Good evening, Singapore, and welcome to episode 30 of Sleepless in Singapore. Today is August 11th, 2024, and this episode is going to be about South Africa. Before we begin, I want to apologize. The platform I am hosting these podcasts on seems to have some major issues. I've been trying to get last week's podcast online for the better part of yesterday, but sometimes I keep running into server errors. Well, I'll just hope that they will fix it soon and that at least this podcast episode I can publish in time again.

Thank you, Andreas, for noticing and for letting me know. Also, I want to say thank you for listening. Thank you for being here with me. I am sometimes not sure how many people are actually listening to this or just downloading it, but I made it 30 weeks to 30 episodes. And well, when last Sunday the episode wasn't published and I got the feedback like, "Oh, it's missing. What happened?" That kind of made me very happy because I knew not only that people are listening, but even that people care enough to notice when an episode is late. So thank you very much for that too.

Alright. Now let me tell you about South Africa. Make yourselves comfortable. Sit down and let my voice be your guide to a restful night. South Africa was a trip with HHatim again. Somehow all these more extravagant trips are often with HHatim, which is kind of cool because he's the kind of friend who you can call and ask, "Hey, are we going to North Korea together?" and he will say yes. Actually, that is something that has happened. We've been to North Korea together. I definitely should make an episode about that too, one day.

But this one is South Africa. And I don't really remember how we figured out we wanted to go to South Africa. I think it's mostly because HHatim is based in Kenya, and while I am in Singapore, we were looking at places on this world where both countries are close. Then later on, we always had to go out to have a cigarette. Then later on, we were outside and we were smoking. We were talking to, I think, what was an American couple, and they said they were going to another place, another bar, another kind of club thing. HHatim and I decided to go to another club. We went to that club, and it turns out it was already closing down. I think it was already midnight or so. So we walked around again for a bit, and we were thinking of what we were going to do.

Then HHatim says, "Hey, by the way, thank you for paying for all the wine." And I said, "I thought you paid. Thank you." At first, I thought he was joking, and then quickly we realized that we weren't joking, we were just being stupid, and we ran away after having maybe three nice bottles of wine and a couple of other drinks. So we went back to the Hussar to pay our bill, and I can tell you I have not seen happier waiters than these waiters when we came back to actually pay what we owed. They thought we just ran away, and they were very unhappy. When they saw us and realized we came back to pay and apologized a lot, they were extremely happy. So we managed to get back and not become criminals on the first night, which is a good thing.

We still managed after that to find a club where we had another couple of beers, and where we saw how the South African kids were celebrating, which is pretty similar to how people celebrate everywhere. After a very, very long night, we went back to our Airbnb, and we slept for a bit. In the morning, we got a late breakfast at Sea Point at a restaurant where apparently all the famous people go. That is very funny. I'm just looking at a picture of this restaurant, and I see that the restaurant is very close to the hotel. Turns out they have the very same teapot that I have here. I never noticed. I think the place was called Jarryds, J-A-R-R-Y-D-S. Apparently, that's a place where famous people go. HHatim told me that there was a restaurant or something like that. Well, we were on the lookout, but we didn't see anyone who looked like them. So we did not have breakfast with the Mandelas, but maybe we could have. Who knows?

After this very nice breakfast, we went out and we went to the ocean. We basically did a whole kind of day trip. We went to Scarborough, which is, if you look at a map, you have Cape Town, right? With the Cape Town airport pretty much in the center of the city. Then on the west side of Cape Town, you have a little half-island that's going all the way down to the Cape of Good Hope. On the way to the Cape of Good Hope, which was our goal for the day, you pass by Cape Point, and you go along all this stretch of land and you pass by Scarborough. There is the Table Mountain National Park down there. What we did is we took our car and we went down there. I've never seen the ocean so beautiful and so powerful. If you look south from where you are, there is nothing in between you and Antarctica. To be fair, it's still quite a bit to Antarctica, but there is nothing in between, just a giant, giant stretch of ocean.

From the southernmost point or the southwesternmost point, I guess, of Africa, we went on to this ostrich farm, the Cape Point Ostrich Farm, which was absolutely amazing. South Africa, the nature, and the whole vegetation are absolutely impressive. I absolutely loved that. The climate, by the way, is also quite nice. It's very windy, especially down by the ocean. It was very windy, but still very sunny. We actually had t-shirt weather without ever being hot. But we still both got a little bit of sunburn. So it's nice, but apparently it's also dangerous.

Anyway, this ostrich farm was super cool. We bought some stuff, some things these ostriches could eat. So they were eating from us. We took a couple of pictures. We walked around. There was this huge lawn and these old buildings. Everything was pretty meticulously cut and looked all very nice. Then from that ostrich farm, we went to the nature reserve. There was a secret World War II radar station. It kind of looked like ruins a bit, like an old bunker/castle building that had mostly fallen down. But still, the ruins were there, and you could hike there and go up the little mountain. You could look down the cliffs.

