Leptis Magna

As I said in my last post, a couple of weeks ago we headed about 120km east to the ruins of the Roman settlement at Leptis Magna. It was pretty bloody warm but worth the trip and we'll definately be ehaded out that way again when it's cooler.

We started out from the infamous Thobacts Hotel with me driving, the guide didn’t seem to mind although he had offered to drive. Given that I wanted to know how to get there for the next time, we braved my driving (or is it the driving of the others on the road?) and headed off. I need not have been so concerned about navigating for the next trip as there’s only one road and if you miss the turn off at Al Khums, Benghazi beckons about 6 hours later.

Go take a look at Wikipedia for a full history of the place but the long and short of it is that it’s the home town of the only African born Roman Emperor, Septimius Severus. Hence the main arch is the Arch of Septimius Severus and the town itself became the third most important place in the whole Empire. Not bad for somewhere that started out as a watering hole.

But, all good things must come to an end and Leptis Magna was Vandalised by Vandals (the tribe, not the Graffiti idiots) fell into ruins to be covered with sand until by archaeologists. The excavations have stopped for now and as far as I can find out, there are no plans for extensive digs to be carried out in the future.

The history is fascinating and thanks to the fact that it was hidden for so many years, it’s pretty much intact. The Arch of Septimius Severus has been extensively rebuilt, looking at the pictures showing the reconstruction it was almost completely ruined and scattered around the vicinity it’s in now.

The Roam Baths that are there are ingenious in their use of terra cotta pipes for heating the steam room. It’s amazing that way back then they had underfloor heating and central heating down to a fine art.

Don’t expect to be blown away by the souvenir shops or the facilities. They’re both fairly rudimentary

Anyway it’s very much worth the visit and the drive is fairly straightforward. Our guide, whom I would highly recommend to anyone wanting to visit anywhere in Libya, thought I drove like a local. Good or bad I am not sure but at least we survived.

Mrs Dadfap is back in Australia, the government here has appropriated many of the rooms in the “better” hotels for official guests for the 40th anniversary of the Revolution. Tripoli is a mess at the best of times, can you imagine what it’s going to be like with all of the road blocks etc. For official motorcades????????????

I found a saying on the net the other day that I’ve adapted to life here in Libya:

“Everything in Libya is logical, you just have to learn Libyan Logic!”

Cheers

DADFAP

Thobacts Hotel

THOBACTS HOTEL
More on the Thobacts Hotel where we are now. The rooms are adequate but the restaurant and the coffee shop are seriously below par. The food is marginally better than the first hotel but could best be described as amateurish and of pretty poor quality, all this from a hotel that charges LD280 – LD310 (US$220 – 250) per night.

The staff are generally better than at the Asshajara Hotel but good training and improved customer relations skills would go a long way.

Talk about Comedy Capers though. Mrs. Dadfap, spent a whole week chasing down lost laundry. It all started with some laundry being returned with some items of mine missing, just a pair of shorts and a pair of 3/4 length pants of my wife's. The front desk responded with glazed looks, the duty manager was almost as bad. They did manage to deliver THAT day's laundry, at about 11PM that night even with a do not disturb sign on the door, annoyed but relieved that some of our laundry had returned, we shrugged and went back to bed. So next day she starts in earnest to try and track down the missing laundry.
She starts by going to the housekeeping staff who again look at her with a glazed look, moves on to the housekeeping manager who repeatedly assures her that it had been delivered around 4 days earlier, despite her protestations to the contrary and inviting him to visit our room and check for himself.

Anyway, those who know Mrs Dadfap will understand, her persistence paid off and she tracked it down in the housekeeping supervisor's office (along with some items even we didn't realise were missing) and yes, the earlier advice was right, it had been delivered on the date that he mentioned. Problem is to the wrong room and to a guy who advised the house keeper that he didn't wear female trousers. Fortunately, the house keeping supervisor, a lovely girl from Tunisia, was helping by now and with her help, we tracked it all down. It took a while, as do most things here but we got there.

