enter Jamaica through the Donald Sangster airport

Montego Bay defies description: posh resort, package tour playground, market town, commercial centre, seaport, slum, second city, capital of the west - its disparate elements co-exist without blending.The result is an atmosphere of schizophrenic energy. Almost all tourists enter Jamaica through the Donald Sangster airport but Montego Bay has long outgrown the label "tourist town". It is sometimes referred to as "the Republic" a nickname dating back to the last century when independent local landowners criticized the government for neglecting the western parishes. That situation still exists and true Montegonians, born in the bay and known as "Bawn a bays" sometimes still threaten, only half in jest, to secede from the rest of the island.