For the record, this review is not necessarily applicable to those people who intend to / have stayed somewhere like Sandals in Jamaica for numerous reasons. Let me give you an overview of that type of holiday before I talk about my trips there:
1. The all-inclusive resorts like Sandals are so far removed from the true Jamaica to be almost comical. You are fed a healthy diet of pleasant, soft-core Reggae, disingenuous Jerk Chicken, toned down Patwah and branded alcohol brewed in the EU all in the most luxurious of surroundings. This is to subtly divert your attention from the real deal outside of your resorts high-security cordon and save you from having to see / think about the people and poverty on the other side of your electric fence.
2. Have no doubt that the resorts are to all intents and purposes luxury prisons for the bog standard tourist. They are secure compounds, many with armed guards, designed to safely keep the guests in and the real world out.
3. Upon arrival at the airport, you will be safely and expeditiously escorted to your awaiting coach (air conditioned naturally, you will also think “gee how nice, cold beer upon getting aboard, I must tip the driver”). You will then be whisked past the real Jamaica at 70mph (ooh look, they drive on the same side of the road) to and from your resort / gaol without gaining visibility of what it is actually like to just walk around the place on your own.
4. The above applies equally to the hand picked excursions to carefully selected tourist spots around the island that you will be able to book through reception at your resort.
5. When it is time to leave, if you haven’t already, you will begin to make typically English tourist style patronising statements to the rigorously selected natives who serve you your drinks in the swim up bar like “I don’t know how you could ever dream of leaving such a beautiful island to move to England” and / or “I’ve always loved Reggae, I’m a big Bob Marley fan you know”. You will also do your best to try and speak Patwah after about two days by saying things like “yeah man” instead of just yes. It’s kinda like knowing one word of Spanish (such as gracias) and then bladdering the usage of it at every available opportunity. We must test their patience.
6. You’ll arrive back in Blighty and tell everyone “what a beautiful country, such nice people, can’t do enough for you, beaches are fantastic etc” and you will actually be right in what you say based on your blinkered experience of the place.
However, don’t kid yourself, you may as well have gone to Centre Parks for all that you have really seen of Jamaica.
So, for those people who want that type of holiday (and there’s nothing wrong with that despite my bitter cynicism), read no further as the rest of this opinion will hopefully never apply to you and I don’t want to intrude on your see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil, glass is half full, luvvy Labour view of the world.
By the way, just to spoil some more myths, Santa Claus doesn’t exist and there’s no such thing as the tooth fairy. Rock Hudson was gay.
So now onto The Ruff Guide to Jamaica from someone who has seen it all. Pour yourself a glass of colonial rooted Appleton Estate Jamaican Rum and get yourself comfortable...
Let me set the context as to what happened on my last visit to Jamaica and why I went there this time.
My little sister is a dancer in London. In December, she meets a Jamaican girl she had an earlier tenuous acquaintance with and the girl said her friend had backed out on a visit to the yard (Jamaica for those uneducated in slang) in January, would she like a free ticket? Naïve little sister agrees, as does another girl called Kelly who was fed a similar story.
Anyway, they arrive in Montego Bay and stay with this girl’s family including her aunty, and her brother Dean. This is very true to my sister’s nature as she wanted to meet real people and see the true Caribbean rather than stay in an artificially flavoured resort environment. For the record, Kelly also had her baby with her.
Well, she met lots of really nice people, in fact these people took her everywhere, bought her and Kelly clothes, flashed the cash and treated them like princesses, all for free. Fantastic, what a great island (hey did I ever tell you, I’m a big fan of Bob Marley)!
You just know what’s coming don’t you, it’s murder she wrote all over.
When they get back to their hotel room on the last day (these guys had kindly taken them to a lovely hotel for their last night there), their previously packed suitcases have disappeared and they were given the explanation by ‘Dean’ that him and his friends needed them for something else and they have kindly bought them two smaller ones which would better fit in the car anyway. The girls check these new empty suitcases, nothing suspicious and re-pack their stuff.
Next thing, the guys say “lets all go for a last drink before we take you to the airport” and they agree. While they are out, one of the guys who had remained in the room ‘on a phone call’ brings two identical suitcases from another room and re-packs them.
