KENYA - Nairobi/Mombasa (2008)

Mombasa: 25.04.2008

Woke from a dreamless sleep at 8.00 am. This is the room was on the ground floor. Light was filtering in through the lace (yes, lace) curtains. Moreover, the bed had a stylish mosquito-net running on rails all around. I was enjoying the ephemeral atmosphere lying in bed wiggling my toes and feeling quite the heroine in a Jane Austen novel!
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The hotel White Sands is actually a resort, quite spread-out with all sorts of facilities. I could not get to see the beach till evening, when it was high tide and shrunken to a 20 metre strip, but it seemed to me that while the Seychelles stay was good in ‘beach’ while plain in ‘hotel’, the Mombasa stay will be good in ‘hotel’ and okay in ‘beach’.
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.Mombasa has a population of 1.2 million, a figure that has quadrapled in the last 5 years. While this makes our dealers happy, this no longer supports the existence of a sleepy laid back town, close to the backdrop of the famous ‘Man-eaters of Tsavo’ by Jim Corbett. My last visit in September 2001 had left an impression of a dormant town. Quite bustling now, although crime rate is still nowhere near Nairobi.
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Kenya has just been through a difficult election in January, when President Kibuki was accused of having rigged the results. After much negotiation, the ruling party and the opposition have decided to split the ministerial seats 50-50! The street-fights and riots have stopped, although the common man is still trying to work out how it impacts him. They have a sneaking suspicion that an alternative scenarion would have worked out no better.
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We had a ‘little thali’ lunch at a Gujrati veg joint called Chetna Restaurant. The Indian cuisine was very nice, though slightly marred by the fact that the sambar was rather sweet.
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We returned to the hotel at 6.00 pm, changed to bermudas, took a walk along the beach and fixed up a boat-ride tomorrow afternoon (Saturday being a half-holiday) to the coral reefs. An evening drinking session sitting on garden chairs in front of a roaring sea and sighing junipers, below glittering stars, ended the day nicely. So lost were we in time, we could get only dessert as we had overshot the dinner hours!
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.Both during breakfast, as well as during dinner, we saw mainly Kenyans and Indian-origins — very few whites. This was unusual as Mombasa is a cheap getaway, popular to the European crowd. Sep to April being the tourist season, this place should have been plasterd with pale skin. The political disturbance and riots in the first three months of the year have indeed taken their toll on the tourism industry. Economically this will be a bad year for Kenya.
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The average Kenyan, apart from having a head for business, is well-educated and well-behaved and is quite the preferred employee in other African countries. I was surfing Kenyan TV channels (as they are in English) and found discussions, chat shows, reality shows, documentaries on artists, technical talk and what not. Even the boatmen on the beach speak very good English with proper accent!

Mombasa: 26.04.2008

A relaxing and entertaining day. This being a Saturday, all business closes by 2.00 pm, so we perforce had to return to the hotel after half a day’s work.

.Yesterday we had fixed up with a youngster to take us to the ‘Marine Park’ on the coral reef in a glass-bottom boat for the princely sum of 2500 shillings ($40). If it had been a good season, it would have cost twice that. We were supposed to buy tickets for entering this ‘park’, although we could not see any enclosed area anywhere!

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After the commissions had been settled down the value chain, we were invited to wade out to a boat anchored some 50 metres into the sea. We pushed through warm clear water, along sandy paths beaten out from the bed of dark seaweed that the ocean floor hereabouts seem to contain in abundance. We waited a few minutes for a Kenyan couple to join us, a fat lawyer from Nairobi with his heftier wife, and then we were off to the coral reef, visible as a line of breakers stretching parallel to the shore. Our lawyer friend James said although this coral reef makes the shoreward side calm, shallow and good for bathing, it also stops cargo ships, because of which the Mombasa port now lies beyond the stretch of the reef.......

