(Almost) cured of jetlag, Dan and I thought it was about time we got out of the Pretoria bubble and ventured out to take a look at Africa’s largest city, Johannesburg.  Our safety briefing from our hosts had highlighted two forms of transport that were considered as close as you can get to entirely safe in South Africa – the Gautrain (a modern train link from Pretoria to Johannesburg) and Uber (which I had never used at home). We decided to opt for trying one new thing at a time and after a quick Uber tutorial, we gratefully accepted a lift to the Gautrain station.

The process at the station was quite simple – much like the Myki-style cards that have become a staple of public transport systems in Australia – you buy a card from the machine and load it with credit then you scan in and out of the station. While expensive by South African standards, the 25-minute trip to Johannesburg station was a bargain for most at R70 (about A$7).

All the guide books I had read described the Johannesburg train station precinct as somewhere to be concerned for your safety so I was prepared to hold my bag tightly – this didn’t turn out to really be the case. While there were beggars and touts around, it didn’t feel particularly threatening. In fact the only guy who approached us was because he heard us looking for the Red Bus Tour kiosk. He pointed us in the right direction and Dan gave him a few rand. The main thing to know about the Gautrain is you are not allowed to do anything that even resembles eating or drinking, including even carrying a bottle of water on the train. As a result there are no cafes or the like in Gautrain stations. Not even a vending machine. So by this time we were pretty hungry. The next Hop on, Hop off bus was due to leave in about 20 minutes and the two choices on the concourse were a pie shop and Burger King. We went for Burger King – a cheese and tomato toastie (which turned out to be a burger bun turned inside out with cheese and tomato sandwiched in between and a coffee – not great but edible and for the princely sum of A$2. Dan had a chicken chilli cheese burger. (Sunny Afternoon – The Kinks – I was introduced to the Kinks just after my last year of high school, initially, the gender bending anthem of the 60s, Lola.)

We boarded the bus for our tour. It was only our second Hop on Hop Off Bus tour and the first one, in NYC, came with a live guide. This one came with a pair of orange headphones to plug in for an audio track. The bus weaved its way around the inner city, talking about the vibrancy and chaotic market places in the city, teeming with life. In a country with the history of South Africa it is hard not to look at this city, in particular, through a lens of colour. It was hard to imagine that little over two decades ago black South Africans weren’t allowed into Johannesburg without a permit and were forced to remain in the townships with no electricity or sanitation, most of them working as close to slave labour for white South Africans. Central Johannesburg was busy and vibrant and teeming with the life that black South Africans have brought back to the inner city. Driving around the city, you couldn’t help but notice there were very few white people wandering around. There is still a great divide here – there are moments where you see casual interactions between black and white but largely on the trains and in the city you can still see and sense the racial divide. While I have felt like the minority in terms of race before, that was in Asia, where the bigger divide is often cultural. While many Asians have no doubt endured racial abuse from moronic Australians – sometimes it is embarrassing to be Australian – there has not been the widespread persecution suffered by black South Africans for generations. And while our whiteness has made us a target for beggars and touts, just as it would anywhere in south-east Asia, people have been astoundingly welcoming, even laughing at our bad jokes. I’m not sure I would be anything but resentful and hateful.

As we weaved our way through the streets, we could see the makeshift market stalls – a mix of consumer goods and produce and streets lined with small shopfront stalls, much like you’d see in Asia, Istanbul or old Dubai. And people everywhere. The first stop for the bus was the Carlton Towers – at 50 storeys, the tallest building in the city (and in Africa apparently). Partly because the audio track suggested the centre was chaotic and partly because we had a different plan, we decided to stay on the bus. The next highlight was Gandhi Square. I must confess that much of my knowledge of South Africa revolves around Nelson Mandela and the apartheid movement in the 80s and 90s. And of course the gold and diamonds. I had no idea Gandhi had spent so much time here or as involved in the struggle for equal rights. Gandhi, as a ‘coloured person’ also faced persecution and was incarcerated in South Africa during the decades he lived here. (Blow up the Pokies – The Whitlams – Even if Tim Freedman doesn’t agree, I will always consider The Whitlams to be a Canberra band. Even if this track is really a Sydney song reacting to the disappearance of music from pubs in favour of poker machines. Happily, live music has survived and in some cases stemmed the tide of the pokies)

A few more turns around the city, a weird story about a woman who poisoned two of her husbands and her son with arsenic and we arrived at our first destination point for the day – the Sun City Casino. No I haven’t suddenly developed an interest in gambling. This was the changeover point for our two hour tour of Soweto.

