Addis Ababa. 'New Flower'. Makes one visualise expansive green parks, shrubbery, lush grass, leafy sidewalks and a profusion of colours and scents. The reality? A smoke-filled, traffic-choked, sprawling, non-descript grey twentieth century city which sadly lacks basic sanitation and is in the process of a building boom. Roads half-laid, buildings half-built, a half-baked city which doesn't ever feel like being the finished article. Has a city ever been more inappropriately named in the history of the world? Am I being exceptionally harsh, or is Addis Ababa one of the least attractive or interesting capital cities you could ever imagine? Well, yes and no. As the usually perceptive and on-the-ball writer of the excellent Bradt guide to Ethiopia, Phillip Briggs, remarks, it is hard to reconcile the emotions you first feel for Addis on arrival, with those you feel when you leave, having travelled around the shires and seen how sadly undeveloped the rest of the country actually is in comparison. Addis Ababa is, first and foremost, an African capital city. There are perhaps no truly exceptional capital cities on the African continent, and unlike European cities, the main purpose they serve is administrative and functional, not touristic. The thing with Ethiopia is that the capital city has moved around the country countless times, at the whim and behest of various kings and dynasties; from Aksum to Lalibela to Gondar and many other, less significant or interesting places which are best forgotten. Addis is just the latest in a long line, and this impermanence is reflected in the shanty town, shoddy feel that buildings slightly out of the centre have. It's hard even to find anything very regal or impressive in the centre itself. If you can define a centre to the city that is. As one of my colleagues at the school remarked after a few days of bumping in and out of town to our campus to the south in Akaki, 'There are no nice parts to this city - no parks, no rivers, not even a proper highstreet. You can't even take pictures of anything - there's nothing to take pictures of. It's a s***hole.' While I will never try to defend Addis as a viable tourist destination, I certainly want to reflect on some positive sides to my experience there. Bear in mind that I spent over a month living there and was forced to try and make the most of it; most tourists arrive here, take a quick look round and make for the northern historical loop posthaste.

On arriving in Addis, for your first few days, as in many other third world countries where grinding poverty is an everyday reality and not just something you see on TV, you are forced to confront this new reality head-on and develop strategies to defend yourself against it. The streets of Addis are full of street urchins looking for money, very often with 'sob stories' for foreigners, 'faranjees' as they are known here. Most common is 'no mother, no father, pleae give me money'; almost as common is the more direct 'you, faranjee! one birr!' or simply 'give money'. There are numerous polio/leprosy victims on the streets, limbless and helpless; countless others begging, pickpocketing or generally trying to rip off foreigners. While this may sound daunting, in reality the begging never gets too persistent, and you can swat them off without too much trouble. I never had any serious problem with anyone on the streets, and rather than be aggressive, most beggars adopt the 'make the foreigner feel guilty' approach. If you can develop a thick skin against such underhand tactics, you shouldn't ever have any real problems in Addis. As most guidebooks advise, it's a bad idea to give money to kids on the streets; better to donate to a charity. Giving them one or two birr (about ten pence) for some chewing gum or tissue paper obviously does no harm and it gives them the idea they actually have to do something to earn their money. Begging is ingrained in the psyche of Ethiopians. Why? I met other travellers who had been to Somaliland, Sudan, Eritrea, Tanzania, Kenya - all countries bordering Ethiopia and no less poor in many cases - but who had not experienced the level of begging one is forced to endure in Ethiopia (and indeed in one or two of those countries begging is actually against the law). I have no answer to this but can only speculate that the cummulative affect of years of foreign aid and western attention (particularly in the wake of the 1984 famine) has given the people the idea that money simply grows on trees in the west and that 'faranjees' are desperate to part with cash they couldn't possibly need to help the helpless. There may be truly hard circumstances for the vast majority of Ethiopians, but just throwing money at them cannot possibly help them in the long run. There has to be a change in mentality so that people realise they have to work their way out of trouble - and by giving money to everyone, the situation can only be exacerbated.

Anyway, suffice to say that you should step carefully around Addis streets. Not just side-stepping the beggars, but the open man-hole covers, uneven paving stones, random lumps of concrete and piping, the odd herd of goats and the ubiquitous shoe shine stands. Yes, it's somewhat of an obstacle race trying to negotiate your way around the city of Addis. What is there to actually see and do there? Why visit? Well, that's a fair question, and I for one would not like to be working for Addis Ababa tourist board. There are a couple of museums; one containing the world-famous skeleton of 'Lucy', possibly the oldest and most complete hominid ever found (5.2 million years old); impressive, or it would be if the skeleton was actually there. what you see is a plastic replica since the original has been sent to some curators in the States for some reason unknown to me. Another museum, the Ethnological Museum, is set in the University grounds and home of former emporer, Haille Sellassie. Slightly more impressive and ambitious in scope, this place makes an effort to be interesting and informative, and takes the visitor on a trip through Ethiopian culture, taking in everything from food and drink to marriage ceremonies, childrens' toys, religion and superstition and even a section on the popular and legel drug 'chat' - a leafy plant which is chewed for a mildly intoxicating effect rather like a strong coffee rush. The most interesting aspect of the museum is however undoubtedly the section which takes in the redoubtable emporer's bedroom and bathroom - a modest enough display but which really brings home the former emporer's majesty (perhaps as I was reading Kapuszczinski's excellent 'The Emporer' at this time had something to do with my interest in this small collection of personal effects, but I feel the place is well worth a visit. If only to see the bullet hole in the mirror which dated from the 1960 coup d'etat. Seeing the 'great' man's suit is also interesting - he was actually a very slimly proportioned midget, about five feet tall.

