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so you can see just out the window there I don't know how much you can make out I'm trying to be discreet here obviously the cops get we go let's go we go yeah let's go just go look let's go open the door hurry up just go like this let's go just go go boy let's go don't even B them let's go bro here just go un well I can't drive into the car welcome back to senagal another day here in West Africa the most western point of Africa actually today we're doing something that I've never done before in all my visits to Africa going to go and rent a car and try battle the
senales roads all the way down to the southern border cross over that southern border into Gambia very interesting country Gambia very small country so we're going to go to the airport that's where we're going to rent the car from check out the traffic on the way though and we'll see what we're up against bit nervous but why not try something new never driven in Africa why not okay so a bit of an update the driver he's taking the back roads to save money on tolls even though you B these rides with toll so current situation seems like we're going on a tour through the back streets of dhar now so that's uh should have been about an hour trip be pushing 2 hours maybe car we're in currently is moving at a
pace or 1 horsepower oh and when you saw that Google Maps distance there basically any distance in cental or similar African countries times it by at least 1.5 it did say what 5 to 6 hours to drive to Gambia you can beat your bottom dollar it won't take that long take longer at times like this you can lose your mind or you can find it funny those are your two options try and stick with the latter for now see just stopping because uh we've been driving for like an hour and a half and we've still got like half an hour at least to go and uh I drank uh 1.5 L of water before I got in the car and I thought it was going to be a 50-minute trip but uh it's uh not looking that
way the driver also tried to take me to a Sun's soccer game on the way see M this is actually the premium option of the ride share app here merage byebye made it that's uh 2 hours should have taken half that but you know here we are Africa bour I have a reservation yes how are you I'm good how are you I'm fine I can have your password in driver yeah sure one second is here okay hopefully we don't need that spare tire yes okay uh quick heads up the woman's going to let me out but uh they tried to try charge me double for insurance and that's a massive car company SE um she told me it would be40 for full insurance per day which is quite steep I normally buy it online but you can't in this country but
then she doubled the price um I think it was an accident with a G good pH she's a lovely lady so you know she uh she just made a mistake with the calculations and only cuz I checked my um I Got a notification of the charge from my bank and it was like double the charge it's like quite a lot of money so um yeah she's meant she's given me more mileage cuz you can't get unlimited mileage in this country and we're going to be on the road for ages but just a quick heads up like no matter how big and corporate and polish the company looks maybe even especially sometimes double check everything that uh rental cars charge I mean I know you guys most of you know this but in my experience
with rental cars obviously first time in Africa it's a bit more complicated but I've rented cars all over the world and you just always check and uh try to buy the insurance online first don't buy it from the company cool I got to go yo bro hey man so sorry uh are you around yeah I'm around I'm at airport do you know the car park like opposite downstairs I know yeah okay do you want to come out here should I meet you there yeah okay I'm going I'm coming here thanks mate cheers hey man yeah so sorry okay it's quite the day dude so far yeah all right left right one right okay we good then yes all right have a good day bye okay so I type it into Google Max Gambia here we go oh we got to take a boat at
some point as well here we go in my country we drive on the other side of the road and the steering wheel's over there I got full insurance so M nice we can crash hopefully not but we can yeah biggie is my right hand man you're my navigator right yeah but you don't have a driver's license right I don't have right that's why the white boy has to drive yeah but I know how to drive when I don't have a license right you're probably a better driver than me bit of traffic so far a few horses but you know it's not too bad the roads are a bit bumpy at times but nothing insane all right we're driving in Africa right I see it's okay good all right I have no idea what I'm doing right now yeah me too I don't I'm really impressed
with the roads these roads are really good I mean it's it's toll roads but I mean you get what you pay for right so the highway seems to be blocked here so we're turning off we are at a toll you all right we did it we got some action now so we're CAU just tried to wave us down he tried to wave everyone down but nobody stopped is there lots of bribing here yeah so maybe he pulls over and finds like a problem and then says like money that happens a lot yeah right and then so people just don't stop for the police it depends the way they tell you to stop if they are serious like you stop I was just telling biggie about the incident with the car rental and you think that she might have