We stepped into the red minivan with our driver Vincent and tour guide Foo Foo. Our first stop was the ANC stadium, built for and still recognisable from the Football World Cup. It is an impressive building shaped like a South African beer brewing jug and built on the edge of Johannesburg. Built for the people of Soweto, it actually can’t be seen from the townships, separated by one of the toxic yellow gold mine dumps that surround Johannesburg – some say the placement of the mine waste is by design to hide the townships. The dust blows of the hills into Soweto on windy days and interestingly the hills are covered with Australian eucalyptus trees whose roots bury deep to hold the waste hills in place. In fact there are eucalyptus trees stretching across the Johannesburg area. Combined with the big sky, strong sun, patchy grassland and dappled shade of the gum trees, you could be in Australia (except for the razor wire surrounding all the buildings of course).

Our next stop was the edge of Soweto to take a picture at the Soweto sign and to take a brief glimpse at millionaire’s row known as the Beverly Hills of Soweto where famous and affluent Sowetans reside – sports stars and infamous political stalwarts such as Winnie Mandela. The cheapest house in this area is R1,000,000. A hallmark of proud Sowetans is that even when they have become wealthy, they have chosen to stay in the townships, albeit it in the affluent areas with their own security.

A little further on we saw the other side of Soweto – makeshift dwellings with no sanitation and no electricity. There were also concrete houses built along the sides that no one was living in. These were built by the government and once people start living in them they have to pay rent. None of the people who live here can afford to pay. They have no work and the majority of them have come to south Africa from nearby countries. On the other side of the street we saw Soweto’s working class – the area was a mixture of matchstick houses – the four room – living, kitchen and two bedrooms – concrete and brick houses provided by the government; and mini mansions that started their life as matchstick houses. In some cases – families of 10 or 12 live in the matchbox houses with living and kitchen areas converted to bedrooms with foam matresses in the evening. Part of the pledge of the new post-apartheid government here was that every South African should own their own house and while that dream hasn’t yet been realised, the commitment is in evidence here where people were provided with a matchstick house.

One thing you really get a sense of in Soweto is community – people helping out their neighbours. Our guide told us that Soweto is becoming a diverse, multi-racial community as well. I didn’t really get a huge sense of that but even if it only starts in the middle class areas, it would be a fantastic thing to see here. The people seem welcoming and you definitely notice a distinct lack of razorwire in Soweto. (Rise – Public Image Limited – when I first started getting interested in politics in the 1980s, there were two political issues that really stood out – the anti-nuclear debate and apartheid in South Africa. This track along with the Special AKA’s (Free) Nelson Mandela had a big impact. And it’s not just the lyrical content either. The transition of John Lydon rom the Sex Pistols to this post punk creation is astounding. Just a pity he never got over the whole McLaren thing.)

The middle class areas also cater to new arrivals and those without their own house by renting out shacks at the back of their properties. These mostly resemble out houses or the sort of corrugated iron sheds you find in the makeshift areas. At the bottom of the hill near the watercourse there is a makeshift camp built haphazardly. Our guide told us we shouldn’t feel sorry for those that lived there because they were themselves landlords, choosing to live here while renting out their own matchbox houses.

We drove past one of Africa’s biggest hospitals where residents without means are treated for free and what I’m pretty sure is the world’s biggest maxi-taxi rank. The main method of travel for most people in townships (and many outside) are these vans or taxis, which drive the streets, picking up and dropping off passengers and honking to let those on the roadside know there are spare seats. Travel advice from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs warns against using these taxis for safety reasons – mainly because most are in such bad mechanical repair. The taxis from here go as far away as Botswana and as close as around the corner.

We stopped along the roadway to look at the infamous smoke stacks which are an enduring symbol of the injustice of apartheid – the stacks which produced waste from a coal-fired power station supplied electricity for the white suburbs of Johannesburg were pumping out pollution into the middle of Soweto, which like other townships, had no electricity. The power station has been de-commissioned and one of the stacks has a mural depicting the diversity of everyday life in Soweto. The other is sponsored by Vodacom and has their own mural and logo. In yet another example of the absurdity of tourism opportunities, you can bungey jump from the stacks. We didn’t.

