republic of Ireland or £1 from the UK to call. The message clearly stated that the number was for an Irish office. He called several times and each time spoke with someone with an Italian accent and at one point was told that he was calling Italy though other people he spoke to denied this. So he decided to ask what was the weather like in Dublin and not a single person could answer him, so he deduced that he was actually calling Italy. Eventually he managed to speak to a supervisor who also has an Italian accent and they admit that the office where all the calls were going was in Milan in Italy. The supervisor could not explain why the staff were pretending to be in Dublin while actually being in Italy. She would neither confirm nor deny that they had been instructed to lie when asked where they were. Anyone know why?

Oh dear, it seems that Ryanair is coming under scrutiny for poor working conditions. A new website has been set up in September 2004: http://www.ryan-be-fair.org/latestnews.htm to communicate with passengers and employees of Ryanair. From this, the website says, two key issues have arisen:

• Lack of respect and how staff are generally treated
• Salaries and working conditions being as bad as they are.

The International Union Federation said that the website has attracted over half a million hits and revealed what it described as a 'shocking catalogue of misery, low pay and oppression' among the airline's workers. Ryanair employees have used http://www.ryan-be-fair.org to talk about the climate of fear that surrounds them, of 12 hour days without breaks, and of how they even have to pay for the water they need to drink on flights. If you have any information you would like to share about Ryanair, contact the website – everything is strictly confidential, and the website assures that they will not pass your details on to anybody.

[Beetle: These links seem to be down at present, but you can read them via google’s cache here and here]

Another interesting article in the International Herald Tribune by a journalist who underwent the Ryanair experience.

Globetrotter Steve spotted this:

The new partnership between Ryanair and Terravision, the new low cost coach company, now ensures that Ryanair passengers will be able to travel between Rome Ciampino airport and Rome centre, Milan Bergamo airport and Milan centre, Pisa G. Galilei airport and Florence centre quickly and comfortably, but above all at a really low cost!

Look for the Terravision icon on http://www.ryanair.com to book and purchase tickets and avoid queues or alternatively go to one of the many Terravision booths located in 15 European airports. Watch out for new openings in other European city destinations on

As part of Trade Aid’s work in Tanzania, we aim to promote a sustainable tourism industry in Mikindani area. The following is the impressions of a trip to investigate the tourism and tourism opportunities in Palma, Northern Mozambique.

Palma is a small, fishing town set inside a large bay along the northern coast of Mozambique. It is home to some 10,000 people, most of whom are supported by industries linked to the sea. Like Mikindani, the place is quiet and peaceful and its people and culture are dominated by the influence of the Indian Ocean that surrounds it. In this way, what we expected was something more akin to Mikindani but the reality was quite different.

We arrived in Palma via two pick-up trucks and a boat across the Ruvuma to be greeted by the dusty, sandy sight all so familiar to us after our five months near Mtwara. However, what struck us was the complete absence of the historic buildings and NGO vehicles that dominate the landscape of Mikindani and Mtwara. The vehicle on which we arrived was virtually the only thing to pass through Palma during our stay while the old colonial buildings that dominate the visage of Mikindani were nowhere to be seen. Perhaps this was why Palma almost had a more earthy sense of untampered-with Swahili Coast. The charm of Mikindani lies in the huge mixture of different colonial, native and trade influences that have shaped its past and continues to shape its future. With Palma, it’s great appeal lies in the idea that it never was a settlement of great importance and so you feel, when walking around that this is the natural development of this part of the world.

There was no electricity or running water in the guest house, no Boma to retire to for a cold beer and certainly no hint of mobile phone signal and internet access but Palma itself was all the better for this. These things, along with the presence of brand names such as coca-cola and Pepsi are right for the formerly upwardly mobile Mikindani, a place now beginning to see a revival thanks to enterprises such as the Boma, the brand new ECO2 dive school and the newly revamped Ten Degrees South lodge. However, in a place such as Palma, where people are living on less than a dollar a day and where there has never been a glorious past to compare to that of Mikindani, these things would simply be out of place. We saw no other tourists during our time in Palma, which only served to enhance the feeling of being part of a totally different society. When following a regular tourist route, however sensitive a tour company or hotel may be, you never get to feel as cut off as this.

As part of our time there we went to see a local group of women rehearsing traditional Mozambique song (see picture, left). We were merely walking by when we were invited to sit in on the group during practice. Listening to the women and drums as the sun set and the tide came in really will be a lasting memory of my time spent in East Africa. Later that day we caught a dhow (traditional African/Arabic sail boat) from Palma all the way back to Mikindani. This again will stay with me for the rest of my life as one of the most authentic experiences of the lives people lead in this part of the world. These sorts of experiences, however overused the cliché may be, really are priceless. Money cannot buy memories and certainly looking at the people of Palma or Mikindani, plays no part in happiness or generosity. This sort of journey, away from the beaten track and reach of the guidebooks is highly recommended and, although not to everyone’s taste, will provide lasting memories to anyone willing to embark on them.

At university I read War Studies and Theology. Whilst this makes me a complete weirdo it also means I can write very interesting newsletter articles. I have done one on Religion in Tanzania so now for the bit that keeps St Peter busy, War.

