Megan Ho - Roamancing

On Travelling Alone

May 8, 2013 by Megan Ho 2 Comments

People always advise young girls from travelling alone. Though their concern is usually for safety reasons, I’ve always avoided travelling alone because I thought I would get lonely. After all, aren’t the beautiful places in the world better enjoyed with the people you love? Then, last summer, a last-minute trip to Europe for a family wedding meant I ended up making plans to travel alone for the first time. And lo and behold, I loved it.

I had journeyed alone to other countries before, but this was different. Other times, I had met up with friends or stayed with people I knew. This time, I was travelling to Budapest, Vienna, and Salzburg before meeting up with family in Zurich, which meant for the two weeks before Switzerland, I was truly alone.

I wasn’t nervous for my safety, but I was prepared for not having a travel companion. I packed several books and a travel journal, expecting to have a lot of time to myself. Instead, to my utter surprise, the exact opposite happened. I was so busy making new friends and going out that I couldn’t steal a moment to myself!

Beautiful Budapest

The small hostel I stayed at in Budapest was prime for meeting other travellers. Every day I was heading out with other travellers – English, Australian, British, and Finnish, to name a few – to sightsee and drink in the evenings. I even travelled to Austria with the Australian and met up with the Brazilians in Vienna. Meeting other people, finding things to do, and making new friends were so much easier than I had anticipated. Safe to say, I didn’t crack a single one of my books on the trip.

More recently, I took a trip to South Africa. Since I was there for a wedding, for the first half of the trip I was in a large group made up of all the Canadian guests. Afterwards, my boyfriend and I went off on our own road trip. While I enjoyed myself and had a fabulous time, it really highlighted all the things I loved about travelling by myself. The excitement of being by myself, exchanging stories with other travellers I had just met, and pretty much doing whatever I wanted were all absent. There was little unpredictability and spontaneity and I missed it.

Even so, I was glad that I was never alone on this trip and that was for my safety. Before leaving, I was very aware of South Africa’s reputation for violent crime, and my friends didn’t help by worrying and advising me not to go. I’m incredibly glad I didn’t take their advice and went anyway, but I’m also glad I wasn’t alone. As much as I am a strong, independent woman and traveller, it was reassuring to always be with someone else. While I never felt threatened, and I felt very safe in large cities such as Cape Town, the extended road trip my boyfriend and I took through rural areas could have been a lot more dangerous on my own. What if the car had broken down? What if I had been stranded? What if I had been lost in an unsafe area? Having another person, especially a male, made those travels a lot safer.

Road Tripping in South Africa

Looking back, I can conclude that my travels in South Africa didn’t change my feelings on travelling alone. I still love it, and it’s still my preferred method of travel. However, I was reminded that it is important to be smart about it, and I acknowledge that some locations are safer for solo travelling than others. If I were to visit South Africa again by myself, I would stick to the large cities and I wouldn’t take a solo road trip. But I wouldn’t be afraid to go. I look forward to travelling alone again, even though I don’t know when or where it will be, and I hope everyone out there tries travelling alone too. Even if you think it’s not for you I hope you’ll try it, even just once – you never know, it might surprise you. After all, it did for me.

Filed Under: Africa, All Aboard!, Around the World, Europe, Megan Ho, Our Travelers, Safe Travels, South Africa Tagged With: Budapest, Cape Town, Group travelling, hostel, Road trip, road tripping, solo travel, South Africa, Travelling alone

Roamancing South Africa – I Touched a Cheetah!

April 23, 2013 by Megan Ho 2 Comments

To finish off our very animal-themed tour of South Africa, we visited a cheetah sanctuary. As amazing as sharks, penguins, and safaris were, I think we really saved the best for last. Since returning from South Africa, every time someone asks me how the trip was, I respond with, “I touched a cheetah!” Clearly, it was my favourite part of the trip.

For our cheetah experience, we took a tour of the Ann van Dyk Cheetah Centre near Pretoria. The centre was started in 1971 to breed and rehabilitate cheetahs. Since then, they have taken in other animals and endangered species, like hyenas and wild dogs. On the tour, the guides explained that sometimes the centre ended up with animals unexpectedly. People would bring in injured animals they found or sometimes people would take in wild baby animals as pets, only to be unable to care for them when they grew bigger. As a result, the centre has grown beyond cheetahs.

Cheetah!

We were at the Cheetah Centre bright and early on a Sunday morning to watch the cheetah run and to take a three hour tour of the farm. The cheetah run, where they take the cheetahs out to run for exercise, only happens a few times a week since they want to keep it interesting for the cheetahs. We stood in a fenced off pen while the cheetah centre’s guides brought out one cheetah at a time for their run. I couldn’t believe how fast the cheetahs were. I mean, I knew cheetahs were fast, but seeing it with my own eyes was incredible. They were just a blur as they ran by.

