Go Jim and Mrs. Jim! Yay!

Thanks all - and I holidayed in Mali, managing to avoid Damon Albarn, which was lovely.

I need to own this, I think

You really, really do.

Hey, congratulations, Jim! Why did you pick Mali? What was it like? It's a rather unusual honeymoon destination.

Interested here, too!

Congratulations Jim!

We chose Mali because we wanted to see Africa, mainly, and it sounded cool (OK, I wanted a timbuktu stamp in my passport - sue me). It was pretty mindblowing, although next honeymoon we might go to somewhere with more beaches and less raw sewage...

I would really love to go to Mali one day. Did you find it more or less easy to get around? Where did you go? Is there a big tourism industry there? What kinds of things did you see and do?

(I am SO jonesing to do some more travelling! wah!)

Very easy, although you have to accept plenty of delays. There is a tourist industry, but it's very sharply divided between facilities for expats and NGO workers, and various levels of organised tours. We were very unusual as independent travellers. This, plus the fact that the local population tends not to travel much, means that in most cases you're stuck with tourist-specific transport or very very slow local stuff. Tourist transport is viciously expensive, and utterly unreliable. You can do a tour, but what we saw of them was kind of lame - we did just as well alone.

As to what we did - we were there for 4 weeks, of which we spent a week (in all) sitting by the pool in a nice hotel. We flew into the capital, Bamako, which is fantastic, both as an introduction to Africa, and for its own sake. If you like tropical cities, which I do.

After a day in B, we went up to Segou, a river-port on the Niger (everything is on the Niger - it's the only source of life in the country), where we went to the market, and visited a small, village of potters. Then to Mopti, which rocks - it's the central port, and has an amzing dockside market. That was our base for the whole trip, but we spent a few days in Djenne (I hated it, but it's amazing - the World's biggest MudBuilding(TM) is there), and the Dogon country (walking, escarpments like in The Lost World). The highlight, without doubt, was Timbuktu. We flew up there, and spent 2 days in the city, which is just bizarre - it's the nearest thing to Mos Eisley you're likely to find, from the Tuaregs to the sand-filled streets. Then we spent 3 days drifting down the Niger in an open wooden boat to Mopti, and saw hippos, which was amazing.

There are some (unlabelled and unsorted, sorry) photos here

All in all it was pretty awesome, although much the hardest travel, emotionally, I've ever done.

Jim, I can't get to your pictures--that link just takes me to the main Fotopic page.

It sounds like an amazing trip! Especially the part about drifting down the Niger. That's so exciting.

You can do a tour, but what we saw of them was kind of lame - we did just as well alone.

That was mostly my experience in Africa as well (I travelled through southern Africa with a few friends in 2002).

Shit! I missed the season premiere of Angel last week!