Barbados. Beautiful beaches. Honeymoons, Rum, Sunsets and Crack.
Written: Dec 06 '06 (Updated Dec 06 '06)
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Pros: Great sunsets, good booze, nice hotels.
Cons: Get hassled, quite expensive, bit dull.
The Bottom Line: Honeymoon delight. Great beaches, good hotels, nice restaurants. Bit dull though. Like all Caribbean islands you like beaches or get bored quickly.
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| travelgall's Full Review: Barbados |
Barbados is one of the main tourist Islands in the Caribbean Islands being popular with Brits, Americans and Germans. It was a British Crown possession from 1663 to 1966 when it gained its independence. It is renowned for its beautiful white sandy beaches and has that Honeymoon vibe going, which means lots of otherwise normal people being unable to leave a 3 metre circumference from the other. This is a bit of a problem on the plane as the BA flight over looked like Noah’s ark with the exception of us 3 blokes, which probably made the stewardesses reasonably happy as we weren’t trying to cadge BA’s bloody awful free Champagne. BA are a superb airline, and their wine list is one of the better ones but you don’t get Krug or Bolly unless you’re in the pointy end of Singapore Airlines apparently – the only time I fly club is when the country is undergoing civil unrest and they tell you to sit anywhere. They say that a sunset in Barbados is one of the most beautiful in the world, and I have to admit that after sitting on a beach watching the sun go down was certainly a treat. Of course I wasn’t going to do this every night, because Barbados has lots of bars too.
Getting into Barbados was a bit tricky for me to say the least. It is forbidden to own or wear any form of Camouflage on the island; something not mentioned anywhere before entering the country. Apparently this is due to a spate of robberies where the criminals were dressed up as Barbados Defence force troops. The island is only 166 square miles, so it didn’t exactly fill me with faith on the abilities of the local constabulary. Now on my entry into the country I was in possession of the following items as I was doing a trek to the jungle in Guyana and had dug some of my old Army kit out from under my bed; 1 par trousers Combat lightweight, 1pr Gaiters DPM, one Camelbak DPM, one Cobber neck US Desert pattern, 3x Bags Waterproof DPM, one pair Boots Jungle, one net head Mosquito and all carried in one Rucksack Bergan DPM Infantry. Good job I had one Bag Ortlieb otherwise I would have been trying to carry all my clothing in my hands out of customs. On the other hand I had a chat with lots of customs officers (who with the exception of a nice old guy and one of the women searching my bags were uniformly miserable). The nice old chap was obviously good at his job; and knew that you don’t have to be surly to spot terrorists and drug dealers because he was the only one that remembered my incredibly unique and obvious Indiana Jones style Brown Fedora. The rest didn’t have a clue which is why I actually managed to avoid the incredible hassle of not handing my kit in every time I entered Barbados (4 times to be exact) by covering the Bergan with a CivPop bag. It was for the Jungle - It wasn’t as if I was going to wear the stuff round town. Oh and if you’re interested the Barbados defence force wears American Woodland Cammo, but are likely to change uniforms soon as Owen Arthur is snuggling up to China, Cuba and the Venezuelan gobsh1te Hugo Chavez.
One of the most famous places to eat is in a town called Oistins, which every Friday and Saturday holds a fish Fry (we went Friday). Basically the locals get out boom boxes and play reggae and other dance music at levels guaranteed to make your ears bleed. Apparently the party gets going later on in the evening, but we didn’t stick around to find out. It’s supposed to be a local’s thing but most of the people we saw sat down were tourists. There are numerous shacks on the beach with a deep fat fryer in them where they cook local fish and chicken and serve it with rice. You sit down at a table on the beach where a man will sit down next to you and tell you it is his birthday. He will be holding ½ a bottle of Rum and will explain that his lady is away and since it is his birthday will you give him 20 Barbados Dollars for some food. The people who run the place will in no circumstances tell him to go away. He will order some beers for you making sure that he includes himself in the round and fart on about how he spent time in your country. He will ask you if you’ve ordered food and ask for some of it in addition to the $20 he wants you to give him. Once he realises he isn’t going to get more than $10 off you he will go away and bug the next group of poor tourists that are sat down. The people who run the fish cafes will finally realise that you are sat down on their tables for the consumption of food and take your order. The best thing is to order everything. We had a go at Red Snapper, Barracuda and Dolphin (not Flipper variety), along with some fried chicken. I have to admit everything tasted wonderful and fresh, even the indeterminate sauce on the salad we got with it, and I didn’t have even a single bone in my mouth – guaranteed to ruin any fish meal for me. If it wasn’t for the con artists and beggars at Oistins I would have had a great time. As it was we got out of there to be annoyed by new people in the St Lawrence Gap area.