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The floor of the boat had a couple of 4’x2’ glass windows through which right now we could see only seaweed. As we approached the reef, we could see a large number of floating white bouys defining a narrow channel, where a motorboat belonging to Kenyan Wildlife was parked, who collected the tickets and waved us on! The Marine Park is a large area just inside the coral reef, marked off by a string of white bouys. It is a natural preserve where even fishing is banned..

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Now when we looked through the glass windows on the floor, the sea was teeming with fish — round and flat, big and small, striped and plain, in shoals and alone. We could see some coral formations as well. The boat stopped mid-sea and the boatman offered snorkels, which we declined. Radha and James went down into the water for a swim with the fishes. There was another boat parked nearby from which some goras were doing scuba-diving.

.Our boat went a little closer to the reef and unloaded us onto a patch of muddy coral that is usually submerged in high tide but was exposed now, being low tide. I was thinking that it would be a fine pickle if someone became stranded on this strip and high tide started! We saw seaweed and ichens, sea spider and sea cucumber, as well as sea urchins in nooks and crannies of the reef body. Water was rippling over the whole mass, surprisingly warm. It gave us an impression of magically standing on water in the middle of the ocean.
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.On the 20 min ride back, we sat on the roof enjoying the colours of the sea, which were light and dark green within the reef (dark where seaweed was growing in shallow waters) and deep blue beyond the reef where it was deep sea. As a marker between the two, white wave crests breaking along a long line for miles. Beautiful!

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We waded back the last 50 metres again and promptly headed for a couple of Tusker beers, the award-winning Kenyan formula. The bar was a pool-side one and people were also sitting on submerged stools inside the pool, being served pinaccolada and what not.......

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After lunch we rested a while and spent an hour contemplating our reports. Then we sat on chairs facing the sea and relaxed from 6.00-7.00 pm, enjoying the breeze while the sunlight faded. The breeze in Mombasa was constant, unlike in Seychelles, and very sweet and invigorating. It was easy to just sit there and drop off to sleep. As our sitting continued to a Bacardi session, sleep also encrached very fast, so we hurriedly completed our dinner by 9.30 pm.

.Tomorrow we will leave the seaside and travel inland to Nairobi, where a lot of serious wheeling-dealing awaits us. In Mombasa, we met a few businessmen from Nairobi, who know some of our customers, so we will be having more talking points during our Nairobi visit.

Nairobi: 27.04.2008

This was the third time I was visiting this city — once earlier on tour and once with family.

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Our morning flight was delayed by 2 hours and we finally reached Holiday Inn at 2.30 pm. Seems to be quite an old hotel, a 2-storied structure with red-tiled roof and inn-looking finish, with a labyrinth of passages. Our rooms overlooked the small swimming pool and food would be served along the poolside, so it’s just a short walk down.

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Unlike in Russia, we had been doing quite well in the food department here. Breakfast spreads were good, sometimes ‘chana daal tarka’ found its way into the dinner menu and my last two meals had been Indonesian ‘Nesi Gerang’ (rice with barbecued chicken) and Thai rice with mutton curry, which satisfied my Asian palate quite adequately.

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We had a solid 2.5 hours of sleep after lunch and are expecting a customer to arrive and take us out for dinner.

.To my mind, Nairobi is still a scary city in terms of street-crime. It seems to have been beautified to some extent in the last few years and seems more like a capital now. The weather was rainy and chilly till yesterday but today it is clear and warm, perhaps a bit of Mombasa influence.

.Rajubhai picked us up at 8.00 pm and took us to the Gymkhana Club for a few drinks before dinner. He is a typical representative of the Gujrati business community here — third generation, hard-drinking, children settled in UK. Culture has remained the same. The men close shop at 5.00pm and hit the bar, going home for dinner. The ladies shop, go to the gym, drop and pick up kids from tuition and gossip. The Indian business community here is just 100,000 strong, said Rajubhai, but they control 90% of the trade. Gujratis have 50% of the cake.

.We went to an Indian restaurant called ‘Handi’, as the two of us were missing Indian cooking. Very good food indeed.

