My Private Amsterdam - Backpacker in Holland

The similarities are partial; Amsterdam is renowned for its freedom perhaps to explicit excess. Perceptions of Amsterdam are littered with the residue of hash brownies, oncoming trams on the wrong side of the street, friendly restaurateurs and the gentle rain from the North Sea. Cobbled stones, bicycles, and marble phallic symbols. 

I have been living in Johannesburg for one year, and have moved to my fourth neighbourhood. The spirit of adventure usually seizes me, but a declining rand has made me settle for smaller adventures. 

I have moved away from the leafy suburbs surrounding Zoo Lake, away from the pretentiousness of Parkhurst, which accosted me like a con man in broad daylight. Unaccustomed to suburban bliss the endless piles of dog poo everywhere soon exorcised me. Sunday afternoons in 4th Avenue were a parade of the hyper tense middle class, a sad shadow of Camps Bay, without the Beach. My presence is only remembered by the Bobbies on the beat, likewise on bicycles, and the waiters whom I offended with my slight meals and even slighter tips. I was out of there during the public unrest which followed the closure of the local ABSA. Discreetly placed next to a Laundromat, an uproar crystallised when residents realised that an alternative had to be arranged in the search for those illusive R2 coins. 

Nothing remains to be said about my two consequent neighbourhoods except that they were quiet- heavy with an unpalatable silent. As my cartoon nemesis Brain so insightfully articulated in one of his Sunday morning episodes, the same eerie silence pervades the Arctic Tundra. My attention span howled for something far more stimulating. 

Thereafter to Orange Grove- bordering Louis Botha Avenue, with its congestion of smoke-bellowing buses; hooting taxis; heavy accented Foreigners and long-bearded Orthodox Jews. I was happy to be living in the midst of madness, an experiment in the third culture.

I now live in a commune, which is the closest thing to family I have encountered in the thirteen months here. Rapid children, lazy dogs and pretty young girls sitting on the pavement chatting for hours on Saturday afternoons eating mangoes. 

It is here that I have found the greatest similarity to Amsterdam, long moderately horizontal avenues perfect for the wonderful tradition of cycling. 

The avenues lead you into Sydenham, Maryvale and offer splendid views. Diverse architecture is to be seen, as many houses are large and seem to have accommodated large Jewish families, I could be wrong they could have housed single neurotic painters. Closer to Louis Botha Avenue the houses emerge like apparitions from a movie set in the American Mid West, you half expect the whistling of a train in the background. The houses share decay akin to government buildings. 

There are cheap stores on Louis Botha where you can negotiate a reasonable price for a bicycle. For a paltry R400 you could walk off with a mountain bike and enough adventure to sustain you for at least three months. Especially if you so happened to have arrived in Johannesburg without a car, a job and relied mostly on newly found ancestor-worship and blind faith to make it through. 

Cycling offers a certain freedom- it is the clichéd wind through you hair, sun glistening on your skin but it is also the knowledge that you are simultaneously working major muscles and increasing your heart strength. Orange Grove offers a virtual rewind, a kiss of nostalgia. You can imagine children (when they were children and play wasn't just a button on a DVD) running, cycling and shouting in the leafy streets when evenings were more carefree. 

It is cyclist-friendly neighbourhood and women are reasonably safe, there is a neighbourhood watch patrolling the area and drivers are generally courteous yet harmlessly if not downright inquisitive. 

The area could become the equivalent of Melville, except postulating more multicultural diversity. Numerous watering holes suggest ample opportunity for pit stops, the Blue Naartjie- glowing with extra terrestrial confidence is a haunt for those plugged into the surreal. Notably wacky and still very homely, where everybody knows you name. 

Sydenham houses a few small kosher pizzerias and steak houses in a side street, shared with an oral hygienist. This discovery somewhat disturbed me for unfathomable reasons. The eateries are quaint, dark and with the bad weather of early February this has made me somewhat nostalgic for the dingy haunts of my early twenties. Perfect for a quickie (I'm talking meals here!) for those of us saddled with a job and an education to complete. 

Joburg has for the past year fascinated me, it is the only city that I have visited where you hardly see white people walking, and those who are, are usually tourists. It is a strange phenomenon as if 20% of the population is born encapsulated in a tin can. An Indian man, intoxicated by his wit told me that it is not evolution to move from walking on all fours to driving on four wheels. I reply its Darwinism to rather ride on 2 ultrasonic wheels. 

by Bianca M

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