As far as sightseeing goes, Addis otherwise offers very little. There's Piazza, the old Italian quarter, which now functions as one of the main hubs of nightlife in Addis. It contains the old colonial hotel 'Itegue Taitu', a handsome building with old varnished floorboards and verandahs, and rather stiff waiters; its rooms are one of the few places in the city with real character, and its resaurant and bar were comforatble places to chill with a cool beer. The Piazza area in general, unfortunately, is no longer as classy and timeless as the hotel. Its bars, once night had fallen, loud and dark places crowded with men in the front and women prowling out back, mostly doubled as knocking shops. Nothing threatening about these places at all, no pimps trying to push the women on you or any pressure to take any of the women; just straightforward pub/brothels which are perfectly legal; seedy yes, but dangerous no. The major problem in the Piazza area is the phenomenon of the 'hanger-on'; basically a friendly (usually rastafarian) local who comes up to you on the street and starts easy conversation, perhaps offering to show you round the area. Said hanger-on, successfully attached to the faranjee, aquires a posse of friends, and proceeds to follow him around for the next several hours, as unshakable as a leech. Said faranjeee is sucked dry for beers, bottles of 'tej' (sickly yet potent honey wine) or plates of injera (large soggy grey pancake-looking things which are heaped with steaming piles of meat). Suffice to say, said faranjee regrets it all bitterly at the end of the night when a few cheap beers turns into a lengthy bill. Again, the best tactic you can use to avoid such an outcome is politely refuse all such approaches at the start, thereby nipping the whole routine in the bud. Basically, nightlife in the Piazza soon becomes tiresome, and the lack of available females (who you don't have to pay for) would deter most western males. The locals seem to be having a good time regardless. One friend who braved one of the local girls, a teacher from Manchester called Phil, roused her ire by refusing to agree to a 'business' deal one day; she decided to place a curse on him for his parsimony - a curse of impotence. Phil, a Taoist and practicer of yoga, took this threat to his karma very seriously, and was forced the next day to visit a local church in order to undergo and exorcism rite and have the curse lifted. thankfully, after three hours of praying and chanting, the curse was lifted and Phil could go away without this terrible burden.

One thing about Addis which cannot be denied - and which is like a shining beacon of quality over a mass of mediocrity otherwise - is its restaurants, some of which are truly impressive. Lucy's, Blue-Tops, Serenades, Castelli's - all top-notch places (serving mostly faranjee food, it has to be said); and whilst Ethiopian fare is by no means bad, the aforementioned places do very well indeed. Castellis', probably the best of the lot, features pictures of the great and good who have visited it such as Bill Clinton, Bob Geldof, Bono and Bradd Pitt. The quality of the food was rather impressive, and at 300 birr (fifteen pounds) for a three course Italian meal, not extortionate. It's worth noting that this is probably the most expensive restaurant in the country. Another expensive option available to those who fancy a splurge is the Hilton outdoor heated swimming pool; an afternoon soaking in the relaxing warm waters are a perfect antidote to the city's grime and dirt, and a secluded spot with pleasant greenery in a very grey city. Particularly if you have a gin and tonic to hand. It may make you feel a little guilty when you go outside and have to confront the poverty however; one drink in the Hilton may be a day's wages for the taxi driver who drives you home. And he's relatively wealthy by Ethiopian standards.

So you can see that, at the end of the day, it is very hard to avoid the subject of money in Addis Ababa, even when you try to escape the reality behind the plush walls of a Hilton or a Sheraton. Staying within the confines of a university campus in the quiet countryside suburb of Akaki, I felt somewhat removed from reality also, but a month of living in, say, Piazza, would have been extremely tiring and may have resulted in me becoming a hermit to get away from the constant attention that you attract as a tourist. Being surrounded by hills as you are in Addis, one option is to escape to the countryside and walk a little - which we did a couple of times. Once, as a group we made our way by taxi to a local hill and attempted to climb a hill. Instantly we stepped outside our taxi we were surrounded by a group of kids, who proceeded to follow us up the hill, asking for money. Harmless but annoying nonetheless when we fancied a bit of peace and quiet. They were actually happy to just talk and play in the end, which made a pleasant change. We were also fighting up the hill against a tide of people, swarming down the hill in the hot sunshine with their umbrellas and sticks from a Sunday church service. This tide of humanity, in the middle of the countryside, was quite a sight. Literally everyone seems to attend church in this country, and churches do good business it seems. One woman was performing some kind of ritual outside the church and seemed to be in a religious trance, throwing her legs and arms around like someone possessed. I tried taking pictures, but was quickly ushered away, to my chagrin.

I was keen to get out of Addis at the end of my month there, it's true - and I never really did grow to love it. However, in hindsight I did have some good times there - mainly on nights out in restaurants and bars it must be said - which as I said, for an African city is no given. It's a very safe city for tourists, I must stress, and because of its altitude - 2400m - it's a very comfortable place to live temperature-wise. The (relative) lack of mosquitoes my be a godsend to some. Still, all that said, there is no reason to hang around for too long in Addis unless, like me, you have to..better to go explore a country which offers a great deal to those willing to rough it for a few weeks - I was heading north to lake Tana, then Gondar and the historical loop, but first I wanted to go south to visit lake Langano.