That was the first time I almost killed HHatim because he apparently had a hard time following me up that mountain. And that is not because I'm super fit. That is just because apparently he's less. I say that like I'm proud of it, and I am a bit. But believe me, it's not really a reason to be proud of. We had a wonderful time there. We both collected our sunburns. We took tons of nice pictures. We almost killed HHatim, but he did survive. Against contrary belief, it is possible to walk for two hours without bringing water.

On our way back, we went to see the South African Penguins in Simon's Town. That is also quite cool. You have the beach, like a nice sandy beach, and then you have tons and tons of these small penguins. They are cute as long as you don't have to smell them, by the way. They stink, but they look cute. We took a lot of pictures, and finally, we made our way back. We were out the whole day. In the evening, we went to the Waterkant or De Waterkant, which is a sushi bar or a Japanese food place. We had quite decent sushi. In general, I've got to say the food in South Africa, the food we had, was quite nice.

The next day, I think we went shopping in the morning. There was a supermarket down there that we also really liked. Very well stocked. The supermarket had all kinds of stuff that we know but also all kinds of stuff that we didn't know. It was not cheap but also not crazy expensive. So we just bought everything we thought looked interesting, like tons of snacks and all that. We ordered breakfast, I think. After that, we went out and saw these nice little colorful houses, Bo-Kaap they are called. While these houses are definitely nice and definitely worth taking a picture and walking around a bit, what wasn't so nice was that some guy was following us into a local 7-11 or something like that, like a convenience store, a local one. This guy was following us in there and then he asked us if we could buy him something.

Sadly, we made the mistake and said yes, sure, what do you need. We were thinking he needed a bottle of water or something, but what he wanted was a can of milk powder. You know, like these dry milk powder stuff. I looked at the can, like a big 5 kg can or something, and the convenience store guy wanted like 100 plus US dollars for it. HHatim and I said sorry, but you know, we thought you wanted a coke and not 100 dollars worth of milk powder. So no, sorry. Instead of accepting that, the guy got angry and he was kind of blocking our way out. He looked a bit scary. He also smelled a bit scary. That was a rather unpleasant moment in that Bo-Kaap area. That also led us to just leave the area.

We hopped back into our car and drove around a bit. Then we went to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, which, as the name implies, is an area by the sea again. That was very cool. They have huge stores with all kinds of handmade stuff, all kinds of trinkets, little statues, and anything you would want to buy. On our way back from that waterfront, we went to a place in, is it pronounced Hout Bay? Hout Bay Harbor? There is a place in the area. We went because I wanted to go there. It's called Fish on the Rocks. It was part of a show I really like, which is Somebody Feed Phil. Phil Rosenthal from the show went to that place, Fish on the Rocks, a couple of years ago. He was really nuts about that fish. He said it's the best grilled fish or the best baked fish he ever had, and the fries. HHatim and I were very hyped up and had very high expectations, but we had a very subpar experience. So don't go to Fish on the Rocks. No, it's not as special as you would think after watching the show. Or maybe it has been, and now that everyone is going, it went downhill. Who knows? I see it here on the picture, Fish on the Rocks. Their website is afrikasfavorite.com.

After lunch, we finally did what probably everyone does in South Africa: we went to Table Mountain. We went to the top of Table Mountain. We did not hike. You can. It takes a couple of hours only. It's doable if you go around. It's even not that hard, they say. But still, it takes a couple of hours, and they have a wonderful funicular. So that's what we took. We went up on Table Mountain, and it's pretty cool up there. It's a mountain and it's very flat like a table on top. There's a restaurant, and you can walk around, and there's this whole vegetation going on. Actually, a couple of days before we arrived, apparently there was a fire and it burned down all these little bushes and that stuff in one area. So that made it look even cooler. Of course, we took literally hundreds of pictures up there just because you have a very nice view from up there and you have all this rocky background where you can pose for your pictures.

In the evening, for our dinner, we went to a place we had reservations for a couple of days already, which is the Old Biscuit Mill. The Old Biscuit Mill had extremely nice food, very well presented. It looks a little bit like fine dining. They have this very interesting concept that in the Old Biscuit Mill, there is a proper chef, but a lot of the personnel are ex-convicts or people who got into trouble and who are getting a second chance there. Turns out many of them apparently can cook very well because the food we had was very nice in general.

