Kuwait and Nigeria

Spent a few days in Kuwait which is just like any other gulf city only a little more decrepit, not as shiny and new as some, maybe due to the fact that I arrived during the back end of a four day sandstorm. First couple of days I could not see much beyond a few hundred yards of the hotel, but on the last morning there it was clear and the city stretched for miles.

Arrived in Lagos to the usual chaos of third world airports. We were pulled out of line for immigration by a uniform with a sheet of paper with the other guys names on, so I just tagged along thinking it would be quicker. Sent to the front of the queue and processed by the first immigration official who found my visa with CANCELLED stamped over it. This wasn't right as it wasn't like that when I checked it when my passport came back from the embassy in Kuwait. Turned out that this visa was for a single visit and had been cancelled because I had been issued with another 12 month multi entry visa. Was a bit worried when this big official kept pointing at the cancelled stamp and staring at me with hostility in his eyes. I had visions of spending time in custody waiting for a flight back to Kuwait. Fortunatly the project manager travelling with me knew there were two visas in my passport and the problem was averted. After this we had to line up again for the second round of immigration. This involved a woman checking the first guys work and entering the details into a computer and then passing my passport to a third guy so he could give me an entry stamp. After bitching about how he didn't like the stamp he finally did his job and I was in the country.

Why the rush to get us to the fron of the queue at imigration I do not know as we had to wait for another hour for out bags. They cane onto the baggage belt in two's and three's. We speculated that there were only two guys emptying the hold by hand and carrying the bags from the plane to the terminal. Either that or they were bored and trying to drag out the job to fill their day, kind of like council workers.

Once we were through the rest of the airport security, which consisted of checking baggage against the tags given to us when we checked in in Kuwait to ensure that we had our own luggage and nothing stoled from the carousel, we were met by our personal security. This consisted of a couple of wide boys who were there to get us through the police barriers keeping back the hawkers and general melee of people who hang around airports in all third world countries trying to shake down any unsuspecting mark. We were escorted to our vehicles and headed off to Victoria Island with a police escort, sirens wailing, horns blaring, the lot. Seem a daft way to transport foreigners securely - by announcing their presence - but we arrived at the hotel so it worked.

On arrival at the hotel I was not totally suprised to find that it was overbooked and I had to be farmed out to another place nearby. The new place was a cheap and nasty guest house who's owner saw a white face and immediatly tripled the price. When he asked for 22,750 Niras, I assumed there were around 1000 to the pound.... wrong, there are only about 250 to the pound which made the romm including taxes come out at over £100 pound for the night. I noticed in the booking ledger that other rooms going to people with local names cost a third of the price around 8,000 Niras. Welcome to the capital third world rip off countries.

3 views of a £100 room Nigerian style.

Had dinner with the other guys at the Scarlet Lodge, where I was supposed to stay and found that everything is overpriced, must be a notional passtime to rip-off everybody you can.

In the morning I moved to the Scarlet Lodge which is 'only' $120/night for a room without breakfast, which cost around £10 for a bit of scrambled egg and a cup of tea.