So, Faye and Kelly return to the hotel with their pals and, gentlemen that they are, they carry the suitcases to the waiting taxi for them and follow behind in another car. On arrival outside the airport, there is an airport employed porter who has already been paid in advance to carry their bags in for them so that at no point would they ever feel the weight of the cases. Everyone in Jamaica is corrupt.
With expert timing, they have been delivered at the airport with only enough to time to go straight to check in and her friends who were following in the car behind are nowhere to be seen. Come to think of it, the Jamaican girl from London who is flying back on the same flight is nowhere to be seen either.
Now, as you check in at the airports in Jamaica (both Montego Bat in the West and Kingston in the East), your bags are hand searched by security. This happens to every single bag that goes through that airport. From experience though (I have personally been offered this service by airport employed taxi drivers), it can be arranged in advance for them to either not find anything in your bag or even have your bag bypass check in completely and be put on the plane with the correct tags etc. Scary, you could have something deadly in your bag.
In the course of their bags being searched about 20LBS of drugs (Ganja) are found in each suitcase and my sister and her friend Kelly are arrested on the charges of possession, conspiracy to export, possession with intent to supply and two other charges that I can't remember because I couldn't understand much of what was going on in court when I got there.
They obviously get very upset, words are exchanged, accusations made against the Jamaicans involved and this Jamaican girl is pulled back from the Departure Lounge (she had shot right through). She is searched along with her suitcase and surprise surprise hers are clean. They immediately let her go, she boards the plane and flys back to London unscathed taking Kellys baby with her. My sister points out one of the guys involved lurking near the airport entrance on his mobile phone, he is questioned, nods and winks are swapped and he is immediately released.
A kind tourist passes my sister a mobile phone in the melee and she is able to make a call to her boyfriend in London giving him a rapid synopsis of the situation. A call is made to me at 2.30am GMT and by 3am I am in heated discussion with The Foreign Office. By 3pm in the afternoon, I am a pissed off passenger on a Jamaica Airlines flight headed for Montego Bay.
And now for some factual information. At any one time, an average of 200 British people are spending time in prison in Jamaica for drug exportation, 75% of them having been set-up as mules under similar circumstances. You may think that you wouldn’t have fallen for the chain of events detailed above? Well, they have 50 other proven blaggs and it’s easy to get suckered in by one of them. Trust me, these guys are just so convincing; you can be stood looking at the blue sky and get told that it is in fact pink. Bollocks is it man you say, it’s blue. By the end of their pitch, you are thinking, of course its pink, what was I thinking, this seems eminently reasonable, I concede, the sky is pink.
If you get yourself into this situation, The Foreign Office will do very little for you, if anything. The High Consul in Jamaica, John Kelly, will visit you in prison and despite being there to check your conditions, will do absolutely nothing about the inevitably horrendous environment you are in except make obvious statements like "well it's a different country". He will send a letter to your family, give you a list of solicitors and that’s it. The main benefit of his visit is you can use his leaflets as writing paper. Oh, he will send a junior member of staff to visit you in prison every 6 weeks but they won’t actually do anything for you either. The UK Foreign Office will not do sod all either so my advice is if you are the family of someone who has been caught with drugs (and I’m talking a reasonable amount) then you need to do the following:
1. Get yourself over there if you can. Sorting things out from the UK is very, very hard and you need to be on the ground to get anywhere.
2. Get a solicitor for them. It will cost you between £500 and £1,000 for this but for that they should do everything. Do not pay them a penny until they have seen the prisoner, agreed to represent them in court and briefed you on everything. Pay half upfront and half after everything is done (unless they have done a crap job).
3. If your family member has been caught with a large amount of cocaine, get the media involved. That’s the only time the Foreign Office will sit up and take notice. It helps leverage the corrupt police and government over there and if you get paid for the story will help finance the massive cost of getting your family member a shorter sentence in better conditions. Cocaine = very long sentence in Jamaica.
4. Contact me I guess; I know judges over there, police, solicitors yada yada and can help you, even if it's just providing you with more detailed advice.
