Durban Daze

For me, the fact that Durban is not Cape Town or Johannesburg is already an outright winner. 

I’m not that fond of either Joburg or Cape Town. It’s so busy and I always feel so tired when I come back home. Being a pretty diligent person, I can do five meetings in one day in Durban. And I’m able to do these even if they’re on opposite sides of town. I can drive from Umhlanga to the centre of the city, to the university, to Pinetown and even make it to Hillcrest and have those five meetings within the space of a day; and I would not have travelled five hundred kilometres and spent three hours in traffic. 

Sure, we have traffic here, but during the course of the day you can pretty much go anywhere in fifteen to twenty minutes. 

Durban is a great city to work in. And in my line of work, Joburg is just a fifty five minute plane trip away and Cape Town only two hours away. So I can still work in the rest of the country and come back that same day if I wanted. 

There are so many things to do in this city. So what I did was, in preparation for Durban Day, I decided to reconnect with as many parts of my city as I could. I’ve always said I have a long-standing love affair with Durban and so I spent the better part of the month doing things in and around the city. 

I love going down to the beach front, which is world-class. I mean, it really is one thing that Mike Sutcliffe got right in his time at the city. And there’s nothing like a Sunday morning walk on the promenade, even in the winter. Although, we could ask, “what winter?”

One of the things I did, which excited me to no end, was a city tour of some of the most impressive art deco buildings in the world. And it’s pretty inexpensive if you’re on a budget. 

I took my nieces to the Natural History Museum, which is also free, and they had never been before. I used to go when I was growing up, and then get books from the city library, which I read that week and did it all over again. This is also part of the new museum precinct, which the city is building, so it’s incredibly exciting times.

The fact is: we also have world-famous shopping malls in Durban, but unless I am going there to shop and allow the mall to fulfil its God-given purpose, which is to sell me stuff, I prefer to spend time in Durban exploring its nooks. 

And I like the fact that a lot of the entertainment in Durban is actually free, you just have to look for it. You can still swim in the sea, even in the winter months. You can take walks or take your bikes down to the promenade. You can picnic in Mitchell Park and Botanic Gardens. You can cycle all the way to Blue Lagoon and back, if you have your own bikes. Or you can hire them, which is also great, because you’re supporting a local business. 

And then there are the people. I think one of the best things about Durban is we’re not caught up in this superficial celebrity culture like Cape Town and Joburg is. The irony though, is a lot of really famous people have had or still have their roots in this city. Political figures like Fathima Meer was born here and chose to live here all her life. Sportsmen like Shaun Pollock, Jonty Rhodes, Stefan Terblanche, Olympic swimmer Chad Le Clos, and the like all come from Durban or have chosen to settle here. 

The country’s bestselling author, John van de Ruit is a Durban boy as is one of the most prolific actors, Leeanda Reddy. Both, like me, are fiercely patriotic and pay homage to Durban in their work, which is always heartening.  And so in the general scheme of the country, these people have made their mark. And they’re all from Durban. 

And let’s not forget the reality show winners, Idols, Masterchef, Survivor, SA’s Got Talent – Durban contestants have either won or came second in all of these shows for years. That’s something to be proud of.  

And sometimes we make take a while to get going on things, but that’s largely because we’re an under-rated city. We’re kind of like a hidden gem, if you will. Even international tourists that come to South Africa don’t always have Durban on their maps. But those that do go off the beaten track and discover it, always rave and gush about how amazing this African city really is. 

And of course we play host to some of the most incredible events like the Jomba Dance Festival, The Durban International Film Festival, which is on at the moment, Time of the Writer and Poetry Africa. So these are fantastic, world-class events that come out of Durban and bring incredibly influential people to the city as well. 

Durban also has quite a strong heritage aspect. If you look at Inanda and Kwa Mashu and places like The Ghandi Settlement, Ohlange High School and the Inanda Seminary, there were amazing men and women who came out of these places and made their mark on the country. And if memory serves me right, Nelson Mandela cast his vote in the first free, democratic elections at Ohlange High in Inanda. Durban has all this and more going for it. And that’s why I choose to remain in this, the city of my birth. 

What are your fondest memories of Durban? Or what do you love most about this city? 

You can email Terence Pillay at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter: @terencepillay1.