Ready to run!

The guides brought out only female cheetahs to run, explaining that the females are solitary hunters, while the males hunt in packs, meaning they take turns to hunt and don’t run as much as the females. Wanting to mimic the wild, they therefore don’t exercise the males as much. However, that day they decided to run one of the males, Shaka, but warned us that lately he had been getting too distracted by the nearby females to run. They brought him out and started his run but sure enough, after a few feet, he turned and ran off to one of the female cheetahs. Ironically, the one he got distracted by was his sister.

We visited a few of the cheetahs in pens near the reception office before embarking on our tour of the farm. We headed off in a truck, and went to visit even more cheetahs and a myriad of other animals. We stopped to visit some king cheetahs, who had bigger spots and stripes running down their back. Once thought to be a subspecies of cheetahs, the centre had determined in the 80s that it was in fact a recessive gene that caused the different pattern.

Our guide.

2 cheetahs at the Ann van Dyk Cheetah Centre. The King Cheetah to the right.

A king cheetah on the right.

Then our guide took us to see “the most dangerous animal on the farm.” This turned out to be… the honey badger. Looking at them, they appeared perfectly harmless but according to the guides, they were absolutely vicious. They had no natural enemies or predators and they were even known to attack lions. Their cages at the centre even had a separate section for feeding so that the centre staff were never in the same cage as the honey badgers.

After the honey badgers, we visited the meerkats. There had originally only been two, but they had accidentally bred so now there were four. They were quite cute and much friendlier than the honey badgrs. Our guide even stuck her finger into the cage to scratch one of the meerkat’s head.

An albino honey badger & Timon the meerkat.

Next, we saw vultures and hyenas. Vultures are an important part of nature; by cleaning up the carcasses of dead animals they help prevent the spread of disease. However, vultures are vulnerable to extinction because of loss of habitat and electrocution and collision with powerlines.

I was particularly excited to see hyenas, since we hadn’t been able to find them on any of our safaris, and you can’t properly re-enact The Lion King in your head without seeing hyenas. Unfortunately these hyenas weren’t quite up to marching around, preferring instead to sleep.

Vultures!

One sleepy hyena.

We then went to visit the wild dogs. Wild dogs are endangered due to human persecution. Widely regarded as pests, wild dogs have been poisoned and snared for decades. Now, there are less than 5,000 wild dogs left in the wild. These dogs at the centre were scrappy little animals, eating every bit of food in the trough before running off and looking for more.

Wild dogs!

After feeding the wild dogs, we went to feed a few cheetahs. As they noticed the food coming, they started hissing and their fur stood straight up! I was so nervous, but the farm worker coolly poured their food into a trough, taking no notice of their menacing stance. Once he was back on the truck, the three cheetahs surrounded the trough, all threats gone.

A menacing sounding cheetah at the Ann van Dyk Cheetah Centre.

Hiss!

Happily eating!

After the tour, we had the chance to pet a cheetah. The guides brought out Byron, one of their Education Ambassadors. Byron is often used at schools and with children during educational talks. They led him onto a table and we were allowed to approach him from behind to stroke his soft fur. I was so happy to finally be touching a cheetah – it felt like I had been waiting the whole trip for that moment. I could even feel his body vibrating as he purred.

After petting Byron, we left the centre very happy. I couldn’t help saying, “We touched a cheetah!” again and again as I thought about it. I didn’t even mind that we were leaving South Africa the next day.

Byron, a Cheetah Ambassador at the Ann van Dyk Cheetah Centre.

Byron the Education Ambassador

Disclaimer: This post was not sponsored by the Ann van Dyk Cheetah Centre. My opinions are my own.

Filed Under: Africa, All Aboard!, Around the World, Megan Ho, Our Travelers, South Africa Tagged With: albino honey badger, Ann van Dyk, Ann van Dyk Cheetah Centre, Cheetah centre, cheetahs, honey badger, hyenas, king cheetahs, meerkat, Pretoria, South Africa, vultures, wild dogs

On Racial Segregation and Culture Shock in South Africa

April 11, 2013 by Megan Ho 8 Comments

So far, when writing about my travels in South Africa, I’ve touched on shark cage diving, swimming with penguins, and safaris. But today I want to talk about something a little more serious.

While in South Africa, I stayed at a farm, quite literally in the middle of nowhere. It was unlike anywhere I’d ever been before. In Canada, the average farm is about a hundred acres. This one was eight thousand acres and was surrounded by neighbouring farms, making it seem like the land stretched on endlessly. There was no cell service, the next farm was 9 km down the road and the nearest hospital was two hours away. In a big old farmhouse, with skeleton keys for every door, and a lack of communication with the outside world, it was like stepping back in time.