The first hotel we stayed at was the Savannah hotel fairly close to Bridgetown. I have to say I was very impressed with this place, especially since I’d read a horror story or two. The place was dead when we got there, with nary a soul at the bar or by the pool. The pool is unusually shaped and bends round the bottom of the hotel which makes laps a bit of a pain. It has access to a superb beach and we pretty much had it to ourselves except during breakfast. As it is situated next to both the Army Barracks (which can be seen from the hotel as an old British fort) and a large provincial Police station it seems to have been adopted as an unofficial government conference centre and coffee shop for the troops and the Police. The beds were fairly comfortable, although they had to stick one of our party on a fold mattress. They were large and the rooms very clean though the bathrooms were slightly dated. The A/C worked a treat and there was a large balcony to sit on once the sun had gone down in Permetherine treated clothing. Breakfast was fairly standard and we would have had to pay extra for a pretty good looking cooked breakfast. We hit the free pastries and fruit juice and it sated our appetites reasonably well for the strenuous endeavours we were about to perform – lying down on a beach. The staff were nice and friendly too btw, with the added advantage that they weren’t offering to procure us paid sex.
When Prince Philip and Myself were joined by American girl we booked into a suite at the Hilton Hotel in Barbados. Now the Hilton cost £GBP 420 per night so we were expecting something special, and I have to admit we were disappointed in the respect that the room lacked anything resembling character whatsoever. I know the outside looks like a 60’s housing project, but a bit of wood panelling and the odd painting. Instead it was all white rooms and brown sofas, and I’m sure Prince Philip could have operated in there without too many worries. Nevertheless it was clean and comfortable, but they didn’t have an ice bucket that you could fit a bottle of Champagne and the requisite ice in. Instead we did shuttle runs to the ice maker and filled the sink with ice to bury the Veuve Clicquot in. Having stayed in old school 5 star hotels I find that they are prized above rubies compared to the blanderiffic international chains. The staff were superb, especially since they found we were staying in the executive suite, and couldn’t do enough for us. Even though the concierge came up short on my Mount Gay Rum hat, everything else was fine. There were two bathrooms in the suite, two beds and a foldaway bed, a CD Player so I could inflict my terrible music taste on my fellow travellers. One of the joy in being way behind the technological curve is that whilst everybody else has I Pod’s, I cart around a case of CD’s which means in the hotel room and in the car I get to inflict the music – currently the Miami Vice soundtrack.
One of the privileges of staying in a suite (other than a big room with two bathrooms and tellies) was the fact that between 18:00 to 19:30 you could help yourselves to free drinks in the Business suite whilst you checked your e-mails for free. They also provided free food which although a tad on the fatty side was actually more than edible. Highlights included the scallops wrapped in Bacon and the Cheese Board that I hacked great big chunks out of. Officially it was cocktails in the business suite, but as there was no lime, sugar, Galliano and precious few mixers you couldn’t really put the Savoy to shame. Nevertheless it was fun trying to drink your body weight in Beer in an hour. We didn’t eat anything except pool snacks and they were good, and the pool bar was unique on the island in that they could actually produce a lime Daiquiri without trying to dilute the Vitamin C burn with Pineapple juice or throw half a sugar plantation in. The pool was nice but fairly quiet when we were there due to it being nowhere near most people’s holiday season. Like all five star hotels they tried to bash you over the head with all the tours you could do, American Girl and Prince Philip went horseback riding along the beach. I only ride Polo ponies.