Our next stop was the Hector Pieterson memorial, possibly better described as Soweto’s tourist central. A separate guide took us for a walk around the memorial, which commemorates the 1976 uprising, where police opened fire on students who were protesting the introduction of Afrikaans in all South African schools. The image of student Hector Pieterson dying in the arms of another student was broadcast around the world. The actual site of the incident was in front of a school about 400 metres away and there is a line of olive trees that connects the memorial to the site. The memorial which includes a museum and outdoor commemoration of all those who died has tourists by the dozens and a makeshift market along the sides of the road where, like many souvenirs these days, you expect that everything on sale is mass produced, and you hope at least that is in a factory in Africa and not China. The African lady who sold me some beaded Christmas ornaments swore that she made them herself.

After hearing the story, we rounded the corner to Vilikazi St and Nelson Mandela’s former house. The one where he lived with his first wife Evelyn – she was a nurse and it was her house. The simple red brick house is now a museum, containing lots of Mandela related artefacts but for me the most interesting fact was the Meleluca tree, an Australian native, planted in the backyard of Mandela’s home at the foot of which his children’s umbilical chords were buried to wish for them a long and prosperous life. Vilikazi is also the home of Soweto’s other Nobel Peace Prize winner, Arch Bishop Desmond TuTu, who only lives in his Soweto house half the time. Next door to his house is a thriving bar and restaurant, and the roadside is lined with T-shirt sellers and touts. (The Whole Thing – The Bouncing Souls – one of the Bouncing Souls more rocky numbers.)

Eventually our tour wound up back at the Casino where we got back on the larger bus for the short hop across the road to the Apartheid museum. It is probably partly about land and partly about grabbing visitors but it remains a curiosity that The Apartheid Museum, which tells the tale of apartheid from its very beginning to its welcomed downfall through the struggles of the ANC and others, is situated in a precinct which also includes a casino and theme park. As you enter the stark concrete building, you are given a randomly selected ticket that identifies you as white or non-white that determines which entrance you go through. The processes didn’t seem that different to me except to show the segregation. However, I believe the entry was a bit more elaborate when the museum first opened. The exhibits themselves traced the history from the earliest days of white settlement in South Africa, obviously with a particular focus on the apartheid years and the many unjust events that happened during that time. There was a separate Mandela exhibit which at times blurred the boundaries with the main exhibit. While I became familiar with the struggle against apartheid during high school, there were many, many things that were a revelation to me.  Among the most powerful images were all the homemade guns and the installation of nooses representing the deaths in prison of those involved in the struggle against apartheid. It is a powerful and moving museum with a mix of audiovisual content and displays.

Heeding the warning of our hosts about returning from the Gautrain station after dark, we jumped back on the bus for the rest of the loop back to the Johannesburg Park Station, which took us up through the mining district to the university and Constitution Hill which has variously been a fort and a prison and then down to the station. On arrival in Pretoria we combined our first Uber experience with our first experience of being really hassled by a beggar. For some reason the app asked us to scan the front of the credit card, presumably to ensure itr was us trying to use it in Souith Africa. Of course I didn’t have the credit card with me as it was safely tucked away back at the house so I couldn’t lose it. While I was trying to enter and scan my travel money card, Dan started getting hassled and as we usually would, tried to ignore the guy. He then got quite threatening so we hightailed it up the road to McDonalds to try and work Uber out. So it wouldn’t scan my Travel Money card either. Despite the fact that it should work as a Mastercard, Uber wouldn’t accept it so we had to try one of Dan’s cards. Success! We decided to stay in the Maccas until we could see the car was only a couple of minutes away. Once we worked out the card part, uber was fantastic – nice clean high-end cars, good driving and convenient drop offs.

For dinner we decided to try out the local golf club. A false start after we realised the car we were driving had a flat and we were away. Like many things, South Africa’s club dress rules are much like 1970s Australia – a shirt with a collar is required for dinner so Dan borrowed a polo shirt from our host. Dinner was standard club fare – I had the Fish chips and salad (which was disappointing) and Dan had a pizza, and a side of cheese grillers (the cocktail frankfurt-sized cheese kranskys). Some beers and lively conversation out on a terraced area above the final green made for a great night, finished off with some dessert- nuttella and chocolate fudge filled sweet spring rolls are surprisingly good. (Civilised – Rollins Band – I have only had the pleasure of seeing Rollins Band once and despite the fact I also had to deal with running the merch stand, they didn’t disappoint. All power. And anger. So unlike Henry in his spoken word)