Name: Entering The World's Strangest Country
Uploaded: 2026-03-13T07:54:57.000Z
Duration: 24 min 5 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of degree

Imagine a country where the Internet barely works, ATMs don't exist, and

the government controls nearly every aspect of daily life.

Welcome to Eritrea, off the east coast of Africa.

Perhaps the weirdest country I've ever visited.

Over the next four days, I'll be alone and completely off the grid, meeting locals who speak fluent Italian, tasting some of the world's best coffee.

He's drinking water from his tongue and partying at a tribal wedding in a remote vill village.

This is what life looks like in a nation that is cut off from the rest of the world.

And I run into my first problem as soon as I land at the airport.

This is officially the slowest visa process in the world.

Apparently the printer is broken, but why don't they just get another printer or have a backup plan?

So two and a half hours later, still no visa.

So they gave me a temporary pass which allows me to enter the country until tomorrow morning.

And then I gotta come back to the airport and get my full visa.

Eritrea was an Italian colony and they definitely brought their coffee here.

Not to mention, the original coffee comes from Ethiopia, a neighboring nation.

So when you put the two and two together, might be the best coffee country in the world.

This is the absolute best cup of coffee I've had in my entire life.

Most people have never heard of Eritrea because so few tours are allowed inside.

The authoritarian government tightly controls access and requires detailed visa approvals that are often delayed or denied without explanation.

All travelers face surveillance and a need for special permits to leave the capital.

It's no surprise that many people refer to this nation as the North Korea of Africa.

There's no freedom of speech, no free press, no social media, and military service can last a lifetime.

Yet somehow Italian culture still lingers from the colonial period.

They didn't just bring gelato and architecture, they also brought their religion.

It's Sunday morning, so I've made it to a mass here.

Eritrea is predominantly a Christian country.

Everyone's kind of sitting outside praying.

It's crazy to think how popular Christianity is here.

When you think about Eritrea being surrounded by Muslim countries.

Super fascinating going inside the church here.

Really cool how they wear these White outfits that cover their bodies, both the men and the women.

What do you enjoy about your country, your culture?

The culture in here, in Eritrea is integrated between the nine ethnic groups.

It's the most peaceful place, as you can see.

You're from here, but you now live in the US for many decades, right?

For me, it's like, you know, I call it a time for declensing from the social media.

And I don't look at it like a shortcoming.

To get wifi in Eritrea is like going back to the 90s.

You walk inside an Internet cafe, pay two bucks, and get a scratch card with a password.

The connection is so slow that it takes minutes to send one email.

This is one of the many ways it shows how Eritrea is truly stuck in the past.

Even if you want to take out a mortgage in Eritrea, you can't.

That means there's no credit cards, there's no bank transfers, there's no money apps.

You have to use code cold hard cash to pay for everything.

But before we go anywhere, my driver hands me my passport and visa that he picked up from the airport.

Now we are on our way to this retro bowling alley and sports complex where all the locals hang out.

And it feels like stepping into a time machine to the 1950s.

You have people playing billiards and bowling.

You have these old pictures on the walls of like, these old Italian men.

We're in bowling competitions here with Eritrean men.

So there's nothing digital or electronic in this entire building.

When the pins go down, there's a little kid back there that puts the pin back in the spot.

This bowling alley and sports recreation center is one of the best parts about Eritrea.

You feel like you're living five decades ago.

So these guys are from Rashada tribe, the smallest tribe in Eritrea.

I'm now entering the back of the bowling alley, which is the coolest part here, where the kids are manually putting up the pins and sending the balls back.

Here's a graveyard of all the balls that are broken.

I'm now sitting with my legs up while somebody bowls.

So I don't get my legs taken out, man, I'm gonna lose my fingers, bro.