No trip to Barbados seemed complete without a trip to the Mount Gay Rum Factory. Mount Gay Rum is the oldest Rum manufacturer in the world having being in production before 1703. Sailors used to buy a barrel of Mount Gay rum to prove they had sailed back through the treacherous currents of Barbados and made it home safely. I wanted another one of their famous Red baseball caps so badly it hurt. Mount Gay sponsor a great many of the top sailing regattas throughout the world by handing out red baseball caps with their name on and the name of the regatta. They’re really hard to get hold of and even harder to get the right shade of faded red that all the top yachtsmen aspire to. There have been tales of people turning round in a race after being in a winning position in order to salvage the Mount Gay rum hat that has been blown off. Unfortunately they don’t sell the caps in the distillery shop, or anywhere else for that matter; even the concierge at the Hilton failed to come up trumps. Basically you have to be in a race to get one, although you can find the odd one on E-Bay, the converted old ones sell for a fortune. The ladies in the shop were absolutely great, especially the older one who looked after our hand luggage whilst we went round the factory. It was a bit of a shock getting straight off a plane at Barbados and heading to a rum factory and tucking straight into the Rum and Cokes. I have to admit I used to really love rum, a situation that changed around my 17th birthday. Unfortunately I drank a bottle of Lambs Navy Rum, was violently ill and hadn’t touched the stuff with the exception of one time at University when a very unbalanced ex said I made her pregnant and there was nothing else to hand. Lovely girl and all that, but Weapons Grade insane and it took me half a bottle of Pussers Rum to stop Shaking. Due to these two rather bad connotations I’ve tended to avoid Rum and stick to Champagne or beer.
The tour itself was run by a man who looked like he really wanted to be somewhere else. “Let me show you these 10 minute propaganda videos which teaches you little about the process of making rum but will bang on about how great we are. Whilst you sit on the stairs covered in carpet I’ll be outside doing the Bridgetown Gazette crossword”. I can’t believe what a stupendous waste of time the Mount Gay Rum factory tour was, although it was quite amusing in the way it avoided mentioning slavery even once. There was a brief look at some pictures that represented the history of Mount Gay Rum on the island, a brief sniff test, a look at a copper kettle that they used to distil it in, the afore mentioned Goebbels video on how super Mount Gay is, a bottling plant closed for lunch at 10:45, followed by the tasting. To be fair this is why we were there, but hitting the Rum at 11:00 is never a good idea, especially since we were going shooting afterwards. The rums they gave us were the bog standard one, a vanilla flavoured one, the Sugar cane Brandy type one and some creamy girls drink akin to Baileys. Bless em’ they weren’t exactly stingy with the booze which is a bonus after having to sit through their awful video. The bog standard is what you would expect from a reasonable quality rum, ditto the Cane Brandy. The Vanilla one was obviously an Absolut Vodka attempt to make the Brand More hip, as they can’t sell it all to Captain Horatio McCallister.
I got talking to a Rastafarian cab driver about music. We got talking about reggae because I quite like it and after living in the BVI for a while had listened to a fair bit. Unbelievably he hadn’t heard of Inner Circle, even after I had a bash at singing “Bad Boys, Bad Boys, what ya gonna do, what ya gonna do when they come for you”. Best Reggae band in the 80’s in my opinion; especially the two fat lads who were dancing with those Bikini babes in the “Sweat” video. Speaking of babes in Bikini’s, we went off to the other side of the island to watch a surf competition at the “Soup Bowl” near Bathsheba, where a depressingly large number of very attractive girls in bikinis went to watch annoyingly good looking blokes surf. I stood about as much chance of pulling on that beach as I have of joining the Socialist Worker Party – a figure so infinitesimally small it cannot be seen with an electron microscope. I was sitting there wandering why I hadn’t wasted my life in a more productive way. Investment banking may work in the bars of Manhattan but isn’t going to get you anywhere at a surf competition. Indeed announcing this is your profession is akin to waiving garlic round Count Dracula’s castle. We also got talking to an Ex-Cop who said we were going to get shot when we went off to Guyana.
