10 breeds of pirate – Somalis to Vikings to Japanese Pirate Ninjas

by Justin Delaney on

A yacht carrying a quartet of Americans was recently seized by Somali pirates, the latest in a string of hijackings that reaches back millenia. According to MSNBC, the seized yacht, the “S/V Quest,” is owned by Jean and Scott Adam – a couple on a worldwide quest distributing bibles. While they no doubt expected to spread the word far and wide, they were certainly not expecting to be boarded by Somali pirates off the coast of Oman in the Arab sea. The waters along the horn of Africa are a hotbed of piracy, and travelling by boat in this region is about as reckless as booking a 2 week holiday in Mogadishu.

The Somali pirates are the modern day face of an enterprise that has existed for centuries. Piracy has been part of seafaring culture since man first took to the open water. As early as 1400 BC, Lukka sea raiders from Asia Minor began committing acts of piracy throughout the Mediterranean. These early pirates were known simply as the “Sea Peoples.” Aside from these early innovators of seaward sabotage, many groups and clans have sailed under the banner of terror on the high seas. The Vikings innovated the craft, the Barbary corsairs elevated it to an art, and the pirates of the Caribbean made it famous. Many other groups, operating in the shadows of history, took to piracy on the high seas. From dark age plundering to modern day terrorism, some of these groups of pirates include:The Vikings
Hailing from Scandinavia, the Vikings pillaged much of western Europe and northern Africa. The Norsemen covered a range from Russia to Newfoundland in their graceful longships, and pioneered piracy in the middle ages. They were the original world explorers – helmeted plunderers with a thrist for adventure.

The Wokou
Around the same time Vikings were wreaking havoc in Europe, these Japanese pirates, known as Wokou, began terrorizing the Chinese and Korean coast. Most of these pirates were Ronin, merchants, and smugglers. Allegedly, some were even ninjas, throwing a paradoxical spin on the classic “pirate versus ninja” debate. Why choose when you can just be both?

Barbary Corsairs
In response to the moors being ran out of Europe, many took up residence in northern Africa. Some of these displaced seamen became pirates and raided towns and vessels in Spain, Italy, France, and beyond. The infamous Redbeard, Oruc Reis, was a notable Barbary Corsair, and sacked many coastal Italian towns.

Madagascar Pirates
Off the eastern coast of Africa, Madagascar was a lawless place during the golden age of pirateering. Since no European countries colonized Madagascar, the island was an ideal spot for pirates to lay low and plot the next heist. Allegedly, the pirate utopia of “Libertalia” was located on Madagascar. According to pirate lore, “Libertalia” was a communist colony governed by pirates for pirates, where all shared in the booty.

Orang Laut
Originally from the Spice Islands and settling in modern day Malaysia, these sea gypsies began raiding the strait of Malacca over 500 years ago. Eventually, they fell into a protective role, policing the waters for the Sultanates of Johor and Malacca. Unlike many pirates that called solid ground home, the Orang Laut lived exclusively on the water.

Classical Carribean Pirates
The pirate cliche is the Caribbean pirate, and the spokesperson is Johnny Depp’s character in Pirates of the Caribbean. The Caribbean pirate era began when Aztec gold bound for Spain was seized by pirates in the early 16th century. This escalated into the golden age of pirateering in the 17th and 18th centuries. Most Caribbean pirates came from European origins.

Bugi Pirates of Sulawesi
The term boogeyman originated from the orchid shaped island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. The Bugi pirates of southern Sulawesi were so feared that Dutch and English sailors brought home tales of horror to scare misbehaving children. The Bugianese were among the first to explore Papua New Guinea and northern Australia.

Sea Dayak of Borneo
Notorious headhunters, the sea dayaks terrorized the waters of the South China Sea, targeting vessels passing from Hong Kong to Singapore. In the mid nineteenth century, James Brooke and an army of Malays wiped out many of these pirates. Today, these people are known as the Iban and live in the old rainforests of Borneo.

