Interesting ‘stuff’
Q. What
do you call someone who speaks three languages? Q. What
do you call someone who speaks two languages? Q. What
do you call someone who can only speak one language? The native language is Spanish, although apparently it’s a form of Spanish with a ‘twist’. In the hotels and tourist towns most people working in the tourist trade will have at least some English and many will be fluent, and in German and/or Italian too. For those, like me, who can only speak English (and then often poorly) a few words of Spanish and a bit of an effort go a long way. My Spanish is pretty much limited to the essentials… “water”, “beer”, “hello”, “good morning”, “good evening” and “toilet”. Chuck in a “please” & “thank you” and a good night can be had when you mix those words with a hearty smile or a confused look! |
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Money! The currency is the Dominican Pesos. You may see it written as RD$ and occasionally just ‘$’ which can be confusing, especially as there are about RD$30 to US$1. Roughly RD$60 to £1. In the tourist areas there are plenty of banks and ATM’s. Many people recommend travellers cheques and/or US dollars. Personally, from the UK I say take US$30 (I’ll explain later) and a cash point card, then use an ATM to draw out pesos. Exchanging from sterling, to dollars to pesos you WILL LOSE OUT, trust me, I worked it out once and looked at my bank charges on return to the UK. Please, work it out for yourself, check your own bank doesn’t have extortionate charges for foreign withdrawals etc, then chill out and draw cash the same as you do back home. The other advantage is, it’s much easier to get used to one ‘new’ currency rather than work from ‘A’-‘B’-‘C’ to see how much something costs. Be aware that there have been a few instances of ATM’s ‘skimming’ cash point cards with a strip reader. I’ve heard of a couple in Guilford! (for those of you outside the UK, it’s a small town near London). The point is, this type of fraud occurs everywhere, so be alert when using ATM’s anywhere. But especially so when on holiday as reporting it and sorting it is likely to be a whole lot harder! Have a look at the slot before you put your card in. That US$30 I mentioned. Unless you buy one before hand, you need a ‘tourist card’. This costs US$10. Not £5, not RD$300… US$10. I have witnessed people being escorted through passport control to the airport bank to exchange pesos into dollars to come back and pay for the card. You really don’t want that kind of grief at the start of your holiday! You can buy a tourist card in the UK but that involves posting your passport to the embassy in London, waiting for it to come back and it costs more too. And for those really organised people who do this, it just means you get to stand next to the baggage reclaim belt for that bit longer. On exiting the Dom Rep, you pay a US$20 departure tax. Now, here you can ‘sometimes’ pay in pesos, ‘sometimes’ pay in sterling. But if you pay in anything other than dollars, rest assured, this will be the best dollar to pesos exchange rate that you will be offered all holiday… and not in your favour! If you ignored my advice (or come from the US anyway) you may have exchanged your fist full of dollars into pesos at RD$32 to US$1 for the last two weeks, but on exiting the country, you’ll find the exchange rate is suddenly RD$35 to US$1! So if you have got loads of pesos and you aren’t likely to be back in DR for a long while, try and pay your exit tax in them but really, the easiest option is, take US$30 with you. Incidentally, as I understand it, most US & Canadian carriers include the tourist arrival tax in the flight cost. I’ve no idea about mainland Europe etc, so check. It might be easiest to take some dollars for trips as most of them are listed in dollars but all will take pesos off you, usually at a fair rate. Most bars and restaurants will take dollars too. Many will take sterling, Canadian dollars or Euros. But rest assured, you will not get a good exchange rate in any bar. Some places will take Mastercard or Visa but they are still a bit ‘hit & miss’. |
Food! Sun! Water! (and trying to stay healthy with all those bad things about) If you are reading this having never been to the Dominican Republic, the chances are you will be going to an All Inclusive (AI) resort. For many tourists a trip to DR involves them seeing Airport-Coach-Hotel-Coach-Airport. Fine, as long as you enjoy your holiday, who am I to judge? But for a fair few, this is what they actually see… Airport-Coach-Hotel-Bar-Beach-Buffet-Bar-Buffet-Bar-Bar-TOILET-TOILET-TOILET!!!-Coach-Airport It’s all inclusive, it will be a ‘free’ bar tonight and tomorrow and the day after. They won’t run out of rum and you don’t have to ‘get your moneys worth’ on day one! Pina Colada… Rum-pineapple juice-coconut cream-crushed ice. You might even get a cherry. Very nice they are too. Well, pineapple is a high fibre fruit juice. Coconut milk/cream is a natural laxative. Have a few of these when you aren’t used to them and it’s not the ice that will make you ill! Take a couple of days to gently get into the swing of the free food & booze on offer at the AI’s. As for the food… When I’ve stayed in AI’s myself, I’ve repeatedly seen people go from the pool/beach/sun-lounger straight into the buffet restaurant. Then they pick up their bread, fruit etc. and after eating, go back to their spot in the sun. Then the following day, they go to the toilet and stay there while their partner begs Immodium off other travellers. Do you eat without washing your hands when you are at home? Perhaps you do, in which case, it’s only a matter of time before you go down with something nasty. When you do, remember it’s your hands not their food! Again, there will be lots of fresh fruit and fruit juice available. If you go straight in to a change of diet, don’t be surprised if your guts go WHAT THE *&£$*??? and kick it all out as soon as possible! Build up to a pig-out and you’ll be fine, go for it on day one and you won’t be doing much on day three, four, five… The initial reason for putting this website together was to talk about the bars in Cabarete (in particular) so for non-AI food advice, see the restaurant section. Did you know that Heat Exhaustion is a ‘mild’ heat-related illness which is less than ‘Sunstroke’? And guess what the symptoms are? Here’s a few…