Farmland stretching on.

But there was another reason it felt like we had time-travelled. The farms we visited were staffed with black servants, while the owners and our group of visiting Canadians were white (minus myself; I am Chinese). At breakfast, when the other guests and I went to clear the table after breakfast, we were told, “The maids will get it.” When the boys asked for an iron to iron their dress shirts (we were going to a wedding), they were told, “The maids can do it.” It was quite a culture shock. All of us guests, from modest homes in Canada, were unused to having staff around to help out with any household chore. And because the maids were black, dressed in traditional attire, and lived on the farm in separate, inferior housing with the male farmhands, it felt like we had stepped back in time.

It wasn’t just at the farm, either. The segregation of race and class was evident everywhere we travelled in South Africa, from the farms to the big cities to the townships we passed on the road. It was hard not to be reminded of apartheid, the political system that ruled South Africa from 1948 – 1991. Apartheid, in case you don’t know, was a system that institutionalized racial segregation. It enforced racial hierarchy, giving preferential treatment to white South Africans. (You can read more about the timeline of apartheid here.)

But though it was everywhere, at the farm the segregation felt the most apparent because we experienced the segregation in race and class firsthand. At the wedding, when speaking with a South African guest about this culture shock, he laughed and confirmed he had never ironed his own clothes – and never would.

On the road in South Africa.

It’s been weeks since I’ve returned from South Africa but I haven’t stopped thinking about this segregation. My thoughts on this are confusing, because while the wages are low and it feels like this system is enforcing racial segregation, the staff of these farms are still in a much better position than others. With a high level of poverty and unemployment in South Africa, they are relatively fortunate to be employed on these farms. And it’s not as if all the black people we saw were farmhands and maids. There were educated, wealthy black South Africans as well. Furthermore, I’m not trying to say that white South Africans are bad, racist people. It’s not my intention to bad mouth the farm owners who so kindly let us stay with them, and as a sidenote, were absolutely lovely. After all, they have employed their staff and they pay them wages. It’s not exactly unfair.

And I know it’s not just South Africa. I have relatives in Hong Kong who grew up with Filipina maids, which is very common in Hong Kong because labour from the Philippines is cheap. Similarly, in Vancouver, I see Filipina nannies taking care of white children every day. And while we have not had apartheid, Canada has had its own racist laws and policies in the past, such as residential schools.

So why did South Africa feel different? From the start it had felt like we had stepped back in time. I know I wasn’t alone on these thoughts, because other Canadian guests voiced the same opinion. Perhaps it’s because the segregation was just so much more widespread, and because the system of apartheid really was not that long ago. Or maybe it was the combination of the segregation and being in the middle of nowhere in an old farmhouse. Either way, it’s something I haven’t been able to stop thinking and wondering about since. Even though apartheid was abolished twenty-two years ago, its legacy was still evident everywhere we went in South Africa.

Filed Under: Africa, All Aboard!, Around the World, Megan Ho, Our Travelers, South Africa Tagged With: apartheid, culture shock, farmhands, farmland, farms, Hong Kong, maids, Philippines, racial segregation, South Africa

Secret Parks in #OurNeckOfTheWoods of Vancouver, BC

March 24, 2013 by Megan Ho 6 Comments

As a native of Vancouver, BC, I’d like to think I know this place pretty well. I adore this city, and there’s nothing I love more than sharing this city with others, whether it’s discovering new spots with other locals or showing my friends from out of town around. But there are still a few spots in my neck of the woods that I like to keep secret … namely my secret parks.

I have two secret parks. Both are walking distance from my house and are recent discoveries. My secret parks are special for a couple reasons. First, they’re concealed. Since these parks are very small patches of green in the city, they’re rather difficult to simply “come across”. Second of all, both parks feature spectacular views looking out towards downtown. And lastly, they’re quiet. Because of their small sizes and relative concealment, they’re not crowded and almost always empty. They’re the perfect place to relax with a picnic while enjoying the view.

My first secret park is not so much of a secret, I guess, since I found out about it on Yelp. You have to walk down a lane to reach it (how’s that for hidden?), and for a while it seems like the alleyway is going nowhere. But suddenly, it opens up to a small triangle of grass and the best view of downtown. The nearby street of ice cream shops, Indian food, diners and pizza places make it the perfect place to come for a picnic.

Secret Park No. 1

My second secret park I first found walking home from school when I was younger. Over the years I forgot about it, until walking by it again last year. It’s a small patch of grass with benches under cherry blossom trees that look lovely in the spring. But to tell the truth, the park is a bit of a red herring. When I visit this park, I almost always head for a little lane off of it that ends at a staircase going down a hill. Right there, at the top of the staircase, is a fantastic view looking out towards downtown. So you can’t enjoy the view from my second secret park, but it’s still a great place to sit under the cherry blossoms after you’ve admired the view.