Chinese Pirates
The most powerful pirate ever was a Chinese woman. In the early 19th century, an ex-prostitute named Cheng I Sao commanded a fleet of more than 1,500 ships – larger than many navies. According to CNN, she was an adept business person and controlled her fleet via a proxy named Chang Pao. She developed spy networks, created economic agreements with mainland farmers for supplies, and generally revolutionized the piracy business model. Her crews stalked the waters of the South China Sea.

Somali Pirates
The modern pirate hails from Somalia – a crossroads of the derelict. With more warlords than laws, Somalia is a disaster state. The government has been more a fleeting idea than a real thing for the last 20 years, and it shows. Warlords control fleets that operate out of coastal towns, amassing ships, arms, and wealth. The pirates use small boats and assault rifles to board both passenger and cargo ships, taking hostages, booty, or both.

Piracy causes roughly $15 billion in losses worldwide per year. The most trafficked areas for modern day piracy include the South China Sea, the Gulf of Aden (off the horn of Africa), the Niger Delta, and the infamous Strait of Malacca.

flickr image via cesargp

Somaliland adventure: getting to nowhere

by Sean McLachlan on

One of the tempting things about travel in Ethiopia is the proximity to other nations offering a variety of different experiences. I decided that my two-month trip would include a side trip to Somaliland.

The first reaction most people have when I say I’ve been to Somaliland is, “You went to Somalia? Are you crazy?”

The answer is no on both counts. Somaliland is the other Somalia, the place that doesn’t get into the news because it’s at peace. Somaliland encompasses the northern third of former Somalia and declared independence in 1991. After a bloody war of independence it quietly settled down to create a nation in a region better known for its pirates, terrorists, and warlords. It’s east of Djibouti, northeast of Ethiopia, and west of Puntland, another breakaway region.

Somaliland isn’t recognized by the rest of the world. Other nations insist the Transitional Federal Government in Mogadishu is the legitimate government of all Somalia, despite it only controlling the airport and half the capital. Somaliland is officially nowhere.

Luckily for me, Nowhere has an efficient office in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa that issues visas. Actually getting into Somaliland is less straightforward. There are daily flights to the capital Hargeisa from Addis and other regional cities, but I prefer overland travel because it’s cheaper and allows you to see the countryside. I’d spoken with various Somaliland officials as to the advisability of this choice. Some said the overland route wasn’t safe for foreigners, while others insisted it was. I decided to visit Harar in eastern Ethiopia and check for myself.

Harar is a small city and within the first day I’d heard from three different people that the man to talk to was Muhammed Dake, a Somali-Ethiopian author and guide who has many connections on both sides of the border. I found him to be a font of information. His English is good and he can be contacted at guleidhr(at)yahoo(dot)com. Please note he’s very busy and can only answer serious inquiries about travel to Somaliland. As luck would have it, his cousin and a friend were headed back home to Hargeisa on the bus and agreed to take me along. Both were jalabis, women who wore the traditional Muslim garb of the region that covers everything but the face and hands. Traveling with them was bound to get me even more attention than usual.

“Don’t worry,” Dake said. “They’ll say you’re a convert to Islam and that they’re your wives.”

%Gallery-92636%My “wives” don’t speak much English, but as we head to the bus station one manages to tell me she used to live in Mogadishu before fleeing to Hargeisa and how grateful she is to live in a place where there’s no gunfire in the streets.

The first leg of the journey is a bus from Harar east to Jijiga, capital of the Somali province of Ethiopia. People are jammed in the rickety seats–old men and workers, women in jilabas, hordes of children and infants. A leper shoulders his way through the crowd begging for alms. We’re packed in with our luggage because the roof is covered with kegs of beer. The bus descends through a winding mountain pass dotted with villages. My attention is divided between the landscape and a poster taped to the partition behind our driver. It shows a Western model posed like a Hellenic statue, a perfect ruby of a nipple leading us on to Jijiga.

After a couple of hours we pull into Jijiga’s bus station–a clamorous, dusty, crowded place thick with flies. My traveling companions decide it’s a good place to have lunch. They take me to a stall made of a latticework of eucalyptus poles covered in plastic sheeting and cardboard. The only thing on the menu is spaghetti that we eat with our hands.

