Quote:
Originally Posted by michnus
I know this is a old story in Ethiopia, my post intention was to make people aware and to be vigilant and keep the eyes open, nothing about being negative about Ethiopia or its people.
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Yep, understand all that. And agree.

It was just an account of our experiences on the roads, and to pass on the excellent advice we received which led to us having a great and safe time.
Hopefully it'll help others have an equally good journey.
Because it was certainly a sad thing, as we travelled on southwards, to meet other travellers who had bad experiences with the people of this country after we had had such a pleasant visit.
I hope this last example will illustrate it a bit more. We met a rider further south who had troubles in Ethiopia, and from the brief conversation we couldn't understand why. But he kept a blog, which I read.
Unfortunately it's highly critical of the people of the country, and highlights an incident where he was travelling at 100kph, close enough to pedestrians for one of them to attempt to slow him down by thrusting (unsuccessfully) a stick into his front wheel. IMHO, visitors need to understand, in this country (and others, Rwanda springs to mind), it's absolutely outrageous to travel at such a speed in the vicinity of pedestrians, and you'll have trouble if you try.
But a wonderful time as long as you don't give the locals any reason to feel you're a danger to them.