Downtown Kampala

I amble among the throng of people over the undulating urban terrain of cracked concrete and muddy bricks, intending half-heartedly to find a certain tourist sight and not really caring if I find it. I am here to be in it, to experience the city life as the locals live it.

Kampala has the same population as the whole of Australia. Ugandans are very friendly, polite people who will often greet you in the street. "Hello", and always "how are you?" and sometimes "how is your family?" All of them look at me – mzungu can't help but stand out – in curiosity and mild surprise but without staring. I feel quite safe. The hundreds of boda-boda riders chatting in groups parked at the roadside regularly ask me if I need a ride. Boda-bodas are pillion-passenger motorcycle taxis, so named because they emerged to ferry travellers across the sometime long distances between no-man's-land between border checkpoints – border to border. They are notoriously dangerous. By one account there averages five fatalities in Kampala a day.

It's just shy of 30 degrees today and the constant smell of vehicle exhaust is briefly dispersed by heaven-sent bursts of cool, humid air. I turn off the congested main road at a major intersection and down an even more congested side road towards Old Kampala. I'm not far from Nasser Road, where you can get any kind of forgery that you want: university certificates, passports, you name it. But all my documents are in order. I'm heading to the Old Taxi Park, the "organised chaos" of the blue-and-white private minibuses (called taxis) which are the heart of the Kampala transport system. No part of Kampala can be called inauthentic, but this is truly the local experience.

Past the cluttered shops of mobile phones and shoes with people sat on stoops the crowd grows ever more dense. We pass the poor who sit and beg silently with open hands. Rolling footpaths give way to broken tracks like trench ramparts and, as the cramped shops yield to dusty market stalls selling cloth and second-hand clothes from the banks that pen in the crowds, I finally enter the taxi park. The ubiquitous taxis press between full-sized buses discharging cross-country passengers and their luggage into the morass of people as boda-bodas squeeze into any vacant crevice. This section of road is less like a thoroughfare than a choked evacuation. The street ingests and constricts and engorges the lot, passing the vehicles and people in an urbanological peristalsis until it expels them at the other end to rejoin the circulation of the city.

At last I reach the mouth of the street at the top of a hill. Kampala is all hills. The road curls around the Ugandan Muslim Supreme Council Headquarters, a mosque-like structure from what I can discern outside the barbed-wire-crowned walls. I sit on the grass embankment to rest a bit, pulling from my pack a bottle of water and a fig to munch. The only others who sit on these banks are the poor and the beggars. The steady stream of staring locals must all surely be thinking: "What the hell is mzungu doing HERE?" After a short while a few young men walk past with a look less curious and more menacing than the others and I think, right, time to move on.

It is easy to accomplish an instant getaway. I look up, wave to one of the boda-boda drivers in the constant stream who all watch me with Pavlovian interest, briefly negotiate a 4,000 Ugandan shilling trip to the city centre (A$1.65; mzungu fare, probably double what it should be but I don't quibble over it), and in seconds I'm hurtling off into the chaos.

Kampala

"Mzungu!"

I am mzungu . White man. They call to me in friendly tones and smile, and I wave back. As far as I can see, across all the bobbing black heads, I am the only mzungu in Kampala.

People are walking everywhere on the variously intact and broken footpaths that line the mud-rendered traffic-packed asphalt, yet the hotel staff thought it was strange that I wanted to walk into town.

"Bad idea", one of them said. She was likely concerned that I would be pickpocketed rather than mugged. Kampala isn't Nairobi. Violent crime is rare. I have read. So, blissfully confident in this, I sauntered past the "No guns" signs in the foyer and marched out the hotel gate, bidding adieu to the guards checking with mirrors under cars for bombs.

I pass by the Electoral Council of Uganda, a minor fortress with police in fatigues wielding shotguns posted outside long, whitewashed, razor-wired walls. The whitewash is wonderfully glazed with informational paintings and bold instructions on the democratic process: "Participate in elections by organising democratic rallies"; "You must be registered to vote." I approach one of the gun-toting officers and, extending my journalism credentials, ask him if I can shoot the building. (Okay, I said "photograph the building".) He tells me to go inside to ask permission, but the guards want me to leave my backpack at the gate until they can verify that I am who I say I am, and not someone simply wanting to get into the Electoral Commission of Uganda with a backpack full of C4. I'm not too keen on leaving it unattended as it actually contains expensive camera equipment, so I decline and move on.

As it turns out, I don't shoot Kampala at all. Though everything is in a constant state of deterioration, incompletion and perpetual repair, the city is utilised and occupied, and I want to capture its dirty, bustling life. But Kampala's sole mzungu flashing around his fancy Canon is not a good look.

Flying stinks

I carry Vicks Vapo Rub to put under my nose à la CSI autopsies (a myth, by the way; coroners do no such thing) to mitigate potentially noxious in-flight odours. There is no shortage of miasmic menace on a plane – smelly feet, body odour, Lynx aerosol deodorant, halitosis, farts, last night's garlic, turbulence-induced vomit (speaking of which, where's my sick bag? Have budget airlines done away with them to save a few cents? Somebody is one day going to be sorry).

