Sights and smell of Malta

Valletta:
I went there first on a saturday afternoon, still weary from the 4am out of the bed and 6.30 am cramped class flight on budget airline Ryan Air out of London Luton airport. And my first impression was that of an ordinary renaissance Eurpoean capital, evidently ( I thought ) in decline, with all the gritty bylanes and doors to sandstone terraces accumulating dust as if they have not been opened for months. I could not see anything of remotely the same grandeur as I had come to expect, from my previous trips to other Med cities like Firenze, Rome etc.(Perhaps that's an unjust comparison). But I must admit, I was indeed misguided by the first impressions.Being a saturday afternoon, the cathedral had closed. I missed the last public admission at 12:30pm. And there were a few overpriced restaurants in the vicinity, from one of which I savoured some traditional Maltese rabbit in garlic and herbs sauce.My impression changed when I took the Valletta harbour cruise the next day, allowing you to see the city from the water, from the 10 odd creeks that surrounds it. The Grand Harbour was quite an experience. The establishment of the Order of the Knights of St.John and fortification of the island, great Siege of Malta ( by Ottoman turks ) in the sixteenth century, the subsequent French occupation ( by Napoleon ) and British colonization have imparted it a rich maritime history and military heritage that few other European cities can boast of. Valetta is unique in that aspect.


Harbour Cruise:



Mdina:



Diving in St. Paul's bay:
Read all about in my post.

Traxien temples:
There are plenty of buses that go from Valletta terminus to Traxien, I hopped on one ( My hotel receptionist was kind enough to offer me a handy guide book with bus numbers. The ticket was 47cents but I had a bus pass for the day ( cost me 3.49 Euros , which was good value I thought as I had travelled to and back from the Blue Grotto earlier in the day ). 15 mnutes or so later, I got down and walked to the temples. The Temple is a UNESCO world heritage site, with the structures dating back to around 3000 BC. The entry ticket cost 6 euros, bit over prized considering the attraction takes less than 15 minutes to walk through ( unless you specialise in archealogy ). But maybe that helps keep the visitors down and preserve the place.

Blue Grotto:


Paceville:

Aparently, this is where all the young people hang out at night ( the noise levels and young people on the streets on saturday night were quite high ) but I did not feel threatened as I feel when walking next to youngsters back home in Britain. Nice kids most of them, minding their own busniess and having fun. Being a stones throw away from where I stayed, my only interest in the area was gastronomic, me well past the partying age ( and not a party animal in any case ). Below are the two which I thought were decent places serving right priced stuff that does not make you sick.

Eating places:
Maltese mama - Pleasant welcoming staff, served up a well presented platter of nibbles ( without me asking for it and did not overcharge either ) containing crackers, cheese bite , smoked and pureed aubergine (?), olives and peppers sauted in a sauce with tomato base, garlic and herbs. The spagetti was not cooked enough to my liking(me being the guilty one here as I didn't ask for it to be cooked well) but the fish ( the waiter presented one of the exhibits on display as the victim but looking at the size of the fillets in the sphagetti, I doubted if even half of it went in ultimately ) and sauce in the sphagetti were nice. And they don't serve tap water, so I had to pay for a bottle of H2O.Slightly expensive but better value than what I paid for the rabbit in Valletta.

Answers restaurant - claims to have answers to the question what to eat? And they do. Simple no frills food, serves good coffee and good value for money. And they have free wifi thrown in. ( unless you prefer kebab shops or cheap pastizzerias, that sell kebabs for two euros and chicken mushroom pies for an euro, which are also present in the area. They dished up some pasta marinara for lunch ( prawns . octopus and assorted fish ) which was cooked al dente ( on request ) and served in pleasing manners.

Alfonso hotel:
Value for money hotel, helpful staff, clean rooms. I got a room with three single beds though I paid for a single ( for about 28 euros a day - I went in mid April 2010 ), was cleaned and beds made daily.
It's right next to the road, so bit noisy at night but me being the sort of person who can resume sleep in spite of being waken up a couple of times by the noise of screeching car tyres, revving engines or teenagers shouting, it was not a big problem. And they advertise wifi in the rooms, but the connection dos not work ( You do see the wirless network of the hotel in your computer but nothing comes through on the pipe ). But they do have internet in the lobby ( a euro for 30 minutes or so, I think ). Overall, good value for money. Convenient bus stops next to the hotel for Valletta, Mdina, Sliema.Breakfast included in the price, standard continental fare.

