News Archives: Year 2009

I joined Christine on her language trip to Malta. I arrived Friday evening and since them we've been aventuring on the island together.
I want to share a few emotions and impressions. I'll publish pictures at a later time.
After arriving at the airport, I had my first contact with the Maltese public transports: the orange and yellow busses. For the main part, these are quite old diesel busses that are in doubtable shape. However the most interresting part is the time schedule: there doesn't seem to be one! It's absolutely amazing. The busses start and stop as the drivers want to. If a bus stops at a bus stop it doesn't necessarely mean that you can come aboard. And it's a challenge to find out which bus stops at with bus station: the signs have either been removed or have never been present.
Once you are on the bus and want to get off it, each bus model has it's own way of signaling the driver to stop at the next station: there are buzzers, bells and other devices that ring.
You need to pay the ticket fee with small change. A ride usually costs EUR 0.47 (or EUR 1.16 for the longer ones) and the drivers get really angry if you don't have it ready. When (if) they give you back change, you have a fifty percent chance for it to be correct. But don't even bother to protest... Just accept it. As you pay the fee when getting on the bus and 99% of the people do so, the whole dilemma of the schedule is emphasized. A bus sometimes stands for five or more minutes before everyone is in and has paid his fee.
Each bus driver has at least one picture of a holy in his view. And drives with his whole faith. Given the age of the busses it's a wonder that there are no more accidents. The driving style is simple respectless. But you get used to it as the taxis are de-facto not affordable.
To travel in busses you have to:
- believe
- not be in a hurry
- have the fee ready +/- 10 cents
- hold out your arm at the bus station if you want to bus to stop
- accept that you might have to stand and to fight through the mob towards the exit.
- not be afraid of open doors
- be as unpolite as the bus drivers.

We went to Valletta the capital of Malta.
It was the day the new president took over the command. They put barricades all along Valletta's Main Street so that it was impossible to get on the other side once you had enterred the city. The guy drove through in a Roll's Royce limousine escorted by twelve members of the cavallery.
We walked through the city, saw a few streets and eventually went to a park overseeing a harbour where we ate lunch and stayed for a greater part of the afternoon.

We had a trip south to Blue Grotto by bus which confirmed the allegations made on April 3rd. It's a nice place to dive if you're into that kind of entertainment. We just took a boat on which a guide showed us a few holes in the rocks. The sea is
extremely appealing as it has a magnificient blue turquoise colour.
Afterward we walked to the temples of Hagar Qim and Mnajdra which are currently being restored or protected from further deterioration by founds of the European Union.
The long bus trip back to Valletta was just as entertaining as the one to the South.

Christine had school in the morning. After a quick lunch, we went to Sliema Front where we took a Harbour Tour with Luzzu Cruises on a small boat. The agent selling us the tour convinced us that he was better than the big boat from Captain Morgan because he was really going into the creeks whereas the Captain Morgan boat had to cut the creek because of its size. He was proven to be right on the two hour cruise. We had an excellent time and I can certainly recommend it to any visitor to Malta: take a small boat for a harbour tour and not a big one. At the end of the turn the sea was a bit rough and there was even a little bit of action on the boat.
After dinner Christine took me to Paceville. It's the place where all the (loud) clubs are. I guess Malta has no regulation on noise limit. It was most astonishing.

In the afternoon we went to the Golden Bay which seems to be the only sand beach on the island. We had a late lunch at a sea restaurant and wrote postcards while consuming a tremendious amount of sun (screen).
Malta presents an interesting contrast between old and new. There are some very well maintained roads but on the other side as soon as you leave the cities, the roads are covered with bumps and holes and look live they aven't been maintained in years. Driving on the roads you see very old cars (those which were sold in continental Europe in the 80s and 90s) and brand new models too. The old ones look as if they were brought from Great Britain once regulation forbid them to be used there. We saw a vehicle inspection administration building but I'm not sure what they actually inspect and check.
Malta has some very old buildings dating from the Renaissance (and before), some are well maintained others fall apart and need to be teard down as they could collapse otherwise. The residential houses are also a mix between old buildings, newer ones from after WW2 and only recently build ones. Air conditionning is a must for nearly every building. As it seems very easy to open a business, many people try their best, rent a shop and when the business collapses, they leave the place. You see a great amount of abandonned shops and houses (even whole vacation complexes). This leads to the controversial situation that a 5-star hotel can find itself between a lot of abandonned shops and houses, in an otherwise not so attractive street.
Money from the European Union has opened the way for many restauration and maintenance projects. Malta's real estate business is booming (again).

We went to Mosta and Mdina, the old capital of Malta. Sightseeing at both places certainly includes the cathedrals.
I guess I can state that the bumpy roads are not repaired to avoid the people of speeding even more. And bus drivers are either intentionally stealing money each time they give you back change or they're simply unable to count.
If the weather forecast is correct this was the last really sunny and warm day until next monday, when I leave. We haven't had any major sun burn to proclaim yet.