5. Get them to plead guilty, even if they've been set-up (it saves being remanded for months and months in shit, life threatening conditions without it even coming off any future guilty sentence). Get them to plead guilty but appear for them as a character witness and give the performance of your life. Don’t feel bad about that since everyone over there is more corrupt than you will ever be. Ask for a larger fine and smaller sentence, the government just want your money at the end of the day. The 200 British people in prison at any one time will have paid about $40M Jamaican in fines so it’s an industry worth hundreds of millions to the Jamaican establishment. At least your drive to the prison will be on improved roads.
6. Stop deluding yourself that the prisons will be like they are over here, that they will get a fair trial, will not be in any physical danger, they will be well treated, will even get food etc. They won’t, it is your worst nightmare come true believe me and very, very stressful.
On every flight that enters the UK from Jamaica, customs conservatively estimate that there are 3 – 5 ‘mules’ aboard and they just catch the tip of the iceberg. Most cocaine is swallowed in condoms by very poor Jamaican people suckered in by the promise of big bucks (usually about £2 - £3 thousand) and a new life out of the ghettos. I really feel for these people, they are in a desperate situation socially, good people living extraordinary lives and just want a better standard of living. I've seen the ghettos there are trust me; life is tough and unfair. It’s the people who set them up who are the really evil ones and that crosses the racial divide with many rich white people involved. I hear that on one Air Jamaica flight last year, 387 people were arrested with drugs in London Heathrow after the criminals behind the whole thing decided to try the new tactic of a blitzkrieg approach.
Often (and this may well have been the case with my sister), the gangs behind this make sure a few people get caught at the airport with Ganja (which is obviously not going to cause them financial exposure since it literally grows on trees there) so that the more valuable and lucrative Cocaine can be safely trafficked through the airport while all the security resource is tied up dealing with those caught with Ganja.
I have met and spoken with many Jamaicans over there who have served time in prison in the UK prior to being deported and many of them have been back numerous times under different passports…it really is that easy, anything and anyone can be bought for a price in Jamaica as I will soon come onto. If you know much about the gangster scene in London, you will know that the Yardie gangs are the most ruthless and violent of them all. That’s not a race thing, it’s just a fact of life. Mr Boom Boom Bastic.
So here I am on a flight to Montego Bay having left my new-born daughter at home, my fiancée and the new job I had only started at a week or so earlier to try and help my sister out. All because some bastard decided to set her up. I was obviously in a very bad mood. Think Dirty Harry with a hangover.
As I stepped off the plane about 8pm Jamaica time, I was offered Cocaine by ground crew. Upon collecting my bags, I headed outside with an approved airport taxi driver (cheaper, price fixed and safer) but still had to suffer over 15 different taxi drivers, mostly unlicensed, harranging me to go with them, some very aggressively. Trust me though, I’m used to this, you have to be hard faced.
In fact, before I continue my tale, let me pause on this subject to give you some do’s and don’ts in regard to taxi’s and survival in general over there:
1. Get your money changed in advance to Jamaican Dollars. Do not take American dollars as you will get ripped off bigtime. Take travellers cheques in dollars if you have to but pay for things in local currency. One Pound is equal to between Jam $94 and Jam $110 depending on the exchange rate. A dollar is about $55Jam to $60 Jam
2. Only use licensed, uniformed drivers and agree a fare in advance. Do not be afraid to haggle. I would say offer them no more than 66% of what they ask for and if you find one who is flexible and trustworthy take his number and get him to drive for you throughout your trip on the basis of economies of scale. They will readily agree to this because it is (a) very competitive between the drivers in terms of getting a fare and (b) they always profit because no matter how good a negotiator you are it is simply a case of degrees of being scammed; you will always end up paying over the odds for any journey. Taxis there are typically more expensive than the UK. An example fare would be a journey from Montego Bay airport to the hotels on the main strip like The Gloucestershire. They will ask for say $15US (about $850 Jamaican) but in reality, you can negotiate them down to the equivalent of $6 to $8 American dollars (about $350 - $450 Jamaican). A 90 – 120 minute drive to say Negril from Montego bay should cost you under no circumstances more than $2,500 Jamaican, $4,000 if it’s a round trip, you’ll be asked to pay $10,000 (each way probably) at first. AGREE IT IN ADVANCE. A good driver will save you money by giving you good advice. I always use the same guy and if I go into a supermarket or stop somewhere to grab a beer etc, he will kick off if they try and rip me off, he takes it as a personal insult (iz me boy man). First time I used him back in the day when I was green, I got charged $350 for a beer at a garage. He went back in and made them give me $250 Jam back and a sincere apology. He is a big guy though...I wouldn't argue with him!