Responding to your customers and growing your business: Musings from Malta

12/April/2010: Are the fundamental challenges faced by growing businesses the same everywhere, regardless of what line are you into? Today's experience makes me think in the affirmative. I was up at 7am, still weary from the previous day's activities - walking tour of a section of the Sleima promenade, a mile walk from the busstop to the Traxien temples and back and a steep climb, down a hill from the busstop to the boats for the Blue Grotto and the return hike. Something to look forward to today, my first ever scuba diving experience. I was supposed to be picked up by Daryl, who part owns the family run business of Aquatica, at 8.45am from the hotel reception. I made some allowances for the relaxed way of the Maltese people(or so I thought) and was surprised when I got a call at 8.44am from the recption about Daryl's arrival. And soon we were off in his pickup van. He made a stop at Radisson on the way, and was disappointed that the people who booked left a message at the reception saying they were cancelling due to sickness. He did not hide his disappointment of not being notified in advance but when asked his reaction was simple - There are things out of your control, deal with it as best as you can and maintain your cheer. Nice one, I thought!

Once we reached the centre in St. Paul's Bay, I was off in no time, as Laurent, my instructor for the morning was waiting with all the kit. Due to the two no shows,I got 1-1 attention from my instructor, which I thought was great.Notable was that fact that the half day's session would not have covered their costs as a business due to the two no shows(I was the only customer for the day, April being too early in the season), but they did not let any of that affect the service delivery.Okay, nothing out of the ordinary I thought. But I had a rethink on my way back, when Daryl explained his attitude to dealing with day to day business.When asked if he gets to dive often, the reply he gave was interesting. He started off doing all things himself, but as the business was progressing, he had to divert his attention to other areas like mangaing the customer facing side ( I send them two emails and was pleased to receive replies in 24 hours with all information that I had asked for and a text message a day in advance when they had to delay the pickup by 45 mins ) and logistics etc. All challenges faced by any growing enterprise. They had an excellent instructor in Laurent and good kit but they definitely added a lot of value to what I paid for by giving me the right information at the right time, assauging my fears and anxieties ( and excitement ) about my first diving trip. And doing that, without fail on an every day basis without letting your performance standards slip due to various pressures ( like the no shows ) is not ordinary. So I stand corrected on my ideas on the challenges in consistent service delivery.

Daryl's views on competition and where his business fits in to the globalised world was equally enlightened. I asked him about the different websites ( one was about snorkelling which I hit through the search engine while searching for exactly that and one focused on scuba diving - both with different dns names, not microsites ), he said there was some history to it and has been promoting the latter as the most visible front end to the business, but let the old ones live on (as specialist sites, perhaps an unintended but benign consequence ). What an effective way to market to niche audiences, I thought . The websites are of good standard in terms of their information content.Daryl said it is a difficult act balancing the customer expectations against what you can reasonably commit to deliver, but thay seemed to have got the challenge right, putting their words into action in all aspects of service delivery. When I think of all the websites I looked at on companies offering dives, I thought the Aquatica one had all the information I wanted but also felt reassured enough to "risk my life" in the hands of the people behind it.Maybe it was the references from other customers on their site which reassured me, maybe the timely and to the fact responses by emails/text messages, not just the vanilla information.I asked them in an email if I can see some fish, can they offer the lesson in the Blue Grotto etc. And the response was "You should be able to see some fish, the price includes an open water dive in the sea". And the reply from the other company was, "Once you do the session, you can go diving anywhere you like".And what difference that makes to the person at the receiving end!And when I told him I did computer software related work for one of the major IP providers for chip designers, that got him all excited. He was all for Malta being a part of the EU, he could clearly see the benefits that it brings in including investments in IT. There may be more competition in all areas including diving businesses but only the best survive and that's good for evryone, he thought. And needless to say, being in the EU makes travel and business much more easier, he could see that bringing in more customers.Here was a business that was clearly plugged in to the global economy,playing its part in the value chain.I came back from the trip with much more than diving lessons.