Tamale Ghana Boom Boom HotelTamale, Ghana West Africa
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Andy of HoboTraveler.comSurrounded by two to three cool Mosques, I am presently in a Whorehouse with four White Girls. The Mosque are new, therefore they have not installed the electric loud speaker systems and I went for a walk last night before sunset and smaller boys were singing the call to prayer without a loudspeaker which is quite wonderful. The loudspeaker transforms a wonderful thing into an annoyance.
Ok, we did not know it was a Whorehouse until about 8:00 pm where one very active girl proved she was good and pulled maybe five men into her room in the course of two hours. I went and checked up on her and she said,
- I am Ashanti girl whorsering to money. -
I unfortunately repeated the word she used in Ghana English
- Whoresering -
Whore - Ser - Ring
I repeated three times before I realized she was really saying the word Whore, and maybe I still have a 10 percent chance she said something else. Whores normally do not call themselves Whores.
Tamale so far is a Hotel disaster zone, hard to say what happened here, I will go look for a proper Hotel today again. 100 percent for sure, the Al-Hassan Hotel is the most convenient, quick, easiest transit hotel, however full of Ghana boys hanging around. I walked there first
Then a young man took me to this Whore House Hotel somewhat following the four white girls, which is more or less in the perfect location in Tamale, however what can I say, it is a Whore House.
All day long, it seemed to be just an empty centrally located Guesthouse and after 8:00 pm, the girls started standing in front of the place. The four white girls sat around talking, the three girls were Medical students, so more proper British girls than normal, although all with a beer ready to go. Well, as we sat there started to be a string of stomach showing, sloppy too fat girls with hanging body parts, not normal dressed Ghana girls waltzing back and forth by our table. Any way you do it this hotel has more respect for our rights than most, and tried their best to make us welcome. The men kept sending unwanted beer to the girls. I was laughing as they girls were in denial for the longest time and getting a little angry as I described accurately the women that were passing and the more or less made excuses for he way they were dressed.
I would say in British English,
- Look a fat, Ghana Slapper -
I guess, I got away as usual with some cheeky comments. The girls finally had to admit it was a whorehouse as it was too obvious.
Tamale, hard to get any bearing on this city, I would say it so far is about a one on a scale of one to ten for reasons to be here. I passed on the two stupid internet cafes I found so far. I will go look this morning for some acceptable internet café, and then try to find a hotel close. It is just an anal city, the hotels are too far outside the central city and only if you had a car would this city make any sense.
What happened when the bus arrived was this, all 12 backpacker reading a variety of guidebooks. The Germans had something in German; the Brits had this Bradt Guidebook to Ghana, as they wanted a just Ghana Guidebook and not the Lonely Planet or Rough Guide to West Africa. I have to ask, was this Whore House in the Bradt?
So we stop, everyone reads the book and takes off, I am still sitting trying to find one acceptable choice in my Rough Guide to West Africa. The city is more or less a four-lane road with a market on it, all the core of value business is by the market. I do not believe anyone hang here in Tamale for more than two nights, everyone as soon as you enter is offering you transportation to go to the Mole National Park and get the hell out of Dodge quick.
I was seriously considering doing this; however, I had this business reason to use the internet, so I need to use the internet to communicate. IF I had any idea where there was acceptable internet in any of the next cities, I would be leaving today also, I am tempted so far on Yendi, as it is the central village for some northern ethnic group and seem far enough away maybe from the Tamale NGO group to say the neighborhood is improving.
From Tamale to Kumasi is some of the best Farm Land I have seen in West Africa, flat, water, and rich. The land from Yeji to Mampong I was happy to see was full of tractors, and might be called the Bread Basket of Ghana. There was so much food in this area I wanted to stop in Atebubu just to eat.
Tamale is more or less a fork in the road that got too big as best I can tell so far, no reason here, unless you were hauling food products to sell at market. This is like Chiapas Mexico, tons of food to eat, and probably very little money in pocket as they are not organized farmers.
There appears to be a huge water problem in this part of Ghana, they appear to have all the water tanks and are not filling them properly. It is like the Government officials own the purified of filtered water supply here and refuses to put their business out of business by giving the people proper water. I am not sure, I think the water table is less than 100 feet down; the HUGE lake Volta is a flat distance away.
Ok, I left an interesting cultural village of Yeji and a good representation of how about 30 percent of the population of Ghana probably lives as they surround the Lake Volta, then came to this Whore House in Tamale. I have only found Hotels that a NGO would like, and nothing a Backpacker would like. I will try again today, a Slovenia man said about the one hotel,
- Nothing special. -
This interesting man and his girlfriend from Slovenia, took the boat, then the four hour bus trip to Tamale, then still got on another bus because they had already been to Tamale and went maybe another 3 hours to Bolgatanga below the Burkina Faso border.
When a person after two days of boat trip, no shower, off a dusty road refuses to stay one night in a city, this is not a good comment. I do not think they showered in two or three days, it makes Bolgatanga sound like a good place, and Tamale to say,
- Nothing interesting. -
I think the travelers sometimes are caught up in some need for a restaurant and lose the plot. Yeji was a great community to see real Ghana, or a more typical Ghana cultural experience, the Ferry arrived at 8-10 at night and they left again in the morning at 8:00, not stopping even for an hour to see what took a lot of work on their part, not mine to arrive at. The surrounding small settlements of Yeji complete with topless women and adobe huts, grass roof, and very clean compared to the dock area of Yeji were fantastically culturally interesting. I went to see something I have seen dozens of time, and all the people on the Ferry were shuttle out to Tamale, a nothing place.
Sometime the world is in such a hurry to not see a country, it is as if they are afraid to really observe and experience the true lives of people.
200 Kilometers to Wa and maybe Hippos and I do not know how to find an Internet Café that is not too cheeky to use. I go in 30 minutes to scout out Hotel; I will need my best traveler’s skills, and maybe pay five to ten dollars in taxis to find a hotel for 8 dollars.
I paid 9 dollars, the Hotels are bleak, the whorehouse hotel is better than moving, and so I am going to the next city. My advice would to either go to the Atta Essibi Hotel as the Bus stops just outside the city or you can tell them to stop, and walk there easy. Then leave the next day, or go to the Al Hassan and then leave the next day, all the other hotels need cars. The Atta Essibi needs a car also, but the one Ghana Taxi is easier and there is no clear reason to stay in Tamale, just a stop point to go to Mole National Park.
Any way you do it the Al Hassan is the most convenient, centrally located and does have some good rooms at the correct value price for Ghana. I suppose if for some reason I transit in Tamale again, I will go to the Al Hassan, as I know I did not stop to see Tamale.
What is different here, Tamale would be a good city to live in, have a family and a car, however just a four lane highway for a person with a backpack. The city sprawls for about 10 kilometers and just to the North of Tamale is very pleasant with a car. The hotels are for NGOs and the boom boom drinking alcohol Hotels, when the client does not want the religion people to see them, they have to be on the outside of the city and more Motels than Hotels.
Tamale Ghana Boom Boom HotelLabels: Ghana