3. On the subject of beer, Red Stripe (strong) and Heineken are the main fayre. Never pay more than the equivalent of say $3 USD, you should really pay much less. I tend to pay about $200 Jamaican with a tip and that's being very fair. Always wipe / clean the top of your beer bottle before you drink it.
4. Never, EVER get in a car with a driver who stops you on the street, most of whom are just ordinary blokes with a car. They will be very nice, promise you a good price, sit you in the back of a death-trap and at best overcharge you (and demand you pay very aggressively) or at worst take you somewhere and steal the shirt of your back, worse if you are a lone female.
5. Unless you just don’t look the type (rare), expect to be stopped every few metres and asked if you want to buy (A) Cocaine (B) Ganja (C) Rasta Coloured Wrist Bands (D) Get your hair braided (if you are female or look like one), (E) One of six million other scams including but not limited to women, boys, CD’s, clothes etc.
6. In Jamaica you don’t judge distance by metres or feet, you judge it by Yardies. For example, a walk from The Gloucestershire Hotel to Cuba Bar is about 12 yardies. One time, a woman stopped another guy hassling me and started chatting, being very nice and friendly, I let down my guard for 2 minutes thinking she was ait. After 5 minutes she demanded $1,500 Jamaica for her time. This is typical and rife. How do you deal with this? First off, don’t look and act like a tourist. Be polite yet firm. Act like you have been there before and that you know the score. SAY NO! Don’t get drawn into protracted conversations. Never go off the main roads. Horrible thing to say but don’t feel sorry for anyone, most sob stories told to you are made up. Basically, don’t do the things you wouldn’t do at home such as get in cars with strangers, accept free gifts, offers of a beer and a friendly game of pool just up the road, requests to try on your jewellery (I forgot to mention, if you haven’t been there before and don’t know people then don’t wear any jewellery or carry around camcorders etc) and travel about alone. Stay in groups, walk the main roads at sensible times of the day / night.
7. Never go to Kingston. Ever. It is the murder capital of the world and a horrible place. Gun crime isn’t just rife it is a way of life. You have a very, very strong chance of being mugged, raped, shot, stabbed or a combination of those things in varying order and the police are dying faster than anyone there, it’s a simple case of the criminals having automoatic firepower and a total disregard for human life (the way of the big man is killing someone gets you respect, you even see their women with ownership tattoos on them). British people have no business going to Kingston so ignore the niceties of the UB40 song, izza bad boy bizniz an a ting ya na.
8. Invest in a safe in your hotel room. Tip the staff (not excessively) as they will look after you and tell you what’s what if you don’t already know. The security guard at the hotel kindly offered his services as a hitman to sort out the people who set-up my sista’, these people really go the extra mile for you…
Right. Hope that helps, back to the story…
Aside from all the hassle, cons, danger etc:- I dealt with all that already knowing the above and more. I got a hotel for about $60 US per night this time (clean, B&B , air con, shower and TV) which is about right…you can pay more if you like but no more than $100 in Montego Bay otherwise you may as well stay in an all inclusive resort. I stayed at another hotel for one night for $40, basic but clean.
I went to court for 10am the following day and met Mr Reid the solicitor who like most Jamaicans is pleasantly laissez faire with the typical “me come soon” approach. He got me down to the cells to see my sister for the first time there and she was really upset. Kelly didn’t have a lawyer (which ironically Jamaicans pronounce Liar) so she got sentenced immediately whilst Faye’s case was adjourned to the following day for representations.