done it on purpose to charge double the insurance yeah I think she did it on purpose yeah that's interesting right cuz it's a big corporate company that's in basically any airport in the world but you think that she's like doing some secret things to charge more yeah maybe she will get like a commission really from the company here wow what do you think of that's bad because they must give you the price they put online yeah you see but not to ask more and pretend that they make a mistake is this how you do it in Africa yeah but you should make sure that is good to you know overgo you know oh should I look or just pull out just Jing I paid a lot of money for insurance I want to use it on ly I'm so impressed by the roads
um roads are always a good sign of uh a certain level of Maintenance of a country right so they're doing wellum what kind of sandwich are you getting eggs and french fries eggs and french fries yeah oh wow you got the bit the French influence coming in there just combined the eggs and the french fries into a big omelet then you just Chuck that in the baguette and the bag wow so that's 2,000 for that massive sandwich 1,700 is the toilet in here yeah I'll just go real quick this one shower toilet Mercy Madame okay Mercy
notorious stuck in a bit of a traffic jam here but you can see the housing is starting to change a bit and they've got straw Huts here arrived at these Salt Flats we just pulled over Driving Experience has been pretty nice so far I actually almost prefer it than being a passenger maybe going forward I'll do it again actually let's finish this trip before I say that still got the border to cross and I know that apparently the paperwork can be quite a mission for that the drivers aren't terrible at all you know like it is obviously a bit sketchy a lot of the time but in comparison to other African um countries been to the drivers are actually reasonably curious that's my own ignorance isn't it people used to like to consume the
salt directly from the sea from the lake but now we have companies that treade the salt because before if people use the so directly from the sea they have gu like their neck get swollen mhm you see that's why now they put they take it to factories and put some chemicals to treat it but that only happens to women not men oh really yeah only women so we're just driving through the Salt Flats now Salt Flats as far as the I can see so we're about to drive over a huge bridge last time I came to Gambia the bridge was old oh so this is really new it's new yeah local bow bab trees on the side the famous African tree you just said you saw some monkeys right monkeys yeah and you say there's hyenas around here
yes attack humans sometimes yes they're quite dangerous yeah they are especially at night they like steal babies and stuff even adults they can attack them so we just stopped uh just before the gambian Border we made it so that's pretty great so far so good touch wood going to grab some water find a toilet what your uh water yeah that kind that's good let's see what's the how much okay A toilet yeah behind Okay I leave and come back loving the people in this country toilet yeah this way okayy just here okay meyy here's the toilet and if you're wondering yes it smells exactly what it looks like we're just closing It On the Border it's like 500 M up here so let's see what long few minutes 15
wait 5,000 for 550 10,000 is 1,100 Noe no so we just had to do an awful lot of paperwork and cards and all kinds of stuff but to be honest it wasn't that painful as far as border crossings go in Africa we're officially about to enter Gambia 20 minute drive until the ferry then we cross over the river which is The Gambia country is named after the river that was quite successful right successful yeah everything he's easy so far okay so quick update missing my buddy so we got down the road there was a police checkpoint they asked for the papers they were acting not the nicest you know gave them the papers then they started to say that I've made many offenses and all this stuff and they had this kind of energy
that I was you know a criminal oh wait our Buddy's back all good dude good okay sweet staying connected with while traveling is something that I hold with utmost importance especially in destinations where it's an unpredictable situation and you want to keep your loved ones up to date with your movements when you're being taken into back rooms by police and having to bribe them which you'll see in this video of course it never has to be something so extreme being able to look up public transport options what local restaurants are nearby that's where today's sponsor comes in Holly is an eim company a virtual SIM card that downloads directly onto your phone obviously I don't have to explain
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description and it'll take you straight to it eims are something that I think are invaluable honestly speaking it's in addition to the travel world that is long over du huge thank you to Hol ofly for sponsoring this video and let's get back to it basically what they're doing right uh biggie is they like test to see how you respond and if you respond like maybe timid or intimidated they'll uh take advantage of that and see what they can get out of you but if you like you know you don't want to be too rude but you want to show you know that you're not going to be taken advantage of like that basic the problem was that um first of all he said we didn't have the proper paperwork for the car but we did and