Little is known of East African warfare before the arrival of Europeans but we know the Arabs would have been developed whilst any combat involving the natives would have been small scale using edged weapons like swords (pangas), spears, bows and possibly shields. A look at the contemporary Massai or watching Zulu (great film) will give you some idea of what this would involve. Some Kenyan pangas from the Mau Mau uprising are on display in the Imperial War Museum. The Swahili’s first contact with gunpowder was from the Omani Arabs and then the Portuguese. However, most of the European-Swahili conflict occurred from 1884 onwards with the arrival of German occupation. The huge technological and military advantage enjoyed by the German’s meant that they were going to win most rucks. The British-Dervish battle of Omdurman (1896) with rifles, machine guns and artillery left 30,000 of the Sudanese spear chuckers dead or wounded for the cost of fifty British dead. However, the Europeans did not always have an easy day of battle.

The Hehe tribe had become one of the largest in Tanzania by the time of German occupation and opposed the colonists. In 1891 the heroic Chief Mkwawa led his tribe in battle at Lugalo and gave the Hun a good thrashing. A bit of a one off though as he was up against the finest offensive troops in the world and was soon on the run. He committed suicide and his head was cut off and sent to Germany where it remained until British diplomatic pressure saw it returned to Tanganyika in 1954.

By 1905 the Swahilis had been forced into labour and as a result of the appalling conditions, rebelled. The rebellion was known as the Maji Maji rebellion (maji = water) as the natives believed the Germans’ bullets would turn to water after firing. If their knowledge of ballistics was somewhat more developed then they would probably not have suffered such terrible casualties. The Germans reacted harshly but effectively using scorched earth tactics which resulted in wide spread famine and malnutrition. Mass executions of tribal leaders especially to the fearsome Ngoni tribe mopped up any remaining resistance. About 100,000 natives perished. Fortunately, the German colonists changed their stance and relative peace prevailed. Until 1914…

German East Africa (GEA) was surrounded by the British to the east in Zanzibar, the north in Kenya, the south east in Nyasaland, by the Belgians in the Congo and the Portuguese were honouring England’s oldest alliance and, therefore, the Germans were hemmed in from the south by Mozambique. This unenviable position was defended by Paul Von Lettow Vorbeck leading at any point about 3,300 Germans and 15,000 locally recruited levies. It was an impossible position really – his armaments were mostly obsolete and re-supply from the sea was going to be problematic.

The German Kriegsmarine’s ship Konigsberg managed to out fox the Royal Navy (RN) and was able to land supplies and wreck the Pegasus as she cleaned her boilers off Zanzibar. She fled up the Rufiji River where her shallow draft meant she could escape from the RN’s guns. If you have seen a particularly shocking Roger Moore film ‘Shout at the Devil’ (nothing compared to Moonraker, “I think he’s attempting re-entry”), then it shows the idea a little. However, the response was not to get a poor quality actor to black up with boot polish and take an alarm clock attached to TNT to blow the ship up. The British got two shallow draft monitors with long range howitzers to shoot it. Before sinking, the Germans landed the guns and ammunition and the Captain later defended Lindi.

Lettow Vorbeck employed hit and run tactics often deep into the surrounding colonies and was still being supplied by the Kriegsmarine. The RN blockaded the coast and supported the movements of the army along the coast. By 1916 the combined allied force outnumbered the Germans considerably and was led by the South African General Smuts. The Germans were rolled up and slowly encircled but the fighting continued in earnest. On 13th September a naval bombardment preceded a land attack on Mikindani. The impressive Customs House was shelled and wrecked and Mikindani claimed its only death of the war, sadly a forgotten villager. It appears the Boma was not attacked and resistance was not offered.

After a long game of cat and mouse and many casualties to malaria and dysentery the brilliant military campaign of the charming and brave General Von Lettow Vorbeck came to an end. He heard of the armistice two days after its signing and gave up his sword honourably on 25th November in North Rhodesia as a truly great soldier. GEA passed into British administration under a League of Nations mandate and became Tanganyika. The coming of the 1939-45 war did not result in any domestic combat but Tanganyikans did volunteer for service in the King’s African Rifles and the population as a whole suffered from shortages and rationing as Britain pulled her Empire into the war. Roald Dahl’s ‘Going solo’ provides an interesting account of life in Tanganyika at the outbreak of war (as well as great snake and decapitation stories).

The war passed as did British rule and now Tanzania is defended by the Tanzanian People’s Defence Force (TPDF) as well as a militia and a paramilitary police. I have personally seen the militia drilling and was not overly impressed. However, the TPDF proved themselves to be the best East African army in the war to oust Idi Amin from Uganda in 1979. Needless to say if America wanted Tanzania I would put money on the yanks, the TPDF’s budget would not buy a single US fighter aircraft. There was an issue a few years ago of Tanzania buying a high tech radar system from a British firm, I am unsure of the outcome.

A walk around Mikindani shows little evidence of current military activity but the historical signs are more common. The Mtwara airstrip was an RAF base, the customs house was destroyed by naval artillery and subsequent neglect, the splendid hotel is a fortified building. The Boma is no great castle but would have been a hard nut to crack. The crenulations (saw teeth type things you get at the top of castles) on the bastion at the back are wide enough to accommodate the large water cooled barrel of the Maxim machine gun whilst those on the tower could only fit a rifle. Both employed at the time of construction.

The now covered well shows that the adage is true that a castle’s defence is only as deep as its well and the witch doctor who dug a whole at the top of the Boma hill looking for German treasure found only spent German rifle cartridges. Using a chicken as a metal detector probably was not the best method of finding treasure though. The fact that Tanzania is relatively boring to a student of war belies its greatest asset. The peaceable nature of its citizens.