Now, imagine the tourist who arrives at the AI, stuffs themselves silly, gets very drunk and spends the entire day at the beach bar. The following day they have stomach cramps, diarrhoea and vomiting. They end up feeling weak and exhausted, unable to keep anything down. At the end of a pitiful ‘holiday’ it’s with great relief that they return home, where they regale everyone with the tale of how they got food poisoning while on holiday… Don’t get food poisoning DRINK PLENTY OF WATER!!! And be careful in the sun. Look at your pee. I’m sorry, it has to be said, look at your urine. If its colour at 4pm is the same as it usually is when you have the first pee of the day back home, you’re dehydrating, so get some water in to you. Bottled water is cheap and easily available outside the AI resort and free within it. I aim for one bottle of water with every alcoholic drink. That usually lasts until about 9:30pm when I ‘forget’… which also explains my roaring hangover the following morning! Hey, I never suggested I was perfect, I’ll get drunk and party but I don’t lose days to diarrhoea! Malaria. DISCLAMER TIME! Read this bit VERY SLOWLY. This is simply what I do, it doesn’t constitute medical advice, nor am I suggesting you follow my lead and do as I do. I’m simply offering you something else to think about. Be all grown up about it and come to your own decisions. If you decide to do as I do and are unlucky enough to get Malaria, don't send the lawyer around to my front door, 'cause I'm not in! Firstly, Malaria kills millions of people every year. Fortunately, it isn’t prevalent in the Dominican Republic. On the North Coast (Playa Dorada, Puerto Plata, Sosua, Cabarete) it is extremely rare. There are occasional incidents on the East Coast, (Punta Cana, Bavaro, Samana) or nearer the Haiti border. Anti-Malarial drugs can have side effects ranging from the mild (nausea, stomach cramp*) to the severe (psychosis, death). Death incidentally is EXTREMELY rare. Different medication is used for different strains of Malaria in different areas. Personally, I think the chance of getting Malaria in the Dominican Republic is minimal so I never take anti-malarial medication when going there. Far better to cover yourself with Deet to keep the little buggers away (although they still bite me!) Take medical advice, ask questions about side-effects and then do your own personal risk assessment, don’t just blindly stuff chemicals into your body (or for that matter, don’t blindly avoid those chemicals on the say so of an un-referenced web site that happened to show up in Google). *What you can guarantee is taking anti-malarial medication, lots of alcohol, lots of fruit and lots of sun without enough water and your poor digestive system is going to give you some serious grief! If, after going to an area of the world where Malaria is also residing, and you get a fever or 'flu like symtoms' within six months of returning home, let the doctor know where you've been 'just in case'. Going Out & About. Most of
this first section has been offering advice to those going to an AI
resort. If you aren’t in an AI, QED you
are already out & about, so I’ll continue to GO OUT!!!! There, that should do it… Or perhaps not… Let’s start with “why should I go out?” Well, to be honest, if all you want is to switch your head off, have a few beers and a laugh at night and get a tan during the day, then fine, an AI resort will tick those boxes and you can return to work a happy bunny with the names and e-mail addresses of a few likeminded people who you’ve promised to keep in touch with… but never will, so kick back and relax and go look at some of my photos elsewhere on this site because there's nothing else of interest to you in this section. But if the reason you’re in an AI is because it looked like a good value way of going somewhere different, but now you’re feeling a bit nervous about stepping outside and have that ‘fear of the unknown’, take a deep breath while I tell you something shocking… That’s how most of us started! So do some ‘easy’ trips. Personal favourite of mine, The Monster Truck is a good trip, well run, educational and you get to go out into the jungle & mountains from a high up truck with a great view. I’ve been on Monster Truck out of Bavaro and twice out of Puerto Plata. It’s a bit pricy ($80 per person from memory) which includes plenty of water, soft drinks, rum and lunch. I took my 14 year old niece on this when she visited DR with me and it was a real eye opener for her. You could almost hear ‘the penny drop’ when she saw how poor some people are (and I ‘translated’ the farmer’s wage to say that it would take him two years to earn enough for her plane ticket to DR alone). If you are staying in Playa Dorada, you might have to book this trip away from your hotel rep as Monster Truck appears to have fallen out of favour (at least it had when we were last there) but it is well worth the extra effort. 
