Not sold on Suriname

My bus from Georgetown arrived at 5am and I squeezed in beside some rather jolly (OK, fat) ladies. The road toward Suriname was paved and straight and we were at the river border in no time. All the Guyanas are in fact seperated by river: Guyana - Suriname, Suriname - French Guyana & French Guyana - Brazil. The river was only a couple of hundred meters wide, but of course no bridge, so we had to wait for the ferry of which only there was only one a day.

Across the water in Suriname things started badly. The queue for immigration was massive and there was only one man (in military fatigues) letting people through. An hour later we were out and sitting in a bus screaming its way to Paramaribo. The difference to Guyana was slight but noticiable. English became a minority language as Dutch took over, the houses were built differently and the food changed from Indian to Indonesian (Lots of Indonesians came to Suriname as it too was a former Dutch colony).

We arrived in Paramaribo, or Parbo as the locals call it around 8 and I headed for the only backpackers in town. It turned out to be full, which I think was the first time I haven't got a place in the last 8 months. Down the road there was another place and with amazing bureacracy the lady checked me in. Famished at this stage I found a Chinese restaurant. The staff were crap and everyone spoke Dutch to me. It seems like the only gringos in Suriname are Dutch, so of course all the locals automatically address you in Dutch. Even after going "Sorry", "Heh", "Excuse me" and finally "Look I don't speak fucking Dutch" they still carry on speaking Dutch to you. As if the thought of a non Dutch gringo visiting Suriname was too weird. The food was decent and the beer far too pricey, but I didn't care. My plan of staying in Suriname for a couple of days was being reassessed. IN fact so much so that I did an hour of sightseeing the next day (only vaguely touristy thing is the central market and a road where there is a synagogue, a mosque and a casino all in a row - it's meant to show how diverse and interesting Suriname is, it only proved to me that they don't have any fucking planning laws) , got pissed on, had a siesta, went out for some food, bed at 10pm and was on the next bus out at 9am the day after.

Yes, we can leave Suriname to the Dutch.