Fortunately, the air is inoffensive on the Sydney to Singapore leg of the voyage. Next will be from steamy Singapore to baking Dubai, and then onto tropical Uganda.

Stay seated until the aircraft is full

I read an article on LinkedIn written by an airline CEO titled "A Common Sense Solution to Slow Airplane Boarding". When I read the title, I thought he had it. But he didn't. He completely missed the point. He wrote about the efforts of the airline industry to improve boarding times using creative algorithms and fee incentives. That might be business, but it isn't commen sense. It's common sense just to wait.

Get on last. Let the crowd thin. Guess what, passengers? The plane is not going anywhere without you. Haven't you wondered about all those imploring announcements urging various names to get on the damn plane so they don't have to hunt down luggage in the hold and remove it? No, people, you can relax. While everyone else jostles, sit with a magazine at the gate on a chair comparatively more comfortable than your cramped seat on the plane. You're going to have to wait in one of them.

There are two caveats to this advice: 1) if you're flying business class then what are you waiting for? But you're not; you board first, anyway; 2) I'm assuming your seat is allocated. If you're flying a budget carrier with unreserved seating, like RyanAir, then scramble, shove, and shiv your way to the front.

Why it is a bad idea to visit East Africa

Today I begin my malaria tablets.

I'm already shot up full of hepatitis and typhoid vaccines. Now I've come across warning that there's been a flare-up of meningococcal meningitis in the south Omo Valley of Ethiopia, my main destination where I will be shooting the southern tribes. I don't intend to French kiss them so meningitis is manageable. But the World Health Organisation also reported a recent outbreak of yellow fever, the mosquito-borne haemorrhagic disease, in the same area. They're on the ground containing it right now. Local mosquitoes French kissing me are considerably harder to avoid, so I got vaccinated two weeks ago. I had to if I wanted to come home. Australia won't let me back into the country without immunisation.

In fact, they don't even want me to go. The Australian government's "smart traveller" website says of Uganda: "Reconsider your need to travel to areas bordering the Democratic Republic of the Congo." The Bwindi Impenetrable Forest of Uganda, where I will be tracking the mountain gorillas, sits right on the border. The late Dian Fossey was based here. And murdered here.

From there I cross by road into Rwanda about 100km from Goma, the provincial capital seized from Congolese government forces last year by M23, the allegedly Rwanda-backed Tutsi rebels. Tutsi and Hutu militia have persisted since the Rwandan genocide of 1994. There was further fighting near Goma in July.

"Reconsider your need to travel" is the Australian government's second-highest security advice. The highest is what it says of Ethiopia: "Do Not Travel." Not actually for all of Ethiopia, but the border areas with Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea, Kenya... well, all the border areas. Harar, one of my first stops, is only about 120km in a straight line from the Somali border. Actually, it's the border of Somaliland, an unrecognised breakaway state which is reasonably stable. Aksum, on the other hand, is about 50km by road from the Eritrean border. The war with Eritrea formally ended 13 years ago and the border has been permanently closed since, though there have been skirmishes as recently as 2010. This is the region where five western tourists were killed and two kidnapped by gunmen last year. This is my destination in the north.

But not to worry. Yes, I'm a westerner travelling solo, but I will hire guides.

They carry rifles.

Airport layovers: from pods to luxury

Sydney to Uganda. It's not a straightforward affair. There are certainly no direct flights to Entebbe, or indeed to anywhere in East Africa. The busiest and easiest transit hub is Dubai, to which I'm flying via Singapore. I'm trying to keep the cost of this trip down (and failing spectacularly – African tours and safaris can be shockingly expensive) by flying on Singapore Airlines-owned budget carrier Scoot, then onto Dubai flying Emirates on points.

An eight-hour layover in Dubai before the next flight out to Uganda presents a small what-the-hell-do-I-do dilemma. Sleep seems the obvious answer. I figure finding somewhere to get properly horizontal will get me to Entebbe in better shape than turning foetal on airport seating, so what are the options?

Dubai International Airport has an in-terminal hotel for A$180 a night. Between disembarkation and flight check-in I'd get less than six hours' use of it. That certainly isn't frugal. A quirky alternative that appeals is the Snoozecube, a simple bunk in a fibreglass pod tackily plastered with vinyl murals of forests beneath fluffy-clouded blue skies. It is purely a private spot to doss, perfect for a brief layover. But at A$20 an hour it soon approaches the price of the fully appointed hotel room. Comparatively, it's even more expensive than a standard room with shared bathroom in the Ambassador Transit Hotel of Singapore's Changi Airport. Of course, Changi is one of the best airports in the world, featuring a luxury four-star hotel in the terminal as well, but I do wonder if the New Zealand-owned Snoozecube might find itself in more airports (Dubai is the only one) with a more reflective price. I'll be putting out for the hotel.

Warming up the engines...

After an extended hiatus, the Solonaut is preparing to crack Africa. Stand by for dangerous undertakings.

The Minefield

"Stick to the path or you will die. And you'll kill others."

The minefield in the forested hills is dense—about ten mines per square metre. We gingerly follow the leader along the snaking cleared path. I have never seen a more perfect conga line.