The Doctor who was with me certainly made an impression with one of our cab drivers, as he said he was expecting to be greeted at the airport with people in grass skirts and flowers. Naturally when given the opportunity by myself and IT buddy to stop digging he made it even worse. I recommend that you don’t call people ignorant savages in their own country. He was hereafter dubbed Prince Philip for the trip in honour of the Queen of England’s husband who is renowned for saying the most spectacularly inappropriate things. For example Prince Philip said to a group of Aborigines in Australia “Do you still throw spears at one another?” to a person that had just trekked through Papua New Guinea “You managed not to get eaten then” to a deaf school steel band “Deaf? If you are near there, no wonder you are deaf” and to the President of Nigeria who was wearing traditional clothes “You look like you’re ready for bed”. The Doctors reputation for saying spectacularly inopportune things continued on the way to another cab where he asked one of the local drug dealers in jest for Crack Cocaine. There was then an almighty altercation between the cab driver and the drug dealer as the drug dealer thought the cab driver was taking away customers. The cab driver didn’t say anything the whole trip back except muttering the odd “F****** English idiots” under his breath. For some reason I seemed to cop all the guys who wanted to sell illegal or immoral things. The number of times I got offered drugs was staggering, I must look like Kate Moss despite being male and fat. Despite the fact I was sitting down in the pub having a quiet Lime Daiquiri, they would lean over the wall or even walk into the pub to offer me this, in the end I was hiding behind pillars so they couldn’t see me. This was in St Lawrence BTW which is a popular spot at the weekend. It has a big nightclub called the Reggae lounge, a splendid Mexican restaurant and a karaoke bar where I butchered “Piano Man” by Billy Joel. Don’t let the walking drug dealers put you off, it’s a nice place, and even the Drug Dealers seem to have come from a customer service school – if you say no thanks then they respect your wishes.
We went shooting at the Kendal Sporting Club. It’s very popular with Brits who despair about our stupid gun laws. Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscripti catapultas habebunt. I fell in love with both the lovely girl at the reception, and her mum. The daughter was so beautiful with a sweet Baijan accent words don’t begin to describe it. Her father had a gun strapped to his ankle. We started off by shooting the 9mm Glock 19 and Smith and Wesson 22 at targets shaped like milk bottles, which was kind of disappointing as I was expecting the good old Figure 11. Whilst I wasn’t off target one of the civvies next (IT bloke) to be got a much better grouping, especially with the Glock that I was trying to creep centre mass. I was better with the 22 but who isn’t and I was determined to salvage pride at the skeet. Unfortunately after a good first couple of rounds I started missing, got angry and kept missing. The more annoyed I got with myself the worse my shooting got. Naturally the boys didn’t let me forget this in a hurry. The Kendal shooting club is a lovely setting, but out of the way being found on the less visited South East of the island down a small dirt track. It’s highly likely that you will need a taxi to get there. The other facilities include a small pool and nice restaurant selling a good range of food. We stuck with hamburgers as we had to catch a plane within the hour to fly off to the Grenadines. I was hoping the Barbados customs had dogs at the gate they would have gone mad due to the amount of GSR we had on us.
Probably the highlight of the tour was a snorkel trip to feed the Hawksbill and Leatherback Turtles on the North West corner of the island. Swimming with these creatures was a wonderful experience and was probably the thing I enjoyed most but it didn’t start out well. About 5 minutes out on the boat it started to rain and rain hard. Dressed in your swim kit and a thin shirt wasn’t the best way to do it and visibility dropped to such a degree that the driver of the boat slowed down to crawling speed to make sure he didn’t sail into the path of the Exxon Valdez piling down the waterways at a rate of knots. The rain didn’t even let up when we reached the first dive site where the turtles are found, but after the pelting cold hail it was actually nice to get into the warm Caribbean waters. The turtles are used to people feeding them and were around us practically as soon as we were in the water, being escorted by Puffer fish that are there to pick up the scraps the turtles leave. There was a glass bottomed boat that was doing a tour for tourists and it took every ounce of moral fibre in my body not to swim down and “Moon” the underside of the boat. Luckily we arrived before the Virgin Holidays boats who proceeded to dump hundreds of passengers over the side, I am heartily glad I’ve not done one of these Collective holidays, and I feel sorry for the poor saps on them.
