Spending most of my time in Burco and surrounding. When leaving the country I managed to spend quite allot of time in Hargeisa and the contrast is BIG:
- Hargeisa is an absolute giant
- The road between Burco and Berbera is almost all done to high spec - why journey times is shorter than before left at 6 got there just before 11
- When you arrive at Berbera all buses from the east stop at the bus station they've built where there a little rest and toilet before you set off to HGA
- The road from Berbera to HGA is pristine and the bus flies by
- There was only 1 pick up in Berbera thought it was a Somali but an Ethio who in their broken Somali needed to use a phone to call someone in Hargeisa and when he boarded he was short a few but passengers pleaded his case to allow him to stay.
- There is so much emptiness on the road I don't know why people fight for land. But there's also few quaries where they get rocks for construction
- All buses stop at the Hargeisa control where there is a luggage scan and they search everyone's bag.
- Don't know why this exist before entering every turn there is a police checkpoint but they don't search at any of them except Hargeisa.
- Somalia people tell me if you lot have this, I don't think this is needed in Somaliland.
- Getting passed the checkpoint there's still abit of greenery then the outskirts of the city it starts.
- First you see allot of warehouse and factories then you see loads of car sellers then you start to see the neighborhood and more of that built up area but you in the city and the traffic is crazy. I got picked up from the bus office and thought we'll get to pizza hut but it's West central of the city and I was downtown and it'll take too long to get there.
- There in the process of making the whole city with roads and pavements so there's a allot of road closures and road works.
- Walking around the city and it feels alive so many people everywhere shops are like flats with someone the ground level and others on level 1 and 2
- There's more ATM here and if you have revolut Monzo or any of these universal cards they dispense usd at the current rate £16 = $20.
- You'll meet Somalis from all over in this city
- You can eat on the cheap and you can eat high end and the high end still is way cheaper than the west.
- When they say Hargeisa has created a brain drain from other places it is true.
- From the atmosphere it is they only place where it feels like there is a government as you see works going on everywhere and traffic lights in some places where 90% of the time people listen
- If you're Somali wherever you hail from, go visit this city. If you wanna go and freelance in this city WiFi is dirty cheap for us with unlimited plans 12usd with plenty of co working spaces and even a Somali Airbnb called Sompro
- After a while you would see the value of the Somaliland Shilling locally called "land" with a cup of tea costing 1500 -2000 and coffee 4000. Bottled water is cheap at 3000 because there's so many companies so there's no price gouging
- If you convert to tea and coffee is less then 50p same with water.
- The area around ambassador hotel and the airport is SECURE with a massive UN WFP compound with those sand bags you see in xamar which I ask why there is no need over there plus another heavily secure compound which is deffo a mi6 CIA facility
- You'll also realise there is no need for guns by the police, the population is mostly has no firearms and the ones that do will never tell anyone