then we showed him he said this isn't for Gambia and then I showed him I said look it says Gambier on it and then he was like okay but uh and then they start to look for other issues and then they found an issue which who knows how accurate it is because there's like free movement for many people or anything but they started to as soon as my paperwork was all in order they started to go after biggy when they asked for the to show the stamps of his passport it wasn't in there but we went through the whole system Biggie and I together and they only asked for my information he was standing next to me the entire time they never once asked for his information and then up the road they say you see this is and
then they said it's my responsibility cuz I'm the driver um but their colleagues like never questioned they were super friendly and they said yeah just free to go a bit of excitement but we're we're through it right yeah yeah I got the Visa well I shouldn't say we're through it yet cuz we still got to go see back to see those guys yeah all right well wish us luck okay by so now we're driving back cuz the guy again was uh telling us that we didn't have the right paperwork so we have to go back and get another paper but that time there was a lady there and she was very nice and respectful you know I thanked her for being nice and respectful and I kind of gave the guy a look like and he smiled
he said what about me and the whole time he had not smiled until that point right yeah so he they just playing games right what do you think of this whole thing yeah I think you did it right you know you were not panicking so you talk to them confidently and that's what you need but I mean what do you think about the whole situation the whole situation yeah is it's stressy you know yeah because they expect you to know like we told them exactly like what we're doing like we're crossing and everything yeah and they just expect you to know like all the systems and then if you go through without it then they're like the guy literally said to me you've committed many offenses today like Third
Time Lucky yeah I think yeah all right paid the money for the Customs for the car to import it temporarily goats crossing the road um and then we went towards the place had the paper everything that he wanted said this is the official stamp got there he said it's missing one stamp from the police and then you can see was a bit cross again bit mad gave him the paper he said no this is the wrong paper you're missing a stamp and I'm like I went and did exactly like literally word for word what you told me to do and I said okay well like what do we have to go back and he's like pull over so he was you know doing his power play and then he just stands in the middle of the road and doesn't exactly tell us what to do or when to do it
there's another checkpoint up here I one sec okay like I've got a lot to explain cuz another something just happened at that checkpoint okay let's go back to the first guy Muhammad what was his last name sangor Muhammad sangor right Muhammed sangor and the gambian government I hope you're listening he makes us drive off the road even though we had the paper just stands in the middle of the road so I get out and go and see him and then he takes me over under this tree and then his colleague comes along and says like seat belt and he went like this and uh basically said uh your friend wasn't wearing a seat belt so you know there's a fine for that so even though he had said just 5 minutes earlier there was a
problem with the paper there really wasn't and uh then he says there's a fine and I'm like sure fair enough we were in the wrong I'll pay the fine how much does it cost told me 15,000 senagal I said okay I'll pay you know like at that point just get me out of there we were saying before like we' probably driven more between that checkpoint and the Border than like the whole distance from Dakar today so we were like let's just pay it get out of here get away from Muhammad he's like okay well I'll send them to get you a receipt I'm like I don't need a receipt and he said okay well in that case you can just give me what you feel like and we'll call it a day so he takes me over his
car away from the other guards and I just give him 5,000 and he accepts it so basically we the whole time he had more checkpoints I'll be back got through that one pretty smoothly had to show her about 15,000 pieces of paper but we got there okay so then he shook my hand but before all this he got me for about 5 minutes to pronounce his name and I couldn't pronounce it because it's a local last name you know I'm not versed very well in the language maybe that falls on me my ignorance but I couldn't pronounce his last name so we sat there for 5 minutes him saying no you say it like this you that say my name do what I don't have a damn clue what the hell you are yeah you do say my name it's not good for tourists
coming into your country you don't want you know it's all good fun to make a joke about it and things and like to make a little video about it but like if this is happening every day to tourist is just beyond frustrating for the people who are bringing money into your economy you know they understand life's hard and you got to hustle and everything but you know there's got to be a better way then we went to another checkpoint and a soldier with a AK 47 was standing there and he was pretty cool though he was uh super friendly but then uh at the end he's like you don't have any uh anything for green tea for me in there and I was like I'm sure he's like is he asking me like