On Thursday the weather was not very friendly so we went shopping. Or we tried to... We didn't spend that much money nor buy many items although it took us the whole afternoon and we were truely tired afterwards. Don't expect Malta to be a country where you can fill your luggage with cheap deals. They clearly know how to get their money from tourists. One often hears that clothes are cheap on Malta as there are quite a few manifacturers who produce their fashion here. We couldn't confirm this. The prices are the same as in Switzerland, not particularely known to be a cheap country. But on Malta one can find brands that are not sold in Switzerland otherwise.
This makes me remember that I wanted to ask wheter Malta is actually a dependence from Palermo or Napoli? Sometimes I really wonder...
Friday was Christine's 21st birthday. She got vouchers from her school to go to the spa at a nearby hotel. We spent the afternoon between sauna, exotic showers, steam bath, roman bath, jacuzzi, kneipp walk, ice grotto, acqua meditation room and rest room. It was fantastic. We ended the evening at the movies in Paceville, wondering once more how we once could stand this crazy party scene.

We booked a Gozo-tour for today. We were picked up by a private bus and brought to the ferry. After crossing the Malta-Gozo border we started the tour in another small bus. Private bus drivers are the same kind in matter of driving science as those from public busses.
We were shown around different places on Gozo including live commentary from the bus driver who was sloving getting on my nerves because he kept on repeating the same stuff over and over again.
During all the time on Malta I never felt sick in a bus but today was a bit different. So much for the driving skills...

On our last day together, we decided we wouldn't go to one of these Easter processions. Instead we simply went to Valletta and visited the archeological museum. Our decision was made easy by the fact that it began to rain as we were walking though the sunday Valletta market.
I have to take back my accusation that clothes and shoes can be bought at low price on Malta. At the market you can find anything as very low price, although the quality may be doubtable. So as the source of the marchandise. There were for instance severaly stands where you could openly buy copies of movie DVDs. For a country of the EU this is insane!
Malta is also the first country I visited where in some restaurants and cafés the service charge is not included in the price. This is something I can't understand - moreover as the prices of the lone drink or dish is not really any cheaper from the places where the service fee is included in the price.
A final thought on the bus tickets: if you plan to use the busses regularely or/and if you don't want to bother always having the right and small change from the strange bus fees with you, get a one or more-day bus ticket. It may seem a bit expensive at the beginning but it really allows you to jump on any bus you want at any time, you don't have to bother with the mood of the driver and you don't loose 5-10 cents every time you don't the exact fee ready. So it really pays off...
The construction business is booming and I guess the next one will be the solar panel business. It's amazing how few solar panels are located on maltese roofs. There are a few autocirculating warm water heaters (a cylinder of water above an inclinated solar collector) but not many. Especially compared to the number of air conditionners one sees. I guess that during the summer a lot of the power consumed by the air conditionners could be won from the sun - not to mention the solar cold machines or the solar desalination systems that could be built.

Christine as already left for school, I checked out of the hotel am now waiting for a decent time to leave for the airport. The weather is like yesterday: cloudy, rainy, windy and cold.
Maybe a few final thoughts on Malta. Malta is a bit like an emerging country. Not so long ago it was a place with cheap salaries where international companies manifatured their goods. In the meantime, the revenues are up. Next to tourism, the service sector is strongly growing. The infrastructure is getting better and better. EU regulations help to consolidate the country. Unless countries like Romania and Bulgaria, there is enough capital around to finance the whole process.
There are still big differences between rich and poor but they are much more miyed together. Unlike other places, I don't think there are slums here. Rich and poor can be found in the same street: A five star hotel and three houses next to it, you find a ruin of a house of the 50s falling apart; or you find a luxury car garage in a street where all the other businesses are closed and each door holds a sign "for rent".
For a country living from tourism, the connections between the touristic sites have to be improved. There is no train, just road transports like busses. The bus stations are not always well marked and still have to find out whether it's a bus stop where you can only step off a bus or also get aboard of one - and which bus route actually stops there. It's insane not to have any bus connections after 23:00 - at least in spring. There are night services from mid june to mid september but during the rest of the year you have to take the much more expensive private taxis to get anywhere (remember my question about Napoli or Palermo?).
A positive aspect is that Malta's public places and bars/restaurants/cafés have been smoke free since 2004. It's such a great feeling to be able to wear the same clothes the next day after having had dinner at a restaurant. Other countries should have a shameful sight at Malta. Of course smokers can consume their drug on the terrasses of the cafés. So it can still happen that you are sitting outside on a wonderful day, enjoying a drink or a meal and your neighbour is smoking the hell out of his lungs. But I guess that's alright!
Some people abuse the word "OK", Maltese people abuse the word "alright". Everything is alright. When you get into some place you are being asked "How are you alright?". That's the answer right inside the question. You cannot be anything else on Malta than alright.
Anyway, it was a great time, I enjoyed it a lot and I can certainly recommend Malta during the spring. Alright?!

I had a bit of time to look through the hundreds of pictures I took during the vacation on Malta. I played a bit with GIMP's panorama plugin. Here is a composition of pictures showing Valetta's, Msida's and Slimas habours together with a view of Manoel Island.

The Swiss have accepted the proposal to ban the building of minarets, official results show.
It's shameful for a democratic country to globally ban the Islamic religious expression in its constitution. The proposal doesn't forbid the building of mosques or other religious temples - only minarets. However, it shows how narrow minded voters are and how very little diplomatic feeling they have.
As an atheist, I must confess that I am way more bothered by christian churches and their bells than by any minaret.
It would be interesting to see how much damage Muslims could inflict to the Swiss banking system if they would draw back all their money from Swiss banks - and how much political damage this decision inflicts to Switzerland on the international level.