I was told that Barbados is one of the most British of the Caribbean islands, and to a certain extent that’s true. I was told that the population was universally nice – unfortunately not true, unless you consider offers of drugs and Hookers part of the native charm of the place. Nevertheless there were some really friendly people on the island; we got a lovely Christian taxi driver who was happily burbling along about the place. She suggested that we come on holiday to do a spot of Sugar Cane harvesting which we politely said we’d consider knowing full well that it’s very hard work, which is why they got slaves to do it. Apparently Barbados has this competition now where the best Cane cutters can win Fridges, Barbeques cookers and other household goods, and she told us about the huge Crop over parties which traditionally signalled the end of the good times as agricultural workers only got paid when they were cutting – after this point there were very few jobs on offer so everybody got drunk historically. Crop over is still celebrated today, with dancers, carts, stupid hats , “Folk” dancing and other stuff they put on Cruise Ships when you’re in Port; kind of like the Bahamas Junkanoo for me it would only be bearable with stupendous quantities of alcohol. If I wanted to see something with feathers sticking out of its backside I’d go and visit my local duck pond or Peacock sanctuary –bah humbug. I don’t know where my contempt for Carnivals comes from; I guess because I’m depressingly utilitarian and wherever people have Carnivals they’re usually poor e.g. Brazil, Bolivia, Barbados etc and I can think of better things to spend your money on than Sequins, economics courses for example.
Christian taxi driver then got on with explaining all the different sects that inhabit the islands, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, 7th Day Adventists etc. She said that it didn’t matter as they all worship the same God anyway, I wouldn’t let them hear you say that. If you listen to them all if you don’t obey their particular sect and set of laws - even though you believe in God - you’re still going to spend eternity having a Trident thrust up your jacksie. Of course I’ll give you two guesses who is the wiser one; the Taxi driver or the bickering fools who run churches. The ones that particularly interest me are the Mormons, their leader Joseph Smith Jr got updates from God telling him about what needed changing in the Bible. These updates were written on golden plates which he rather carelessly then lost. Now if I get a $1000 bearer bond at work it goes in a safe, if I got handed some Gold plates by the almighty I’d be on a plane to Switzerland the same day to lock them up in a vault not even Brad Pitt, Matt Damon George Clooney and that bendy Chinese guy could get into. I’d also surround the said items with Republican Party Literature to further deter messirs Clooney et all. The other interesting ones to me are the Jehovah’s witnesses who have predicted the end of the world in 1798, 1799, 1829, 1844, 1846, 1873, 1874, 1875, 1878, 1881, 1910, 1914, 1914 again 1915,1918, 1920,1925, 1931/2 – couldn’t pick the date accurately, 1941, 1951, 1975,1984, 1986, 1994 and 2000. They’re now hedging their bets by saying that it will happen 6000 years after Eve’s creation. It was going to be the 6000th year of Adam’s creation but that passed so they’re blaming the Woman instead now, This end of the world thing better happen soon or Adam had a weird Woody Allen/Soon-Yi type thing going on. Speaking of religion in the queue to customs we ended up standing next to the Richard Reid shoe bomber type in the x-ray machine queue. He was wearing the clobber usually associated with a recorded broadcast about how your death will bring and end to the serving of bagels in Tel Aviv. He didn’t exactly help himself by staring at the women in the tight tops, giving them the death look like she’s Beelzebub in female form going through customs either. Just because your religion doesn’t allow you to get laid doesn’t mean that all the other ones don’t appreciate the sight of a pair of the Lord’s creations.
