Masala Dosa on the Mekong

The pretty Ethiopian waitress had a flower in her hair. I said, "It's very nice." She smiled at me and said, "Addis Ababa!"  I was on my way back to India after travelling through northern Ethiopia. The middle-aged woman seated next to me on the bus from Addis Ababa to Bahir Dar gestured to me to have some more coffee. The bus was scheduled to start from Addis Ababa at 5 a.m. and it had started before time at 4:45 a.m. It was a non-air-conditioned bus. The bus had a driver and a hostess, a young woman. She handed me a ham sandwich, a small carton of juice for breakfast and some paper napkins. There was a middle-aged woman seated next to me and she had brought a large flask of coffee along with paper cups. She did not know English. She kept offering me cups of coffee. The bus stopped for lunch in Debra Markos. The hostess told me, "Debra means 'church' in Amharic. Debra Markos is 'Church of St. Mark.' " Everyone got down and washed their...

My phone rang at midnight. The taxi driver said, "If you want me to come at 4 a.m., it will cost you double the fare". "This is blackmail", I said. He replied, "It's not blackmail. It's Ethiopia!". I was travelling through Ethiopia to find the source of the Nile River. "Why are you travelling to Ethiopia?", asked the woman immigration officer in Chennai airport in southern India. I said, "Tourism. I am just travelling". She refused to believe me. "Nobody goes to Ethiopia", she said. She refused to stamp my passport. She took me to her manager's office. He asked, "Where is your visa?". "It's a visa on arrival", I said. He shook his head in disbelief. I said, "You can check with the airline. They have the information". "That's why they have issued the boarding pass to me", I added. While I waited in the manager's office, they went to meet the airline staff to check....