Let me walk you though the chaotic court procedure. Kelly was in a line of about 15 people, mostly Jamaicans, all awaiting trial. They don’t have one person one trial like over here. All of them were up for drugs, guns or a combination of both. The female judge did not mess about and dished out heavy sentences to all without paying much attention to what mitigating circumstances etc. there were in an individual case. If you get 60 seconds to explain yourself then you are lucky. It is loud, disorganised, confusing, hard to understand and very, very unfair. Kelly was sentenced to two years hard labour on a chain gang at Fort Augusta prison in Kingston (which is a top security facility on its own island). Many women are raped there, three women have been murdered there in the last fortnight and I have since heard that Kelly has attempted suicide three times and is now on suicide watch. If she could afford to pay the £2,000 fine she would have had her sentence reduced to 6 months of which she would have served two thirds. I don’t hold out much hope for her survival, she is 21, very petite with a young baby and no family to pay her fine, get her a lawyer etc.
I managed to see Faye at the police station where she was being held at (Free Port) after bribing a cop there $100 on the condition I could see her whenever he was on shift. This was over the odds but I wasn’t bothered, the alternative is one visit once per week where you get to see her for maybe 3 – 4 minutes from about 15 feet away having queued for hours with a mob of unruly Jamaicans. With his help I was able to get within the width of the bars from her and pass her money, cigarettes, get notes off her, let her know what was happening, even take photos etc.
The police station is a dilapidated hellhole. It is mixed with cells of guys next to the womens cells and one of the female prisoners had had boiling hot bleach thrown at her by one of the males that morning en route to the shower because she the audacity to suck her teeth at the sexual abuse he was yelling at her. My sister was in a cell with about 13 other women, there is a hole in the middle for a toilet, you sleep on a concrete slab, you literally eat a piece of bread given to you in a bucket and scoop cold tea out of another bucket with a cup. Once you get some money you can buy better food off the guards (amongst other things). It’s always about the money though.
So, back she went to court. I gave a stella performance as a character witness and her brief did a reasonable job. Because she is 26 and had 1LB more drugs in her bag, she should have got a much longer sentence than Kelly (because you are supposed to know better the older you are and after a certain amount every 1lb is worth a month in prison) but she got almost the same which was a result:- the judge said if it hadn’t been for my comment and the solicitor she would have gotten more than 2 years and a mandatory 8 months after the fine instead of the 5 months mandatory she actually got if she pays the fine. I haven’t mentioned that I had had a word with a judge in Spanish Town who I know and he had in turn had a quiet word with this lady judge the night before on the phone so that also helped I think. As it is, having paid the fine, Faye will be out in late April, early May 2004.
In court, the people who had set them up were there and followed me about, asked me where I was staying, when I was leaving, whether I knew the names of the people who did this to them etc which was pretty scary and I had to get my people to escort me from the court and take a scenic route back to my hotel. The police had kindly told them I would be there upon request.I took a lot of stuff into the police station for Faye in advance of her being moved to Kingston and if you’re ever in the same situation then be aware that you are given nothing to survive on and need the following:
Bucket
Washing powder
Clothes pegs
Toiletries
Tampax
Warm clothes
Constant supply of snacks, cigarettes etc
Mobile phone (this can be smuggled into prison and used on silent. Guards will re-charge it for a fee)
Money (although when Faye was moved to Kingston last Saturday the police at Free Port stole all of her money and I have had to get £200 sent out to her and get taken in by the Judge I know)
In prison at Fort Augusta you are looking at a very grim situation. You will be padded up with a few other women in a cell. They all share everything within the cell so if you have nothing to share, they will take something else and / or get nasty.
Any money you get sent in legally will go on an account from which you can draw off at a tuck shop for food, cigs etc.
You will do hard labour and that is being shackled to other prisoners on a chain gang doing physical labour in hot conditions. It is a violent environment with as I have said murders happening regularly. You will find it hard to understand people as they will mostly be speaking very heavy Patwah and having to say "what?" to people every five minutes winds inmates up.
Additionally, let’s be honest here…if you are white you tend to stand out when you’re in a prison where 99% of the inmates are from Jamaica and there is a certain vitriol towards the white people in there for some reason.