TRIPOLI IN LIGHTS
Ramadan has started and preparations are well underway for the start of the celebrations for the 40th anniversary of the Revolution. Green Square has been cleaned and spruced up with lights and decorations as well as Omar Muktar street and the other streets leading down there.

There's been considerable effort cleaning up the streets and painting the street front buildings white. Where they have done all of the work, the city really does look like you would expect of a coastal city on the Mediterranean coast.

Oh remember in the last post regarding the dinner at the Corinthian Hotel and how nice the sunset was? We were there agin this week and again there was a beautiful sunset and this time we had a camera. Like I said, the sunsets are beautiful and the way the weather is at the moment, outside dining is just stunning.

A couple of weeks ago we travelled east to Leptis Magna to view the Roman ruins there. Stunning, absolutley brilliant and well worth the journey. Unfortunately, it was stinking hot so we only spent half the day there but we definately plan a second trip when it's cooler. Pictures next post as I said, it's a pretty interesting place, been around a while too!

Cheers

DADFAP

Tripoli, First Impressions

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: After we got over the initial shock, we’re settling in. Tripoli is a place I’d been looking at for a few years to work in and the first couple of days I was beginning to think that I should have been careful about what I was wishing for. Anyway, as I’ve said, we’re settling albeit, still stuck in a hotel while we wait for our house to be completed.

We’re in the second hotel so far and by all accounts, this is supposed to be one of the better ones in town. I’ve travelled all over South East Asia, India, the Middle East and Europe and the hotels here are amongst the worst that I’ve ever encountered.

The first hotel was the Asshajara Hotel in Seedy Eassa Street and it had quite simply the worst food that I’ve ever encountered, it was simply inedible. There are dozens of expats living there, as there are in our second hotel and the complaints about the food were the same from all of them, so although I’d pass off criticism from one small group (i.e. ourselves) it’s the same from guests of all nationalities. The service was marginally better than the food, not saying much but at least there's’ room for improvement.

The food at the second hotel is really no better. It seems to me that hotels we’ve stayed at so far employ the worst possible chefs in order to minimise the numbers of restaurant staff and cleaning up required. However, the staff here area n improvement, they have a way to go but then again, the tourism industry here is in it’s infancy and they need good examples and training to progress.

We’ve eaten now twice at the Corinthian Hotel, the one “5 Star” hotel in town. The first meal at the upstairs outdoor dining area of the Venezia Restaurant was great, the steak that I had was well cooked and well presented. Mrs. Dadfap had pasta that was tasty but a little overcooked but the octopus salad that the third person at our table had was also delicious. Good food, good ambience and good company, not a bad evening, I really should have taken my camera as the sunset shots would have been stunning.

The Corinthian was let down by the second meal that we had there a few days later at the downstairs buffet. It’s beautifully presented but by and large it’s pretty bland. I had the salads and seafood and my wife had the salads and turkey, which really was the highlight of the meal. The beer was warm (even non-alcoholic beer should be chilled) and arrived about 10 minutes after being ordered, pretty tragic really when the restaurant had only 5 tables occupied. The service was pretty awful and a real disappointment after the experience at one of their other restaurants just a few nights earlier.

Tripoli has the potential to be one of the most beautiful cities on the Mediterranean coast. It has old world charm, interesting and unique architecture and a really quite wonderful climate but it needs cleaned up. There seems to be no interest in keeping the place clean which is truly a shame.

The next 5 years or so are going to see substantial changes in Libya and I think in Tripoli in particular, it’s going to be an interesting place to be.

With the exception of couple a short breaks in Australia, we’ve been expats for the better part of the last 15 years so we know this is only the beginning of our time here and that all of this fun will fade into the background. So, we’ll continue to live in Tripoli and get used to the differences between here and the rest of the world, after all, that’s a good part of the reason to be an expat.

Cheers

DADFAP