Friendliness

People in S.A. are generally more friendly than we are in the UK! This is of course a major generalisation. But the people we interacted with, and I don’t just mean the people we met, but those we spoke to in passing or walked past in the street, were V helpful. E.G.in cafes they would happily change any meal to fit your requirements and acted as if this was common place rather than considering you to be awkward, and if looking at a map then people would come up to you and give you directions to where you wanted to go, etc. A minority wanted a tip for this (between 5-40p) but most did not. Another example, is that once Jon+I were looking around and a lady came and asked if she could help, we said we wanted a bus, she told us there wasn’t a bus but she’d find out about a shuttle (taxi) and she then went and spoke to a shuttle driver who rang someone and then came to us and told us he had another fare to meet in 5mins but he’d rang him and asked if he minded sharing the shuttle with us and he didn’t, so we got in! I was surprised at how these people we’d never met went out of their way to help us, especially as you’re rarely offered help in the UK unless you ask and even then you may not get the help you want!