The links are still pretty strong according to one of the nice local taxi drivers. Whilst we were there HMS Iron Duke was in port as part of the Royal Navy’s justification for their budget. As most action recently has been in places with a distinct lack of water, they’re getting involved in stopping the drugs trade to stop the Army taking their Aircraft Carrier Money and spending it on Warriors, Challenger II’s and a rifle that is more effective than the piece of rubbish the British are currently issued with. It was more than just a show the flag exercise as the British still feel fairly paternal towards their sons that have now left the house. As long as they don’t vote in some Bolshy dictator like Mugabe, and leave the Queen Victoria statues up we’ll still chip in the odd ship to help protect our Ex-Colonies boarders – especially where it’s somewhere with nice beaches.
Bridgetown can only be described as a dump, but that isn’t unique to the Caribbean islands that are also beautiful save their capital cities, Fort De France, Kingstown, etc are fairly common. This is because these capital cities are also ports and ports never look nice. Compared to the pretty Road Town in the BVI or some of the Capitals of the ABC islands it’s like a crow in a cage full of Parrots. Bridgetown is certainly old but hardly historic. Save the Parliament buildings which are located next to National Heroes square (used to be Trafalgar square) there isn’t anything of rich architectural heritage. The island has some lovely Plantation houses but these are scattered all over the island. I was in Bridgetown to buy a new bag as Customs had confiscated my Cammo Bergan but it seems that hardly any tourists make it into the town. There is a small shopping complex called the Bayshore complex in the port that gets the cruise ship traffic, but it seems that people hold off on most Cruise ships till the hit St Lucia. The only decent store in Barbados is called Cave Shepherd which is a large department store. They had the size of bag I required, Prince Philips Greek mythology books and anything else you wanted within reason. There is always at least one Cruise ship moored in Bridgetown at any point, looking out from the Hilton we usually saw at least 3. I have to say I don’t like the idea of cruises as if you meet somebody annoying you can’t get away from them. You could slap a bit of oil on your face and try blending in to the propeller shaft like Arnie in Predator, but nothing beats a clear run to the nearest airfield.
One of the most beautiful evenings I’ve ever had was at the superb Cliff restaurant on the North Coast. This place is probably the most expensive and exclusive restaurant on the island, but believe me it’s worth it. They even had my favourite Vintage champagne brand – Bollinger. Unfortunately they had the “La Grande Annee” rather than the superior but equally priced and as “rare as rocking horse excrement” Bollinger RD. They didn’t have the Krug NV either, but had the obligatory Cristal for Nouveau Riche that don’t know the difference between spending a lot of money and spending a lot of money on something good. I’d love to write a review on this wine but all it would be is a long diatribe on how great it is. The menu itself is a Prix-Fixe, and trust me it’s fixe at the top end of the price range, the prices are positively Norwegian in their feel. You don’t really care though as the food is lovely and the setting is absolutely stunning. The Cliff is basically one side of a small bay with three layers of seating looking over the sea. It isn’t very small, but retains its intimate feel by the clever use of flaming torches which stops you rubbernecking any further than the next table. I tucked into a prawn ravioli with a sauce that was green and scrumptious, followed by 1 / 2 Veal with a peppercorn sauce that was a tad on the wimpy side but nevertheless also fantastic. American Girl and Prince Philip tucked into the deserts but I was quite happy sipping a glass of Argentinean wine that took an age to order. This was not because of poor service, but because Prince Philip and I can never agree on Red or white. He doesn’t like Red with fish which is very correct in gourmet terms; I drink red because white tastes like a wimpy form of sweet bleach and curse the day it was brought onto this earth. I know I drink Champagne, but that’s different because it costs 4 times as much.
http://www.thecliffbarbados.com/
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Couples
Best Time to Travel Here: Anytime
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travelgall
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Location: London, Great Britain
Reviews written: 104
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About Me:
Ex Army Stockbroker who spend all his cash on traveling.
Corruptissima Republica, Plurimae Leges.
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