I quickly make a fool of myself. Since in this region you can only eat with one hand (the other being reserved for the final stage of the digestive process) there is no way to get all those unruly strands of pasta together long enough to make the trip to your mouth. Of course the four-year-old boy next to me is doing it just fine. He gives me a wide-eyed stare.

After amusing everyone with my bad table manners we squish ourselves into a minibus and head to the border. Soon the low concrete buildings of Jijiga disappear behind us and the road descends through rockier and drier terrain. We pass through a valley filled with boulders and eerie spires that loom over the road. Soon it flattens out and we’re speeding along a dry, featureless plain of stone and scrub. The beehive-shaped huts of wood and thatch so common throughout Ethiopia are replaced by low domes of wickerwork covered in tarpaulins, rags, and plastic. Lines of camels walk sedately along the road.

Tog Wuchale, straddling the Ethiopia-Somaliland border, has the distinction of being the second ugliest town I have ever seen. It’s a huddle of concrete buildings, shacks, and tents in the middle of a dusty plain strewn with garbage. Flies swarm over masses of rotting food. Every thorn bush is draped in plastic bags. There doesn’t seem to be a trash can in the entire province. This is what happens when a nomadic people are suddenly thrust into consumer culture. Before, a family might have occasionally thrown something away, a worn-out basket perhaps, but it would soon disintegrate. Nothing ever accumulated because the people themselves were always moving. Now they’ve settled and joined The Age of Plastic.

As soon as we’re off the bus, a “customs agent” tries to shake me down for money. My travel companions fling a few choice Somali words at him and he slinks away. Anyone who thinks Muslim women can’t stand up for themselves has never been to a Muslim country. They hire a porter with a bright yellow wheelbarrow to take their suitcases across the border and we pick our way through heaps of garbage past a sad trickle of a river choked with trash that oozes through the center of town. My poor boots. I pity the ladies in their sandals.

As we approach the border another guy comes up saying he’s a customs agent and asks to see my passport. Of course I blow him off. I mean, he has no ID, not even a uniform! But he speaks good English and is persistent.

“Where’s your uniform?” I ask. He looks confused.

We arrive at the Ethiopian side of the border, marked only by a tent in front of which two soldiers sit chewing chat, a narcotic leaf, their AK-47s resting on their laps. I try to hand them my passport but they point to the fellow who’s been following me.

“I told you I was a customs agent,” he grumbles as he stamps my passport.

A quick inspection on the other side of the border and I get my Somaliland stamp. I am now officially nowhere.

Now it’s time to get somewhere. My companions, who like all the other Somalis didn’t get checked on either side of the border, find a shared taxi. It’s a beat up old station wagon with a slow leak in two tires. The driver is a bleary-eyed maniac with chat leaves sticking out of his mouth. He’s also a sadist. He stuffs ten adult passengers, one infant, and an immense pile of luggage inside. One guy straddles the gear shift. I’m squashed between the door and my friend from Mogadishu.

Mr. Chat slams on the gas and we peel out into the desert. The only road is a groove of tire tracks over sand and pebbles. We weave between bushes and dodge the occasional camel. The view out the front window looks like some low-budget video game. I’m not afraid. Even if we hit something, the door and my “wife” have me jammed into place better than any seat belt. We head into the dusk as the broken window funnels a spray of fine sand into my face.

After a while we mercifully come to a newly paved road and speed on, halted only by regular checkpoints. My passport is scrutinized at every one. While I’m sorely tempted to use these breaks to get out and stretch my legs–they haven’t moved for hours and my knees get slammed by the driver’s seat every time we hit a bump–everyone warns me not to get out of the car. At this point my left leg is getting excruciating cramps, and for the last half hour into Hargeisa I stand up with my back pressed against the roof.

Entering Hargeisa at night the first thing I notice is that all the lights are on. In Harar I endured daily blackouts. Neon signs flash ads for expensive imports. People sit at cafes. Shoppers stroll along the street. We pull up in front of the Oriental Hotel and I thank my companions. I limp inside to discover I’m in a posh hotel.

Nowhere has a First World capital.

Coming up next: Hargeisa, a capital in search of a country.

