In the mid 70’s , I went to visit my parents who were living in Zambia at the time, as my Dad was working at the Ministry of Finance in Lusaka on a 3 year contract.
We went on a train trip from Zambia via Lubumbashi in the Congo to Johannesburg, Durban and then Cape Town. As we were tourists , we didn’t experience racism the way that the people who lived there did. But, we went to a burger restaurant and we were told that we could not eat there because of our skin tone.My Dad did rant at the manager saying he worked for the British government offices, had travelled to many countries all over the world and had never experienced anything quite like this. The restaurant manager kept apologising and said ” I can recommend a good chinese place nearby” .That sentence did not go down well with my Dad,he replied back ” I only want a burger”.
The following day , we left by train to Durban. It was a pleasant journey and a great way to see the country .We had a private compartment which also had comfy pull out beds. It took about 26 hours to get to Durban and interesting landscapes to see , from farmland and fields ,vineyards and mountains with changing colours of green, gold and red.
We arrived in Durban very early the next morning and met our friends who we were staying with. They moved to Durban after leaving Bangalore in India several years ago.
They took us to see The Durban Botanic Gardens which has rare plants and exquisite orchids , waterlillies ,varied trees and we saw many monkeys roaming around too.It is Africa’s oldest surviving botanical gardens.
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