The next day, we had another day trip, and HHatim and I went to the slums. Now that obviously is part of Africa, and it's part of Cape Town. A lot more poor people still live in these slums or these slum-like areas than in those nice rich areas. We wanted to take everything in, or at least all that we can take in. You cannot go alone, or let's say you shouldn't go alone. So we booked a tour with a local guy who grew up in this slum. Luckily, he somehow figured out his way out, and now he's working for a local museum, giving tours. He took us for a walk for an hour or so through these slums. He also ate all my snacks, by the way. That's a very interesting African habit. He ate a whole bag of, I think, nuts or something I brought because I obviously offered. Then he took some, and then I offered again. The third time, he just took the whole bag out of my hands, smiled, and said thank you. I was too puzzled to say anything, so I just let him have my peanuts. Didn't give a big tip, though.

After that slum tour, there was a little bit of, you know, what all the tours everywhere in the world do: a little bit of music, a little bit of dancing, and then you have to tip a little bit. Then there's a little shop where you can buy little handmade stuff from very poor people, which I guess it's good to support them, but also it's really all the stuff you usually don't want to have. Also, it always feels like, or maybe it's just me, I always feel like I'm being pressured into buying souvenirs I don't really want to have. I don't think we bought anything.

We moved on from the slums to a burger place called The Dog's Bollocks. "Our world-famous burgers, pure beef, crumbed chicken, and their favorite famous wach patty." I'm not sure why it's called wach patty instead of veg patty, but I'll leave that up to your imagination. It was a nice burger. I got a nice picture of HHatim.

After that, we went to the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden. Not that I'm the biggest fan of botanical gardens or anything, but that was magnificent. It was so beautiful. It was a huge botanical garden with flowers I've never seen before. It had a lot of African vegetation, and there was this bridge going through, and you had the mountains in the background. It was just so, so beautiful. I really liked it there.

From Kirstenbosch National Park, we went to get ice cream because you all know I'm not only a big fan of burgers, I'm also a big fan of ice cream. That place was called Tapi Tapi. You can google that, or maybe I'll put it in the description. Apparently, this place, Tapi Tapi, is also very famous all over Cape Town for having the best ice cream. I agree, it was very nice ice cream. We were sitting there, having our ice cream. Stupidly enough, because we could not decide on the flavors, we got four cups of ice cream. We were sitting there, and I remember I was walking next door. There was a bookstore that had all kinds of old, sometimes very interesting books. I found a Mr. T. autobiography, and I found the record book of trophy animals, 1978 edition, from the Safari Club International. I also found a book that was one of the photography books I have here at home.

Then the guy behind the bar, who was making the food there, came out, and we talked a bit. He was very interesting to talk to. Then he asked us if we had very typical local South African food, and we said no. So he made us this dish. I don't really remember what it was called, sadly, but it was absolutely delicious. It was some kind of stew. It looks like there are maybe chickpeas in there. I don't know. I just remember we really liked it, but we had a really hard time finishing it because we just had four cups of ice cream before that.

That was our first part and the first time in Cape Town before we went on a little road trip along this garden route, or maybe only the start of the garden route, to Stellenbosch, where we stayed at the Schoone Oordt Country House. HHatim did a very nice tasting, and in general, we stayed in a very, very nice environment and spent a wonderful evening. The next day, we also had a lot of fun doing a Segway tour through the wineries in South Africa, in Stellenbosch.

Sadly, there is not too much to say because, you know, nothing much happened. We just went there, stayed there, slept there, enjoyed the nature, then left again. So if I tell you all that, it's literally like a 30-second story, but it doesn't do it justice. It's really beautiful there. If you get the chance, you should go. Nature again is absolutely stunning. All the pictures I'm looking at—it's crystal clear air, it's a beautiful blue sky. Even if you have these little cumulus clouds or even if there are a little bit bigger clouds, there is always blue, and the blue is always the bluest blue you can imagine. So I really, really liked it there.

Also from Stellenbosch, we did a half-day trip to the Waterford Estate, which is another winery, which is even more beautiful. We went to Stellenbosch Central, where there is an old colonial store that we found very interesting, and we took a couple of nice pictures. One thing we did again in Stellenbosch Central is we went to a burger place called De Vrije Burger, V-R-I-J-E Burger.

From there, we went on with our road trip along the garden route down the river, or it's not really down, it's along the coast, the western cape. I got a couple of wonderful drone shots. We got a beautiful, beautiful breakfast at Franschhoek, right next to the market, right next to the farmers market. We had a lovely breakfast at Franschhoek. We also went to the farmers market, which was also beautiful. Then we went on a very long road, and we had dinner at a local, I would say, barbecue place at Mossel Bay. It's called the Marbled Wagyu, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't really Wagyu. What we had was still nice. It was a bit cold almost in the evening.

Then, I believe it was the same evening that I got a ticket. But not just a ticket—a very weird ticket. The police lady—I think they just need money in that area—wrote me that ticket. I forgot the reason, but I think it was because I couldn't produce a proper driver's license, even though I had my driver's license. The weird thing was I showed it on my phone first, because sometimes I do that in foreign countries. I had heard they might take it away, so I showed her a picture and said, "Look, this is my driver's license."

