I hate the man who lives underneath my bedroom. I really hate him. He bangs on the ceiling with something very heavy whenever he thinks I am walking too heavily across my bedroom. I have taken to sliding across the floor instead, fearing his wrath. Saturday morning came and I was in bed when I… Read More »
I had been to Chongming before but never made it to the wetland park. It promised to be the first warm weekend of the spring and so I blocked out all of Sunday for the expedition. Thanks to the workmen in the flat underneath my bedroom I was up early and having breakfasted, I grabbed… Read More »
I take the bus most days and there is something I have noticed. Whenever passengers push on (they always push on, no matter how many free seats there are), they sit on a double seat but instead of sitting by the window they sit by the aisle. This means that anyone else who comes on… Read More »
I had the day free and wanted to do some exploring of the area around the outskirts of Kampala. Lake Victoria is a big drwa and I couldn’t go to Kampala and not visit the lake. I was told that it was too far to go on a Boda Boda and that a taxi would… Read More »
I love crossing a border overland, to physically walk across a bridge or a river and so I was looking forward to seeing what it was like at the Uganda Rwanda border. The Jaguar bus stopped an hour or so after leaving Kibale and we were told to get off. The diver shouted ‘border!’ and… Read More »
The memory of the long bus journey form Nairobi to Kampala was fresh in my mind and I didn’t fancy another marathon trip to Kigali in Rwanda. I looked at the map and saw a place called Kabale which appeared to be near a lake. I thought that it would make a nice stopping off… Read More »
There is only really one way to move around the cities of East Africa and that’s by Boda Boda (Uganda and Kenya) and Moto (Rwanda). They are not a very safe way to get from A to B but the traffic is so bad that a traditional taxi takes too long. So everyone uses these… Read More »
I had a few days to spare while in Kigali and decided that Ruhengeri would be a good choice for a short trip – only a couple of hours away on the bus. I had done far too much bus travel in East Africa in recent days so didn’t want another long cramped journey. There… Read More »
I was in two minds whether to risk the journey up north from Nairobi. I had a wobble after the Al Shabab attacks on tourists the week before I arrived and the reports of bandit attacks in the north. My friend had reassured me that there were numerous police roads blocks as far as Isiolo… Read More »
It had been 35 years since I saw my old Kenyan friend. In 1983 we spent 4 weeks together in the area around Lake Turkana, Matthews Range, South Horr, Mount Kulau, Ilaut, Maralal and Loyangalani to name a few places. We walked with camels and ran out of water. We got attacked by lions, we… Read More »