5th/6th November- Sleeper train and Mombasa.
(exchange rate: 140ksh to the pound)
We succeeded in making it to the station without being mugged or run over- quite an achievement as all the buses and matatus(minibuses) just pull out when they feel like it as the drivers are all chewing miraa(drug) while they drive! We hit the jackpot because the train was quite empty and that meant that we could share a compartment meant for four people. Its 2100 for a sleeping berth in a four bunk cabin in second class or 3000ksh for one in a two-berth first class one. The annoying part is that if you don't go in first class they segregate you and make the compartments all male or all female. However, I have a particularly tight hold on the purse strings and refused to pay the extra 50% and it actually worked out better because it was quiet and we ended up with a bigger cabin all to ourselves than if wed paid more! We also managed to grab the first sitting for dinner which is good as the later one isn�ft until 9pm and the foods not so good or so I'm told. The train itself and in particular the dining car is one of the last remaining reminders of British colonialism. Its really cool and more luxury than we've been getting used to! The staff all wear formal white suits and must have trained for years to manage to serve food and drink without staining their clothes. It did seem quite expensive compared to the buses which are 700ksh but it really turned out to be well worth it and definitely one of the must-dos if you come to Kenya. Dinner made it worth it too- five courses and coffee! I don't know what I expected but the white table cloths, crockery and silver cutlery wasn't it! Definitely better than eating on the plane and more food than weve had any other day! They make the beds with sheets and blankets while youre eating and its surprisingly comfortable. That's not to say it's the smoothest ride Ive ever been on- more like trying to drink a cup of tea while going over speed bumps at high speed , but having since experienced the buses and the potholes the size of a small country, you cant really complain. I did freak for a while when the first to choo (loos) I looked in were literally holes in the floor leading right onto the track! But I luckily did managed to find an actual seated toilet hidden at the other end which was a great relief as girls don�ft find it easy to squat when standing still let alone while bumping and jolting along in a train (sorry to be so graphic!)
Anyway it wasn't bad- we stopped a lot for no apparent reason and the train had the remarkable ability to jolt suddenly even when it was stopped, and getting up for our 630 am breakfast wasn't much fun but meant that we could actually see out the windows as it was dark when we left. All the children in the shanty towns come and stand by the tracks and wave at the train and shout mzungu- white person- at you!
With even worse timekeeping skills than FlyBe, we finally arrived way after ten am- having left at 7. At which point we did wonder why exactly wed had to get up for breakfast at the crack of dawn! But the lonely planet helpfully states that it arrives at some point between 8am and 11am so it could have been worse.
When we finally arrived in Mombasa the skies opened in what would probably fit in best in monsoon season. We were drenched before we stepped out of the station and then just gave up and continued to get soaked to the skin since the damage was already done! In ten minutes the water on the floor was up past your ankles and I started hoping my aqua-shoes really did what they said on the tin! I think the drains must be useless as it takes days to drain away a 30 min rainstorm. At that point I bought an umbrella but of course sods law meant that the sun came out and it hasn't rained since! Im now hoping I can exchange it for something with one of the street sellers as Im told you should never just throw anything away, but it was only 200ksh to start with so it really wasn't worth me lugging it around the coast for two weeks except it seemed to work as a lucky charm to stop it raining.
Since we were absolutely drenched we decided we would be better off on the beach than in the city as its so hot the rain is actually nice on your skin, so we walked until marks feet were blistered in his wet sandals and got the ferry south. We successfully haggled a taxi down from 1000 to 800 to take us to Tiwi beach where we discovered that my passport was soaked throughout, all our money was soggy and the cheap digital watch my mum bought mark really wasn't waterproof, but hey, you live and learn and our passports are now traveling around wrapped in plastic- I just hope they let me use it when we get to Joburg and I'm really glad I only had one visa so there wasn't more ink to run!
Jenny, 19/11/04
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