The view from the top of the staircase.

Admittedly, the pictures don’t do the views justice and they really have to be seen in person. Can you figure out where my secret parks are? And do you have any secrets from your neck of the woods? If so, share them with the #OurNeckOfTheWoods hashtag. We’d love to hear about them.

Filed Under: All Aboard!, Around the World, BC, Canada, Megan Ho, Our Travelers Tagged With: #OurNeckOfTheWoods, BC, cherry blossoms, park with a view, parks, secret parks, secret parks in Vancouver, secret staircase, staircase with a view, Vancouver, view

Roamancing the South African Safari – We’re Going on a Lion Hunt!

March 21, 2013 by Megan Ho 9 Comments

When in Africa, one must go on a safari. In fact, along with shark cage diving, seeing lions on a safari was at the top of my list for things to do in South Africa. Perhaps it had something to do with multiple viewings of The Lion King when I was a child, but I couldn’t wait to see lions out in the wild.

When I had thought about going on a safari before, I had always envisioned trundling along in a jeep in the African desert. As a result, I didn’t expect the environment to be so lush. As we weren’t quite in the desert, that meant we were driving through lots of bush and tall grass, and we really had to keep our eyes peeled for animals. This was no zoo, oh no, this was a hunt.

On the hunt!

Our first game drive was at Addo Elephant Park. We were all very eager to see lions, but we were told our chances were slim. They only had a few lions and guests rarely ever saw them. Still, we kept our hopes up.

The first animals we saw were a leopard tortoise, followed shortly by a warthog. After a round of “When I was a young wart-HAAAAAWG,” we observed the mother warthog and her baby. Suddenly, a male warthog came out of nowhere and rushed the baby! Our guide told us that male warthogs will attack the babies when the mothers are not sexually willing. We watched the male warthog chase the baby in circles while the mother tried to interfere. Luckily, the mother and baby managed to hide from the male after a few close calls.

Leopard tortoise

Male & female warthogs with baby in the distance

Afterwards we spotted some kudu, a type of antelope and the emblem of South African National Parks. Then, near the watering hole, we came across elephants! I couldn’t believe how many there were. We watched a few elephants cool off by using their trunks to chuck water on their sides. Then, a small herd of elephants walked right in front of our truck! I couldn’t believe how close they were. There was even a baby that squeezed under its mother’s belly, a sign it was still under one year.

Kudu

Herd of elephants

At the end of the day, we didn’t see any lions, but we were pretty pleased with everything we saw. Plus, we still had two more game drives.

The next day, we headed to Kariega Game Reserve. Our first game drive was in the afternoon. Still on a lion hunt, we kept our eyes peeled. But it was so difficult to spot anything in the brush! We did spot a horn-less rhino though. Rhino poaching is a big issue in South Africa due to the high price of rhino horns in Asia, and the park had removed the horn of this rhino to deter poachers.

Rhino without a horn

We caught a glimpse of a few female lions disappearing into the brush, which was such a tease. However, we got distracted when it started down-pouring out of nowhere! Within a couple of minutes we were soaked. But it only lasted ten minutes before it was gone.

The next morning, we woke at 5:30 for an early morning game drive. Dawn and dusk are good times for animal spotting as the temperature is still cool. The first animals we spotted were a whole herd of zebras crossing the road. They were so cute moving along – one even stopped to roll around in the road a bit!

Rolling in the dirt

Driving along, we spotted more rhinos. Again, they had no horns but this time it wasn’t just the park’s doing. Our guide told us one of them had been attacked by poachers, but luckily had survived. Usually, rhinos don’t survive poaching as poachers cut directly into the skull to retrieve the whole horn, but this one miraculously had.

We were admiring a giraffe when our guide received a call on the radio. Another group had found the lions! We took off, eager to finally see them.

Rhino no. 2

How’s the air up there?

When we arrived in a clearing, there were seven lions lounging in the shade of small bushes. They were yawning and relaxing. “Lions sleep up to 18-20 hours a day,” our guide told us. Not a bad life, I thought. Though I knew how dangerous they were, I couldn’t help but find them cute; I even felt like cuddling one!

We watched as one by one, the lions got up and moved to the shade of a different bush. At one point, one walked right by our truck. It suddenly occurred to me that if it wanted, that lion could leap up into the truck and take us all. I sat there, frozen. Perhaps not so cuddly after all.

King of the jungle!

So close!

It was fantastic finally seeing the lions after three game drives. It had been well worth the wait and if anything, it made seeing them so much better after all the anticipation. Of course, you can always go to a zoo and see lions, but it’s something else tracking them down and seeing them in the wild. We all left Kariega pretty happy after our successful lion hunt!