I’m obviously back in the UK now but will be going back there on her release to make sure she gets on the plane home safely. Contrary to my advice, I am going to have to stay in Kingston and since I hate the place I am dreading it.
Before I go though, let me say some good things about Jamaica because despite this whole scenario, there are some positive points…
· Believe it or not, there are obviously many wonderful people in Jamaica and I have some really great friends who I trust (and who have really put themselves out to help me and my sister). The place is unfortunately blighted by a strong criminal element which is to be appreciated given the fact that despite its tourist veneer; it is virtually a third world country. Kinda Ethiopia meets Amsterdam.
· Negril is a great place and not as hassle intense as Montego Bay for example. If you go there I recommend two clubs; Risky Business and The Jungle (with the latter being a proper mix of dancehall music, hard reggae, hip hop and R&B). Near to Negril is Orange Hill which my friends live in and I was lucky enough to visit it and appreciate what it’s like to really live in poverty and I mean ten times worse than the worst estate you could think of in England. It’s basically a shantytown in the mountains and is world renowned for the marijuana grown there which I got to see, you can smell it in the thick musty air there.
- Jerk chicken. Best place to buy jerk chicken is on the street. Similar to men with dodgy hot dog stands over here, you get guys on the street selling Jerk Chicken, Jerk Pork etc out of what looks like a big metal drum. Inside the drum they have the chicken in tinfoil slowly steaming and it is the most authentic Jerk Chicken on Earth, absolutely gorgeous.
· Ting. What a great soft drink that is, why don’t they sell it over here?
· The beaches. You have to admit, the beaches are great whether it be Doctors Cove or Dead End beach in Montego Bay or 5 mile beach in Negril. Never got to the beaches near Kingston, I hear they're ok but the bullet-proof vests you need mess up your suntan.
· Montego Bay town. A bustling hive of activity, great to walk around just shopping for fruit etc in the street markets.
· The music. Although I take the piss out of people who go over there and tell everyone they like Bob Marley, did you know that his dad was a white guy from my hometown Liverpool? I’m more into the dancehall stuff myself, if you don’t know it then it’s like a harder version of Shaggy or Sean Paul. Everywhere you go in the yard, music is playing, out of shops, cars, boomboxes etc. and the vibrancy of that is infectious. You just don’t get to see that side of life in the resorts.
· The community. Over here you can fall over in the street and get walked over. I know a few of my neighbours in passing and that’s it. In Jamaica, everyone knows everyone. Drive round in a car with a Jamaican for ten minutes and they will beep at 50 people they know waving at them. They know all their neighbours.
· The danger. I actually get a kick out of it, it makes you feel alive so it’s okay if you know the score (within reason).
This has been a pretty weird opinion actually, fairly cathartic as it happens. I’ve been sarcastic, vitriolic, nice, nasty, rambling, up, down, left and right about the place because it is a country of massive contradictions. Although I’ve talked about the good and bad of Jamaica, the real message is obviously about how easy it is to have a bad experience and I stand by that.
My advice is if you go, know what you’re getting into and no matter how careful you think you’ve been check your bags and check them again. Even at the airport I had a niggling doubt as to whether anything had been slipped in mine this time and I was being ultra careful.
I had an hour long interview by customs in London on top of one at Montego Bay Airport and Kingston (I had to get a connecting flight there on my way home since I had changed my ticket and there was one seat left on a flight from Kingston) and despite saying did they ‘tink I would be that stupid given the situation with my sister, I was still not completely sure something bad was not going to happen.
If you have a sensible disposition and don’t like taking risks then I would advise on the balance of probabilities that it is a risk to go there and you should try somewhere like Antigua, Barbados or Bermuda instead. I personally would never go back for a true holiday in the sense of the word with my family, maybe a boys weekend or something but that’s about it.
It’s an experience but so many things can go wrong. There are some very bad in Jamaica as I have said and it is not a safe country all things considered. That’s a huge shame because it is so beautiful and the culture has so much going for it.
As Bob markey should have sang..."We're scammin and I hope you like Scammin too, oh yeah, we're scammin..."
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