if we have weed in the car or is it something else but then biggy told me that of course it's it's the cash at the actual border itself the gambian people were great the one that I filmed the video there that guy was nice apart from the communication and the paper and the systems and everything there's nobody set telling you where to go what to do or there's no like sign telling you what papers you need or anything the border of security at the place and nice they're doing their job to the best of their ability as far as I can but absolutely not acceptable what our friend was doing they're just obviously clearly looking for something so they can get money out of you we'll leave it
there let's try get on the ferry we'll see if we can make it you're not going to believe this just went through another checkpoint of course I don't know how many checkpoints are in this country but they seem to be like every 1 kilometer the guy filled us aside he said the stamp's wrong so we're back to the old stamp game so you're missing a stamp and also your friend isn't wearing a seat belt and I said no trust me he definitely is wearing a seat belt because I didn't tell him that we had a fine for it or bribe for it but I said no he definitely was and then he kind of accepted that and then do you know what he said do you have the triangle the emergency triangle in the back of your car and I said yeah we have
the emergency triangle he said do you have two you need two you have to have two triangles in your car and I said yeah we have every we have everything that we need in the car like everything's all legal and everything and then he said okay but the stamp still not right so you know you're going to have to you know help us out here you know we're trying to help you here we understand there's a ferry coming and you need to get on the ferry I'm just trying to figure that out now actually he pulled up a an app on his phone where like the fairy was here he's like you guys need to go otherwise I would send you all the way back to the Border he said yeah and he says come with me takes me into the back room where there's like
this bed completely like old dirt Shack he says so give us something the small note I have in my pocket is 10,000 and that's all I had and I was like I got to get out of here so I gave him that so that's like quite a big like that's that's that's getting up there right and then he was so happy I was like this is quite a lot of money isn't it he's like yes that is a lot of money already paid two bribes and being asked for bribes by like how many people you know sometimes they ask and they're constantly looking at your eyes and like your face to see like could I get money out of this guy you know you could fight it but you'll be sitting in an old dingy little house with some random guy with runs for ages just
waiting so let's try and get on this fery I am sure you guys are getting so sick of me just sitting in the car and just talking at you but like the situation is insane we pull up and then some gu's telling us that you need the green tea so green tea is bribes do they have this expression in this region there's people all around like banging on the doors and stuff this is intense we're trying to get a ferry there's massive trucks coming through there's like no organiz a whatsoever like look around like look at this is absolute bedum and then a guy comes and he's like I guess they're like these little kind of like freelance agents like he was quite well dressed and everything he's doing his thing he's
hustling you know he's helping out he tells me how it works he's taking biggie to get the fery ticket which you have to give them all green tea to get the fairy ticket cuz we didn't get the fairy ticket there we have to get the fairy ticket here that means more green tea is needed so he's gone with some green tea to try and get a fairy ticket like everyone no huh wow holding on to reality at this point a police officer just came and I was filming I was freaking out you know some lots of places don't like when you got your camera out especially when you're filming at like near border areas I'm driving forward all right massive trucks everybody trying to fit through here police officer knocks them my door I haven't even I this is
the thing what's happening I don't get to tell the story of what's happened before something else happened the police officer comes up to me he's legit cough I see his like badge and everything he says the line is very long and if you wait here you'll miss it and he's like the line is ages and ages away but what you can do is I can take you to the front and I can put you in front of the line and then you can get onto the faery I'm like okay but my friend my friend he's like oh yeah he's at the ticket okay that's okay he's at the ticket okay follow me and then he comes back goes and speaks to another cop comes back and then he says just wait here lock your doors put your
windows up don't speak to anybody I'll go find your friend and then we'll come back and we'll take you to the front you know it's down to complexion obviously I don't think that's breaking any news okay the guy's coming back oh good yeah he's buying the ticket found him yeah I see him there buying the ticket did you talk to him no I don't talk to him I just see him buying ticket so I left him there now we just join this car will you show me H will you show me the yeah yeah so you can see just out the window there I don't know how much you can make out I'm trying to be discreet here obviously but now the freelance agent that was helping us the cops get it in let's go we go yeah let's go just go yeah all right my