Somaliland: the other Somalia

by Sean McLachlan on

There are some places you just can’t consider for a vacation. While even Iraq has recently opened up to carefully handled tours, Somalia remains out of bounds. What with an Islamist movement proudly proclaiming its ties to Al-Qaeda, and a decades-long civil war between rival clans, there’s no chance of exploring the Somali culture and landscape, right?

Actually, that’s only half true.

The Republic of Somaliland is the northern third of what most maps show as Somalia. Anyone paying attention to the news knows that Somalia hasn’t been a unified nation for quite some time, but this one region, a little larger than England and home to 3.5 million, has managed to bring stability and a developing democracy to its people. Born out of the colony of British Somaliland, it gained independence in 1960 and immediately joined former Italian Somaliland to create what we now know as Somalia. A brutal dictatorship and a civil war later, it declared independence in 1991 and has quietly built a nation as the rest of Somalia disintegrated into chaos.

But no other country recognizes Somaliland as an independent state, which makes it very hard to get international investment and attention. Now Somaliland officials are hoping an increase in tourism will help to literally put their country on the map. It already has regular contact with its neighbors Ethiopia and Djibouti, and has representatives in several major capitals. The Tourism Ministry is busy making plans and there’s a good website highlighting Somali Heritage and Archaeology.

%Gallery-84671%With a countryside only thinly populated by nomads, Somaliland has good potential for safaris. Lions, cheetahs, zebras, antelope, and other animals are easily spotted. Even more stunning are the well-preserved paintings at Laas Geel, believed to be some of the oldest in Africa. They’re located near the capital Hargeysa and remained unreported until 2002. Colorful paintings of hunters and animals date back an estimated 9,000 years.

Other towns to check out are Barbera and Zeila, two ports with excellent coral reefs as well as old colonial buildings from British and Ottoman times. More important than bricks and mortar, though, is the chance to interact with a culture that has had comparatively little contact with the outside world. This is a rare chance to see a country unaccustomed to tourism, where there are no “tourist sites” and “local hangouts”. For the adventure traveler, it’s still pretty much uncharted territory.

After almost 20 years of independence, Somaliland is beginning to get some recognition from adventure travelers. The most recent edition of Lonely Planet Ethiopia has a short section on the country, and three young backpackers recently posted a video of their trip there on YouTube. A reporter from the Pulitzer Center has also covered the country on an online video. Somaliland could become the adventure travel destination of the new decade.

While Somaliland has some good potential, travelers should take care. Government bodyguards are required (costing $10 a day each) and there are few facilities for visitors. The country has also attracted the ire of Al-Shabab, an Islamist group with ties to Al-Qaeda that wants to take over the Horn of Africa. In 2008 a series of deadly car bombings blamed on Al-Shabab left two dozen dead in Hargeysa. Also, the countryside is not yet safe enough for foreigners to travel overland from Ethiopia on public transport. There are regular flights to Hargeysa from Addis Ababa and other regional capitals. The office for Somaliland in Addis Ababa (which is not recognized as an embassy by the government of Ethiopia) can issue visas and give advice. If you do decide to go, it’s best to plan well in advance and talk to the government as soon as possible.

Polo’s Bastards Top 10 Worst Destinations

by Adrienne Wilson on

With the current conflict going on between Ethiopia and Somalia, my mind immediately began to wonder what the writers at Polo’s Bastards had been up to and what dangerous lands they’ve been exploring. Last time I checked in they’d just posted a piece on Rio’s favelas. Since then North Korea and Chechnya have also made their blog pages.

To round off the year though, Lee Ridley spent a little bit of his Christmas day highlighting some of the world’s worst destinations in 2006. Iraq assumes the position of No. 1, which doesn’t come as a shocker at all. The conflict created by the Hezbollah kidnappings of Israeli soldiers earned Lebanon the No. 10 spot, and in the middle you’ll find Haiti, Afghanistan, the entire Horn of Africa (poor Eritrea), Nepal, Chad, Chechnya and North Korea. If you’ve been in the dark concerning the political climate of these particular areas, you might want to mosey over and see what the deal is. Otherwise, just be sure to proceed with caution in the upcoming year. It is a far, far more dangerous world out there.