Visit South Africa - Part II (Cape Town - Green Market Square)

In this blog I will share some thoughts about places I visited in and around Cape Town.

Green Market Square in Cape Town is situated very close to St. Gorge's Mall and Holiday Inn Express (where I stayed). It offers a variety of African crafts mainly to tourists. Market stalls open at 9.00am but people start putting up their stalls from 8.15am onward. After an early breakfast I explored the Green Market Square with my friend and it happened to be a good idea because traders want to get their first customer early in the morning and would slash their quoted prices if you are good in bargaining.

These are some of the pictures I captured:

Photo by Tharindu

The traders in the market square seem to quote whatever price they want. So it would be a good idea to walk around asking prices before committing to buy. Look at these beautiful wood carvings and bead crafts.

Photo by Tharindu

Photo by Tharindu

 

A friend of mine who had worked in South Africa advised me to bargain at half price. In the UK where I live bargaining is almost non-existent. But I tried my best. One salesman reduced the price of a wood carving initially quoted as R80 to R20 for his first customer of the day, which to me was unbelievable. However, it is sad to be bargaining with these traders who seem to be living in poverty. But the prices they quote seem unreasonably high, may be because they are selling items to tourists whom they perceive as wealthy people or because they want to impress you by reducing the price to show that you are given a discount.

I found female traders to quote more reasonable prices than their male counterparts. For example a pair of carved spoons said to be R120 elsewhere was priced R30 at one store. When my friend bought 3 sets of spoons she agreed to give a multi-buy discount and charged only R25 for each pair. We started talking to her more and learn bit more about the trading. She then told us the prices she pay for items and asked us to buy them giving her a reasonable margin. We bought a lot of items from her - 8 key tags, 3 pairs of spoons, bracelets, carved figures, figures made of beads and so on. Her little son, not much older than my twins, was helping out at her store too.

Photo by Tharindu

So my tips for tourists visiting Green Market Square:
1. Keep your valuables safe
2. If possible try to get advantage of first customer discount
3. Shop around before committing to buy and get an understanding of the price variation across different stalls
4. Always ask for half price and you will be able to get something little more than half price. But if you have seen something elsewhere for cheaper (for example R120 vs R30) try buying from that stall rather than bargaining for less than half price (that is R15). Always think about the costs/time that would be involved and try to be reasonable with your bargain price.
5. Talk to people - take a little time to talk/reply to them and smile - they are nice people

Visit South Africa - Part I (Preparation)

This hopefully will be one of a series of blogs that I will write about my experience of South Africa mainly Cape Town. I've not written for a while mainly because I've been pressed for time now I am writing this while seated at a Nando's at Johannesburg International Airport while in transit.

Image from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/85/Location_South_Africa_AU_Africa.svg/646px-Location_South_Africa_AU_Africa.svg.png

First blog, that is this one, will talk about preparation and my tips in visiting South Africa.

I knew I was going to Cape Town as soon as I registered for the conference - UNISA Cambridge International Conference - in June 2013. So I was eager to apply for visa and find a cheap airline ticket - as most travellers. When I first checked there were direct flights from London Heathrow to Cape Town and they cost no more than £600-750.

However, I found the visa application quite stressful as they only allowed to apply only 4 weeks in advance. In my two work visits to London I tried to submit my visa application, but unfortunately the staff at the visa application centre said it was too early. So by the time I applied for visa, exactly 4 weeks prior to departure date, Emirates airline was fully booked and British Airways had one business class seat for Cape Town but no seats on return flights, needless to say the remaining seats were more than double the initial fare I quoted. I was lucky because I had a sponsorship from the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) - the final bill for the COL had been CAD 1600+! (more than £1000).

So here are my visa application tips:
1. Visa application centre is situated at 15 Whitehall London SW1A 2DD and there are other South African High Commission buildings elsewhere in the close proximity. So check on the map where you have to be.

2. The visa application centre opens at 9am. But even when I went there at 8.10 am I was about eight in the queue. So if you want to save the day go early and queue outside the door. Keep in mind the application center is only open for two hours to accept applications.

3. Take your visa fee in cash. When I say visa fee if it is £35 (as it was when I applied) take exact amount as they do not accept for example 2x£20 notes.

4. Take everything they ask for in the website with photocopies. You have to show provisional booking of hotel. In my case the conference provided accommodation at the conference venue and accommodation was included in conference fee. One of the lovely ladies there told me that it needs to be in conference organizer's invitation letter in 'black and white'. So in my initial visit I got to know this despite they not accepting my application due to it being too early. One good thing about SA visa application centre is that they check all your documents for free and tell you what is missing so that the next time you can get it right.

5. If you have a residence permit or visa in a card that is not attached to your passport, make sure you take that along with you!


These are my other tips for you before travelling:

6. Look at Trip adviser reviews before deciding where to stay. Keep in mind if one has had a bad experience they are more likely to share it. I booked Holiday Inn Express based on reviews and it's location and it worked perfectly well for us. We also booked private tour with Discovery Tours again due to reviews and they were good.

7. If you are travelling with young children keep in mind that many places have only stair access. For example lighting aircraft and boarding both at Cape Town and Johannesburg airports are done the traditional way - that is stairs to get into and out of the aircraft and then a bus to get to/ from building. I was travelling light so did not have a problem but I saw many ladies with high heels struggling with heavy luggage on stairs.

8. There are bag wrapping services at Heathrow costs about £10 a bag and at South African airports R60 (South African money is called Rand in case you didn't know). These wrapping services are used to protect bags from being open and valuables stolen. I did not use wrapping but locked my bag with a padlock. If my bag is broken into I will tell you. However, my friends from South Africa says that if you are travelling to/from Johannesburg it is a good to consider.

9. I would recommend 'shop around' for the taxi. For example, I paid R330 for a taxi while a local had managed to negotiate the same journey from airport for R220. If you are travelling as a group some taxis charge more while some others charge only from going from A to B regardless of the number of passengers. When we got back from Stellenbosch the taxi charged each additional passenger R220!

10. Public transport is not reliable to get even to Stellenbosch which is about 25km from Cape Town. So if you can hire a vehicle for your stay that would be very useful. But driving in Cape Town can be tricky. For example the taxi we travelled was stopped behind a container carrying truck at traffic lights and suddenly the truck reversed for no reason despite the taxi driver tooting his horn. Luckily there was no vehicle behind us and the taxi driver, a local, reversed and avoid the accident. If you are in Cape Town and wants a taxi I can highly recommend Allen, his contact details 076-3157336, don't forget to put the international code 00 27 in front.

11. Don't forget to get a travel electricity adapter plug!

Now it is time for me to board my plane to Heathrow. Hopefully I will be writing more blogs about Travelling to South Africa.