Tourists – Think you know Joburg? Think again.
It’s from the Observer newspaper and features a concise ‘travel guide’ to Jozi…
Check the whole story out on the site by clicking here… Has Will got it right? Do read the article and give us your thoughts on where the top places are:
We’re not going to give you the whole article -but WE LOVE THIS part – BIG UPS to Mike HIll – you rock!
Don’t even think about …
– Spending all your time in Sandton. There’s a whole city out there, and it extends beyond the rather sterile northern suburbs.
– Giving in to white South Africans’ paranoia. As a tourist you’d be stupid to wander round the streets of Yeoville and Hillbrow, but in a car with a guide, a daytime drive-through shows that the formerly all-white city centre beats stronger than ever with a new black heart. By avoiding downtown you are missing one of Africa’s most interesting urban experiences, but do go with a guide. Don’t get obsessed about crime but do be as vigilant as you would in any big city.
– Visiting the Tuscan villages – gaudy reproductions of Italian towns smack in the middle of the African veld – and gated communities in general. This is white South Africa’s neurosis at its most telling.
-Talking about crime over dinner – that’s so five years ago. Ditto raving about how fabulous Cape Town is.
Here’s Will’s article – comments please…:
Long spurned as Capetown’s ugly sister, Johannesburg has been quietly reinventing itself as one of the most exciting cities in Africa. Will Hide reports:
Think you know Johannesburg? Deprivation, racial conflict and urban decay, visible only through a hail of gunshots? Well, it’s time to think again.
A decade after the end of apartheid, Jo’burg – aka Jozi, aka Egoli, aka the City of Gold – is a fantastically vibrant mix of brash upstart and grand old dame, where Africa meets Europe via southern California. Standing by a shack in the middle of Alexandra township, the gleaming tops of Sandton’s skyscrapers could be a thousand miles away. Actually, they’re less than two.
The city went through a spectacularly destructive period in the 1990s but the installation of CCTV downtown and large regeneration projects like the Newtown Cultural Precinct and new apartments in Marshalltown and Braamfontein are injecting new life into previously troubled neighbourhoods. Take the same precautions you would in any big city, and the worst you’re likely to come away with is a bruised credit card.
Part of the trouble is that white Johannesburg – happy, yet paranoid, behind the walls of its shopping malls and BMW dealerships – is only slowly giving the city centre a second chance. And tell someone from Houghton (Jo’burg’s answer to Beverly Hills) you’re spending a night in a Soweto B&B and their response is likely to be a look of amusement, astonishment and horror in equal measure. They’re more likely to have visited London than to have made the half-hour journey down the N1 freeway, but visit a township and you’ll be enjoying some of Africa’s friendliest people, not to mention its best music and cheapest beer.
So go on an Art Deco tour, catch a football match between the Orlando Pirates and the Kaizer Chiefs or a rugby game at Ellis Park, sip a cocktail on the terrace at the posh Westcliff Hotel, listen to township jazz, walk in one of the leafiest cities on earth and take advantage of the exchange rate to get a nose job. Above all, go see for yourself.”
SHOT WILL – uyarocka. Click here for the whole story.