friend get in hold on a second look at let's go open the door up jump in come right now jump in okay jump in quick so just go just join this class have let's go let go don't even B let's bro let's go just go to this place go let's go straight wa wait hey wait let's go I'm G yeah let's go dude let's the place is here just go un Park well I can't drive into the car this car here Jo this car Jo here I'm joining yeah join here yeah join it yeah stand up here my boss is here uh-huh it's okay so now you easily go inside now we just help you me for me we just what give me move Mo can you give us have you got a note
dude for this guy yeah something medium is dude is that camera rolling can you film me dude I have never seen this much corruption in playing sight ever and you know I've been to a few countries around the world and like this is I've never seen so much in plain side corruption like man this is like M blowing you know like I've been to a lot of African countries right and uh and Latin American Asian this is intense like everybody's coming at you know what do you think of it mate what do you think of it biggy yeah it's crazy situation I'm overwhelmed now you are overwhelmed yeah cuz every meter some people want to get something from you know yeah D the cop jumped in the car yeah you see this guy's actually quite the legend
he's helping us out yeah you don't have you're helping us out thank you yeah so you have to be ready yeah I so like people just snake the line so people just come out and push you out and this car's stalled and so like three cars got ahead of us so when you are normally not in your car even yeah you are someone will right you got to stay ready right yeah ready to kill that guy's getting dark now still in the line for the fery our friend that you just saw that guy is actually extremely helpful I mean he's hustling his own thing his thing but you got to respect it you know like he's out here he's giv heaps of useful information to us he's hanging by us he's showing us where everything is like if we want a
tea if we want that this or that they've gone to grab a beer right now while I stay with the car um Biggie and the fixer guy that we just met um so you got to respect the hustle um but yeah he just told us that we might not get on this Ferry but then there's another Ferry and hopefully we make the last Ferry otherwise if we don't make the last Ferry which is at 10: it's now after 7 then we'll have to stay somewhere around here the middle of nowhere Gambia corrupt police everywhere the police off the police station's right there our fixer is like if you're a foreigner in a car they look at you differently than a foreigner in a I know that sounds stupid obviously it's very clear but just to make things Crystal
Clear if you're a foreigner in a car they'll they'll Target you cuz they're like oh they've got a little bit more money than like the Backpackers right if they can rent a car then you know like that's the mindset right so I'm just a walking dollar sign um with this rented car and all this hassle let's hope we get on that fery tonight get to the hotel pass out I with been sitting here for like 1 to 2 hours you see there's a car here next to me so what they do is they're pulling up so that if there's enough space they'll just cut in so you got to be like Eagle IED I'm just sitting here with the car on ready for anybody they pull up on the sides they're trying to get in here you know this is like this is
rampant this is I'm losing it yeah these cars are coming down from the fer so the fair's arrived right and the they're coming off yeah so now we have to get ready cuz yeah that's why this guy come here trying to join itself right this car and we have to Ram him off the road yeah so you don't have to give it a little space to get in all right yeah it's in drive I'm ready so glad I got full insurance this guy's just smashing his door against my car and then a car hit the back of us before the traffic's moving and this guy is trying to get in this is crazy it's going around this guy is trying to get in so hard like I had to push him with my car it's crazy now we wait everyone's lining up here this seem this a bit more calm and
organized there's official organizing it but it's a mad scramble just to get to this point but now we wait hopefully then we get on and then we cross we go to the hotel fingers crossed the line goes way down to the end and there's like a fairy dock there and we're just waiting here hopefully we get on there's a chance that we don't and this is the last fair for the night so pray to God for us that we're going to make it across otherwise I don't know what happens we go back into that town with all those corrupt cops and try and find some sketchy hotel or something wish us luck cuz this is uh I mean you know been waiting here for like another 40 minutes and it's going to take another hour maybe big
day so here we are waiting walk to the front of the line here we are hopefully the Fairy comes see the ambulances get to the front so at least there's some kind of a system for emergencies it was reassuring it's kind of cool though cuz we met this guy who's in like a nicer car and he's um obviously been targeted as well uh sagales go but he's traveling all the way down like through Gambia and then re-entering into cuz Gambia Str strle Cagle funny that he says that the cops kept trying to get money out of him and stuff as well so if you got a okay or a bit above average car you're just a you're a Target camaraderie always helps I found this website where we can actually track the fairy so you can see it's coming
