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Going to Ghana - HELP!
I am planning a trip to Ghana in July and i wanted to know if anyone can offer
some advice: 1. I am looking for a good travel agency or web site to go through. what is considered to be a "good" rate for a flight to Ghana - the cheapest i have found is $1500 I live in NYC if anyone has suggestions please let me know. 2. Looking for a good hotel in the Accra area but not too expensive. I have heard of Akuma Village ... if anyone has any suggestions plz let me know. 3. I want to go to the slave castles - i am curious to know if anyone has had that experience and how was it getting there. 4. This may sound very "American" but do cell phones work at all there? 5. Even with the pills can you still get malari? Any other insight please feel free to let me know!!!!! |
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"Ballshapedworld" wrote in message ... I am planning a trip to Ghana in July and i wanted to know if anyone can offer some advice: 1. I am looking for a good travel agency or web site to go through. what is considered to be a "good" rate for a flight to Ghana - the cheapest i have found is $1500 I live in NYC if anyone has suggestions please let me know. 2. Looking for a good hotel in the Accra area but not too expensive. I have heard of Akuma Village ... if anyone has any suggestions plz let me know. 3. I want to go to the slave castles - i am curious to know if anyone has had that experience and how was it getting there. 4. This may sound very "American" but do cell phones work at all there? 5. Even with the pills can you still get malari? Any other insight please feel free to let me know!!!!! Hi, I was just there a few months ago. I live and work in Kinshasa, and some of my colleagues are headed back to Accra in a few weeks. 1. Can't help you with travel plans from the US, but fly with the major carriers. We flew in and out on Air Kenya, which was excellent. The flights that connect through Cameroon (Cameroon Airlines) are notorious for being stranded there, so avoid those. 2. When you get there, you can always ask a taxi driver to show you some places. There are LOTS of places of various quality...you can get a 5-star beach resort with a floating bar in the pool, all the way down to a 1-star shack with no air conditioning and an old mattress. I'd need to know your price and comfort range before I could advise you on accomodations. However, being a westerner, they will assume that you want the ritzy places. When I get home tonight, I'll dig out my Accra map and give you some names and email addresses of places and where they are. Tell me what price/quality scale you are looking at. 3. I hired a taxi driver to take me along the coast. It was a full-day drive, we paid him $30, and he stopped at all the castles, bought his own lunch, and left us in the SW for a few nights at a cozy beach hotel. Then he returned a few days later, and for another $30, he brought us back to Accra to the airport. You can also rent your own car in town (easily arranged while you are there) or prearrange one. I suggest you just do it while you are there, from your hotel. If you hire a cab, DON'T do it from your hotel, as the rates are about 3x what you can get by flagging one down on the street. About every 4th car is a yellow cab, and all prices are negotiable. Wandering around the slave forts is a bittersweet experience, but wandering around the local towns surrounding them is very interesting. 4. Yep, and everyone has them. But be sure you have a dual- or tri-band. If you don't know about cell phone bands, it can be confusing, but here is a summary. Phone bands are like radio stations...they are on their own frequencies. You can't get AM on an FM radio, and you can't get a GSM 1800 signal on a GSM 900 phone. If a country is a GSM 900 country, you need the right frequency phone to make calls. However, some radios are AM/FM, and some phones can cover multiple frequencies. Most of the US networks are GSM 1900, which is unique to the US. If you have a single-band GSM 1900 phone, it will only work in the US. Most other countries use GSM 900 and/or GSM 1800. "Dual Band" phones sold outside the US are able to work on either of these networks. Dual band phones sold in the US must have GSM 1900 (the American band) plus one of those others. Ghana uses GSM 900, so if you have a dual band, be sure it is a GSM 900/1900. Any phone shop can tell you what your phone is. Tri-band phones have all three: GSM 900/1800/1900. If you have a triband phone, it will work almost anywhere. Korea and Japan have their own network, like the US, so to use a phone there you need a 'World Band' phone. That has _all_ the possible bands, which is why it costs so much. Its also why it is so stupid for kids who do not travel to own one. Bookmark this site for your future travels: http://www.cellular-news.com/coverage/ If you have the correct phone, don't bother changing to roaming....buy a sim card when you get there (about $10) with the PrePay option. You can load it up with $20 in credit and call all your US contacts and give them your Ghanian number. US roaming charges from Ghana will be about $3 a minute, while a prepay sim card will cost about $.15 a minute to call the US, IIRC. 5. Absolutely. Pills don't prevent malaria, they only mask the symptoms so that you don't feel so crappy. To avoid getting malaria, you need to use bug dope and keep covered at night. Anopholes mosquitoes (the kind that carry the parasite) bite only at night and cannot tolerate temps below 70F, so if you are spending your evenings in an an air-conditioned hotel room, you are safe. I have lived in Africa for 3 years, stopped taking Doxcylin almost immediately, and have never had malaria. I use bug dope at night, never stand around outside during the rainy season, and sleep under a mosquito net in an airconditioned room. Ghana is a beautiful, friendly and safe country. You can arrive with a backpack, cash in your pocket and no reservations and end up having a great time and seeing a lot of sites. Enjoy it! --riverman |
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Hi, those were some helpful information you got from riverman but let
me tell u what to expect from a native ghanaians perspective. this may not be in any particular order to what you asked but its all information. 1. about tickets to ghana, $1500 sounds about almost reasonable but if you plan on going there next year july then its a bit too much. if you can buy a few months ahead you shd be able to get one for $1200 give or take a few bucks. i know cause i was there abt september last year and got mine for 1217 after taxes and all that stuff. get any agent in ny, most of them can get you a ticket, every time i go i use northwest/klm and my agent here in austin, tx, gets me a good deal. its suppose to be more expensive to ghana from texas than from new york so i am confident you can get something reasonable than $1500. 2. if you can please get yourself an anti-malaria kit. probably cheaper and better in ghana than here. just go to a good hospital, and trust me there are many good ones there when it comes to such native illnesses like malaria, example SSNIT hospital in OSU, in Accra, the capital, is a good place to go. 3. for places to say, i wouldnt advice talking to a cab driver about it. once they know you are not from ghana or you just came from the US they would try to get their share in. they would give you ridiculous rates and would send you to a hotel of their choosing. Don't get me wrong, not all of them are like that but I would avoid them for such questions if possible. there are lots of cheap good hotels around accra but if you have any "ghanaian friend" you are going with they may be of use here. i know of triple crown guest house partly because i've stayed there before and it wasn't half bad at all. 4. the slave castles in ghana are always attracting tourism so i doubt you would feel out of place there, at all. you would need a guide though someone who knows the natives and who knows their way around. they may try to get a bit more than they deserve but thats life in africa, u just have to be careful and not give them too much, usually 5000cedis (45 cents) or there about works, you can be generous and make a dollar which is about 9500 cedis in ghana. i am sure i've forgotten some of what u asked about but i would just write them later if you feel you want more information. ghana is a beautiful, friendly country but safety is not so much of a thing you shd play with these days, in any country. safety is probably the best in africa (in my opinion) but that doesnt mean you shdn't be careful how you act in order not to attract unnecessary attention. i do hope u make that trip. its very worth it ps. oh yeah i almost forgot about the cell phones. yeah they work in ghana, not with all the wonderful additions you have here but you get a basic line with conference calling (if you pay extra), you get call waiting, caller id. and really thats all you need. and its best to go with prepay like riverman said, they are much better. as for the phones well ghanaians like to show off so don't be surprised if you see some of the most expensive phones around just dangling in some kids hands. phones are assets in ghana. |
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The cannibals'll eats you
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#7
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The cannibals'll eats you
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