A Monster Truck going past out apartment |
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Another easy way to look around is to chat up a member of staff. We chatted to one waitress and asked her if she would show us around Puerto Plata the first time we went there. She explained about the gua-gua (RD$20 from the hotel complex into the city) where she met us and took us to the Amber Museum, the fort, Malecon and up the mountain in the cable car. All things we could easily have done on our own but made much easier by having someone who knew the place and was proud to show off her city. We gave her some money for doing so of course, because even though she enjoyed the day too, it was her day off that she gave up, and we bought her a piece of jewellery as a ‘proper’ thank you. Talk to people and gauge who is friendly and proud of their heritage & country as they will be the best people to ‘show it off’. If you are interested in people, different cultures, different countries, this is an easy and safe way to make contacts. I have people who I now call genuine friends, from talking to strangers. I’ve had a great tour of Havana (Cuba) using this approach and been invited as guests to Dominican birthday party out in the country, as well as into people’s homes both in DR and Vietnam, and I’m all the richer for the experiences.
GO OUT!!! Safety & Security. But don’t switch your brain off! Don’t flash your cash around then walk down a dark alley at night. Would you do that at home? In London, Manchester or Glasgow? Or Paris, Berlin, New York or Quebec for that matter? Sadly crime has increased in DR over the last ten years but I honestly still feel much safer over there than I do in Morecambe or Lancaster at night (my home towns when I lived in England) . Be sensible, carry the money you need for that night. If someone pulls a gun or knife on you, give them the cash. Guys, if you are approached by a pretty young lady, wearing a short skirt, after midnight as you walk back to your hotel, it’s not because she thinks you’re Brad Pitt and she wants to have your babies, it’s because she’s a prostitute who wants your money! Say “no gracious” and keep walking… What would you do back home if approached by a prostitute? Unless you are on the look out for a prostitute of course, in which case the going rate is… Actually, I really don’t know but like most things in this country, I’m sure you can negotiate… and make sure you’ve got a condom… |
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The ubiquitous moto-concho! Do you ride a motorbike back home? Statistically, probably not, most people don’t. If I ask you why you don’t, you’ll probably say ‘because it's too dangerous’. Right, so let us think this logic through. You won’t ride a motorbike in a developed country, where you’d be wearing a crash helmet and probably leathers, on roads that aren’t too bad and the rules of the road are largely observed. And where, if you do come off, someone will call an ambulance which will take you to a generally decent hospital… “Because it’s too dangerous”? . But go on holiday and you’re happy to jump onto a motorbike, that was last serviced when new, ridden by a teenager who has never taken a test, wearing flip-flops & shorts, where the roads are a mess and the only rule of the road is “biggest wins”? Where if you come off, you’ll need to be conscious to get taken to the private hospital, if you’re unconscious, you *might* get taken to the public hospital… if you’re lucky? People think they can’t die while on holiday. Well, sorry but people can and DO die on holiday. And road traffic accidents is top of the list.
I ride a Honda CBR 600, I live on the Isle of Man, where we have the greatest motorbike race in the world. I take photos of motorbikes doing speeds in the region of 170 mph. My web site of motorbikes www.ttpics.co.uk I’ve even had my photos published in ‘bike race magazine Irish Racer (this image was the cover photo August 07). I love
motorbikes... In Vietnam, where the style and standard of driving is similar to DR, I saw a double fatal motorcycle accident, as I close my eyes as I write this, I can still see the two dead bodies laying in the road and the crushed bike under the wheels of the lorry that had hit them. I LOVE motorbikes… but I NEVER get on a bike in DR. And I’d urge you not to either. As much as possible, I avoid driving (or being a passenger) in a vehicle at night. Drinking & driving, while illegal as socially acceptable in DR and is not unusual. The standard of driving is poor generally and many people drive either without any lights (in particular the bikes) or on full beam. Easiest is to not travel any great distance at night time if you can avoid it. |
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Having said all of that, this is
a beautiful, fabulously friendly country, which if you don’t venture out
of your AI complex, you will miss so much of. My recommendation is to go to
an AI the first time you visit the Dominican Republic and do a few trips, then
the second time, don’t go to a hotel, rent an apartment so you are out
every day. If you’ve only ever been to an AI, you’ve still not really been to the Dominican Republic, so go... and enjoy! |
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For a great list of 'staying safer in DR' tips, this thread in particular, on the forum at DR1's web site is worth a look. DR1 itself is full of useful information although it is aimed more at ex-pats than tourists. The forums can be a little 'tough' at times but if you've a sensible question, they can be a great place for a sensible answer. If you are even slightly considering moving to DR or having an extended stay there, you really want to spend some time on that site before you formulate any firm plans! For a more 'tourist' angle, you might want to have a look at Debbie's Dominican Republic Travel Pages for reviews of hotels etc. The forums at Debbie's tend to be a bit more 'fluffy & nice' and perhaps if you are looking for 'tourist' info, you may prefer to post there. Incidentally, no one is making any payments for the mentions on here, DR1, Debbies & Monster Truck are simply mentioned because they are websites that I have found to be useful in the past. |