She said it had to be physical. If I had the physical card, everything would be fine. So, eventually, I said, "Let me check, maybe I can find it somewhere." And guess what? I found it. I showed it to her, and then she found some other reason why even the physical one was not good enough, even though she had confirmed earlier that it would be fine if I had it physically. She wrote me this whole ticket and said I had to be at the local courthouse in two weeks or so to pay the fine, which wasn’t even that high.

But she told me I had to be there. I told her, "Look, I’m not going to be in Africa in two weeks; I’m going to be back in Singapore. What do we do? Can I pay you? Can I pay now? Is there a way around this?" She said, "Well, there might be a way around this. Maybe tomorrow morning, you come by and we’ll see if we can give you a cheaper and quicker way to get out of this, but you have to come again."

I was pretty annoyed. Also, we weren’t staying at that place—not even close; we were hours away. We decided to go on. She gave me back my physical driver’s license, and we went on. We went to that place, in the middle of nowhere. It says Clip Rivier on the map, and it was literally a couple of hours down a highway. Then, from the highway by the seaside, we went up the mountains for at least another two hours on a road that was not really a road—more like a very rocky, small way.

We went for at least two hours, but then what happened is we ended up at the most beautiful place. We ended up at an Airbnb run by some Aussies, I think. They had no electricity lines; they had no running water. Everything they did on what they called a farm, I guess—they had a couple of animals and stuff—they produced themselves. They had a wind turbine to produce electricity, and another one was pumping water from a lake into the showers. They dug a source to get fresh water, which the guy said he had analyzed, and he said it’s good drinking water.

Aside from all these beautiful views and the house of our hosts, which was even like a kilometer or so away, Hatim and I were completely alone in this very nice house on the top of this mountain, hours away from everything else in the middle of South Africa. In the evening, the guy brought us a giant plate of local meat that we had ordered, and we made a braai, which is South African for barbecue. We did that on an open fire.

At night, the sky was so clear—there was no light pollution, not a single cloud. You could count every single star up there. It was very, very, very beautiful, very amazing. The food was very nice, too. So we did the same thing the next day; we stayed there for two days. Breakfast was basic; everything else there was pretty basic, but that food we made, that view, and being so far away from everything else made up for everything. It was really absolutely beautiful.

We saw, and I even took a picture of, a very special rabbit. There are only a handful of these rabbits anywhere in the world. That’s what the guy explained to us, and I got a shot of that rabbit. Maybe I’ll upload it somewhere. Oh, and also on the second day, still at that place, I was sitting there, and I had a meeting. I wasn’t really paying attention, and there was a snake right in front of the open window, like the floor-level windows, like a door on the terrace, which was open. And there was a snake, and it wasn’t a small snake—it was like a proper snake.

I looked up, and it was there, and it looked at me. I got a little scared because, you know, I know nothing about snakes. I managed to somehow close the door, and the snake ran off. I finished my meeting and told Hatim, and Hatim said, "Ooh, dude, they have dangerous snakes here. Let’s maybe call the guy." We texted the guy, and the guy was there like two minutes later. He said, "Where is that snake?" He and some personnel looked for that snake for two hours. Apparently, there is a very deadly snake in that area.

Apparently, also, he said he’s never seen one—they are very rare—but my description fits it perfectly. So, I guess I’m lucky. I got to see this very rare snake that is apparently very deadly too. It was very close, but nothing happened, so all good. Beautiful, beautiful place. If you want to Google, you can Google 'Apoolskraal' (A-P-O-O-L-S-K-R-A-L). Anyway, beautiful place, which we left, I think, two days later.

We made our way back to Cape Town, where this time we stayed at an Airbnb again, a different one. Still quite a nice one. We did some more sightseeing in Cape Town, in the Waterkant, which is pretty much downtown. We went to another nice place in the Waterkant and had steaks and a very nice dinner at what might be Gold Restaurant Steakhouse.

Then, I think that same night, in the evening, Hatim convinced me to go to a South African night, which was a lot of local food and local dances. They painted little patterns on our faces because that was part of the tradition. It was very touristy, but it was also still kind of cool.

The next day, I think it was our last day already, we did some more sightseeing. We did some more walking around in the local area. To be honest, you do have to take care of where you walk around in Cape Town. There are very nice areas, but there are also areas where I would not recommend just walking around without any locals or without any kind of protection. In general, we felt safe—just got to be a little bit careful.

On the last night, Hatim and I made our own braai. We bought our own sausages and our own steak, and we threw that on the little grill they had at our Airbnb. We had a very nice last evening before the next day when I made my way back to Singapore, and Hatim made his way back to Kenya.

So that was South Africa, and for now, let me give you some Tom Sawyer.