Ivan is a veteran of the siege of Sarajevo. A stocky and innocuous-looking father in his forties, he today runs a hostel in a 300-year-old house near the eclectic and lively Ottoman centre with its quaint cafes and wooden-shuttered shops. But he also takes his young guests on tours of the frontlines of the 1992-1995 blockade. He is keen to educate them; most are hardly older than the siege itself.

Earlier, Ivan picked me up at the East Sarajevo bus station, a cheerless place inside a fenced parking lot. He greeted me gruffly and lugged my backpack out of the foyer as I felt sullen eyes follow us out. The bus station is disconnected from the main Sarajevo bus depot by the division of the city between the Bosniak-Croat Federation and the Serb Republic, and it was not until we crossed the administrative line back into the Federation in his rattling Volkswagen that he relaxed.

"I'm not comfortable there," he said. "Those people know me."

Ivan was one of the civilians who armed themselves and established a frontline in the surrounding mountains to protect the city from the Serb Army when it shelled the population. In those days he alternated fighting with collecting wood for his family for the bitterly cold winters.

In these lush, silent mountains once popular with hikers, scores of plastic mines still exist, invisible to metal detectors. Clearing them is expensive and time-consuming. We walk the tightrope behind Ivan through the eerie wooded minefield that separated the two-kilometre-long frontlines. After a hushed few minutes we reach the other side and look back. The Bosniaks and Serbs were barely fifty metres apart.

Ivan had been stunned at how neighbours who spoke the same language suddenly hated each other over religion. He never saw it until the war. Since then the division has been even greater.

"To be a patriot is stupid," he tells us. "They all died in the first few months. I fought for my wife, my child, my sister, my mother. I fought for those who loved me."

He turns to the tour group with an earnest expression. They are his son's age. "If ever there is a problem in your country, just take your passport and leave," he says. "I made a mistake. I didn't think war would actually happen in Bosnia."

Ória storm

I had just finished lunch in a cafe in a grotto in Ória.  I wasn't planning to stop in Ória, but on my way to Ostuni I was enticed by the picturesque castle on the hill (and overpaid for a short and lame €5 tour in Italian of a pristinely drab restoration featuring replica chain mail and cloth hats).  But the cafe in the cave at the bottom of the hill was curious and atmospheric with its low, rocky ceiling and dim lighting.  A humourless waiter took my order and brought my food with solemn service, stooping in the cave like Igor serving his master.

I finished quickly.  Stopping in Ória had put me behind schedule, so I had to get moving.  I paid the bill and Igor crept away with my empty plates, silhouetted against the glass of the cafe door.  As he climbed the steps out of the grotto—crash!—a heavy, Gothic thunderstorm struck.  He stole a glance of crazed glee at me over his hunched shoulder and scurried around the corner.  Trapped!

The delta of narrow stone lanes scoring the hillside spilled torrents of water.  A new inland sea separated me from my car as I sheltered in the cave.  I waited for the storm to abate, but the thunder indicated other intentions, so at last I cast open the grotto door and fled out into the maelstrom.  I was instantly soaked to the skin.  Trying to keep my balance on the slippery marble paving, leaping channels and fording straits, I reached my car and dived in.

On the other side of the windshield some dark blobs with smeary lights drifted through a grey haze of pelting rain.  I pressed the car forward.  Driving in Italy is always a bit cat-and-mouse in dodgem cars, even when the visibility is good, and intersections are typically a case of picking your way around the other cars that are already in it.  But I missed a stop sign as I entered this intersection and one of the blobs was suddenly upon me.  I slammed the brakes and hydroplaned to a stop within inches of a prang.  Italian drivers have a reputation of being insolent, or at least reckless, but the stereotype of Italian passions compared to Anglo stoicism is not borne out in Salentine traffic.  The drivers in Salento are very courteous.  As I sheepishly reversed out of his right of way, the other driver nonchalantly waved thanks to me for not actually hitting him.

Montenegrin pljeskavica

Montenegro is cheap.  I spent a fortune in Italy.  Although Montenegro is de facto in the euro zone, its economy is not tied to the other euro zone nations; it simply adopted the euro unilaterally.  This goes a small way to explaining why a half litre of beer in Montenegro costs €1.20 and three or four times that in Italy.

At a bar in Bar, I ordered an omelette.  I just got off the ferry from Bari, Italy, and wanted some breakfast while waiting for the train to Podgorica.  The waiter indicated in Serbian that they had no eggs.  I really only ordered it because the word for omelette is omlet, one of only two words on the menu I could understand.  Since the other was hamburger, I ordered that.  He indicated they had no hamburgers.  Off to a rollicking start, this breakfast.  He recommended pljeskavica instead.  "What's pljeskavica?" I asked, and he rattled off something in Serbian and made a shape with his hands.  I shrugged and said, "okay."  I was just hungry.  When travelling, it makes things a lot easier to eat adventurously, and I'm not by nature a fussy eater.  I was ready to try whatever Montenegrin cuisine had to throw at me.

The waiter brought me my pljeskavica.  It was a hamburger.