we're on the side that it's furthest away from on the right the middle to the left there is where we're hoping to go we're waiting on you fairy you can do this the fairy has arriv Red One Step Closer update 11 p.m. we're this close to getting on the ferry this close we've been sitting in this car hours I stopped filming I didn't know what to say we're still in the car nothing's changed we've moved about 20 M and the fer just left the guy behind us has been sent away cuz he said that there's no way he's going to make it every layer is corruption all these guys came out of nowhere they're like we're waiting for somebody there was space and then like all these cars come through like the guy mates or something now they're putting up
barricades is he sure that there's going to be one more yeah that's what he said I can ask again also to make sure just look how close we were apparently that was the last fairy but now we're being told that it's not the last fairy I seem Delirious I am I've booked a hotel but I don't know the lights are on but there's nobody home first we have to make it but I don't know if they have a reception open all night cuz we're not going to get there until like 3: in the morning or something I'm lying here and there's mosquitoes buzzing around inside this car please no Mia tonight you know at times like this you can uh lose your mind well you can find it you me now we can we made it yeah we're on
the ferry and the guy that was he kept coming back to us he's like wait a second where's my dinner we gave him some lunch money some midnight snack money because it's after midnight right now it's not over yet though after to cross takes like half an hour at least got to drive through the capital city of Gambia to the hotel there it's qu 1 in the morning oh there's cops up here God put the camera away just got pulled over at another checkpoint but the guy was an absolute Angel gambian police officer credit where credit is due this guy was great so far on this side of the ferry it's been good so far so almost at the hotel almost locked you how are you good man I have a reservation oh okay yeah how are you big
day 17 hours so sorry that you must be hey bro how are you thank you sir cheers wow you put the easy okay thank you that's actually 2 Days Later yesterday was a ride off absolutely exhausted I'm going to talk directly to the gambian government right now you have a big problem I would say something to address it's not a good look when tourists arrive in your country and when they see a police officer they feel unsafe I was taken into back rooms and intimidated it wasn't necessarily too scary uh as this has happened to me in much more dangerous countries I've been interrogated in country like Haiti and
Libya by secret police and things so you know it is always a bit unnerving to get taken into a back room by a police officer but at the end of the day I knew everything would be okay and I knew what he wanted but if a tourist comes here who hasn't traveled to countries and been taken into back rooms by a police which is the more common eventuality then what kind of a message are you sending about your tourism because I've seen online you talking about tourism and you want to attract a higher caliber of tourists because you have publicly stated that sex tourism is a problem in this country but when you're treating tourists like this what kind of people do you think you're going to attract you know do you think that people that get
stopped by police officers and when they see a police officer they feel unsafe and when they deal with locals and locals give you tips about the police you got a big problem if you want your tourism uh sector to boom and not fall into disrepair sorted out like honestly like I'm not normally this matter of fact about you know things towards governments but this is just like it's inexcusable and there's no argument you could possibly make as to how every single police officer that we came along within 5 kilm of The Border either ask for a bribe and when we turn them down they said okay or basically Force the bribe out of us send this video to the gambian government or post this
somewhere so they can see it and uh let's try and uh CRA cut back on this at least pay the police officers or something because if they're that desperate for money you know easy for me a foreigner to come in here and speak on it you know I know that these people are Fang facing hardships and they got to do what they got to do to feed their family but it seems like it's a systemic problem because I saw police officers sending out other people to get bribes and then bringing it back and literally handing it to the supervisor of the police so this is a sustain mic rigged bribing Empire I leave the video there and uh in case they don't see you good afternoon good evening and good night
and check in for the next video because I'll show you a bit about this beautiful country of Gambia that I've been extremely impressed about we'll talk more about that the good sides of it but then we also have to drive all the way back to Sagar and have you seen what happened in this video who knows what's going to happen all right guys see you
