dangerous, places, travel warnings, safety, australians

My posting yesterday about Australian travel advisories made me wonder where else Australians are not supposed to travel. In all my years travelling I've never much looked at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website that lists trouble spots around the globe. That doesn't mean I've made uninformed decisions about where to travel. I certainly keep up to date with news of countries where I have pending plans. Here's a closer look at the official travel advisory.

Destinations where Australians are advised NOT to travel
* Afghanistan
* Burundi
* Central African Republic
* Chad
* Guinea
* Iraq
* Niger
* Somalia
* Sudan

Not too many surprises there. I have not been to any of these nations and have never had plans although Afghani culture does interest me, but I think I'll wait a few years at least before I venture there. I do have some Iraqi friends here in Brisbane and often ask what it's like to go shopping, get to work and take the kids to the park without worrying about a suicide bomber or some kind of violence. The answer is fairly obvious of course, with all saying how they can really relax and unwind here. But fear grips them whenever they hear about recent troubles at home or when they're due to visit family in Baghdad.

Destinations where Australians are advised to reconsider their need to travel
* Algeria
* Angola
* Chile
* Democratic Republic of the Congo
* Eritrea
* Ethiopia
* Haiti
* Indonesia
* Lebanon
* Liberia
* Madagascar
* Mauritania
* Nigeria
* Pakistan
* Saudi Arabia
* Sri Lanka
* Yemen
* Zimbabwe

I've been a little guilty visiting places on this list. Travel warnings to destinations like Chile and Haiti are related directly to recent natural disasters and not human menace and I've not been to either anyway. Yesterday I gave you some insight into my visits to Indonesia, so I'll start with Mauritania in north Africa. Firstly we actually hitchhiked into the country because there was no public transport crossing the northern border. Then, thanks to my outstanding levels of travel organization, see this original post, I ran out of money and had to hitchhike for several days around the country.

The friend I was travelling with had a visa issue to sort out and went direct to the capital Nouakchott where there were ATMs or money changers. I went instead on the Iron Ore train (longest train in the world) from the coastal city of Nouadhibou to the western desert regions around Atar. That's when I realized I didn't have enough money to get back (about 500km to Nouakchott). I got lifts to a few places nearby and then when it came time to leave I asked the police at a security checkpoint for help organizing a ride to the capital. It was a big ask but after an hour or so they got me a lift with a goat dealer who spoke Spanish. He refused to take any money from me (didn't have much anyway) and we spent the day dropping off goats, picking up news ones, visiting herd owners and drinking tea and yoghurt all the way into the city. It was a long, hot but fabulous day.


Goat dealers with whom I hitchhiked in Mauritania, (c) Joanne Lane, www.visitedplanet.com

If you read the Australian travel warning on Mauritania, I went to all the wrong places where people have been kidnapped and killed. According to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, officials have received information that terrorists "are planning to kidnap and possibly kill westerners in northern Mali and remote and desert areas of Mauritania". I've also been to Mali. We hitchhiked a bit there too and got stranded one night along a deserted road and slept out. However in both cases I found the people to be a delight. We felt completely unthreatened and locals were really helpful.


Sharing a drink by the roadside with friendly ride-givers in Mali, (c) Joanne Lane

Back to the list and I also went to Sri Lanka during the civil war that raged from 1983 until May 2009. But then a lot of tourists did. Sri Lanka is still considered in a state of emergency. I visited in 2003 when massive landslides buried a number of villages not far from where I was staying in the high tea country. A group of people I knew formed a relief effort and we delivered aid to the centres that had been established to distribute water, clothes and food. The number of security checkpoints on the road was astounding, however the police were far more interested in the local's identity papers than mine and we were held up while their papers and vehicles were thoroughly checked. Still my friends said there was more freedom to move about then than a few years earlier.

My parents also visit Sri Lanka regularly and some of you might remember that my father likes to run. In hot, sweaty places like Sri Lanka it's best to get going early so he often starts out before dawn. But in places like Jaffna in the north were there was a significant military presence, he would deliberately run with a heavy tread so the soldiers would hear him coming down the road in the dark. More than once he came upon their checkpoints to find machine guns trained on him.

So should we heed the official travel warnings? They are designed to give informed advice although obviously official warnings have to take a certain line. I've probably had more trouble in India, Senegal, Cambodia, Italy and here in Australia for example than these official trouble spots. And none of them are on the list. Interesting isn't it? Sexual harrassment, scams, maurauding men, pickpockets and knives count amongst those tales - but that's another story.