Nairobi: 28.04.2008

Today we had work in the Industrial Area and returned to the hotel at 6.00 pm. Lunch was on a customer, actually on his office-table, ordered up from an Indian restaurant downstairs. Paneer masala and black daal with chapati. Soothing.

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In all our meetings with customers, we came across a note of cautious hopefulness that political peace will prevail now with the coalition govt in place. Although the displaced and dispossessed in upcountry towns have not yet been taken care of fully, the political parties, basically tribal-based, will now get into the serious business of deciding who will loot which ministry, for loot they will for sure. Nobody seemed to mind, as long as there was peace on the streets. As per the businessmen, it would take 2-3 years for the loss of these 4 months to be recouped.

The sun had been hot, the streets dusty and we had been mostly walking around. All the traders, whether black or brown, were extremely hospitable and seemed uniformly offended that we could not give them company for lunch or dinner. The evening remained free for us to relax in. We bought some Tusker beer from a petrol pump and whiled away time sitting beside the pool. Dinner was at Pepper restaurant next door — rogan josh, dum aloo kashmiri and garlic naan, preceded by a split-soup. Very good cooking indeed and it cost only 1200 shillings ($20).

Nairobi: 29.04.2008

Today our work took us to another auto market called Kirinyaga Road. This was one of the scarier parts of Nairobi. When I had visited 6 years ago with Easwar, we had left our watches and purses with one customer and then scurried from shop to shop, not allowing the jobless loiterers realise that we did not belong, which would have set us up as prime suspects for mugging. Even visually the street had appeared dark and threatening. Today it seemed just like a busy street with lots of narrow by-lanes, but people seemed to be busy and not loitering. Kenyan ladies were also walking around, something unheard of earlier on this stretch. An improvement, no doubt.

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At lunch hour, on a customer’s advice, we hunted down a nearby Indian joint called ‘Sun Sweet’. There is precious little choice on Kirinyaga Road itself, although this place would have been voted just a couple of levels above starvation as a choice. The owner lady was sorting daal on one of the tables and a black cook was slicing white onions on another table. We were offered a package lunch of lassi, a plateful of various bhajis, sambhar, three types of sabjis, salad, salted chillies, chapati & rice, followed by a sweet. Sounds a nice spread, but everything, except the hot fresh chapatis, seemed to have been cooked with strange ingradients and spices. Perhaps the Kenyan cook had not adapted to the Indian recipes too well.

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We were taken for dinner by our oldest customer here to ‘Spice’ restaurant where we had a few beers and dinner.

Nairobi: 30.04.2008

Today’s work was also full-day with a similar set of customers. Luckily we had lunch in a small Sardarji-run Indian fast-food joint whose ‘thali’ was quite palatable.

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Today’s dinner was in the hands of the same customer as yesterday and he was determined to give us a ‘good’ evening, since tomorrow is a holiday (May Day). Radha was saying that knowing these chaps it would most likely get over only by 3.00 am! It was therefore with some trepidation that we allowed ourselves to be picked up around 8.00 pm and taken to the ‘Patel Club’, now renamed ‘Premier Club’ since the govt banned clubs promoted by communities. The place was packed with serious drinkers watching the end of an IPL match. We practically heard nothing but Gujrati for the next four hours! I had targetted four small beers as my quota but ended up having four small rums as well.

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Our host seemed to have emotional disputes with many friends and the only apology they would accept was ‘one round’ for him and his guests! In the end there were 7-8 of us in the club bar with discussions at tops of voices and gaalis galore. We went down for dinner at midnight (not too bad) and had paya, chicken saag and daal with chapatis. All very good. Our host wanted to start off on liquore rounds or some ‘night life’ after dinner but we firmly refused and were dropped back at the hotel feeling sleepy and grateful.

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Tomorrow we leave Nairobi in the afternoon and I would be reaching Muscat via Dubai day after early morning.

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SEYCHELLES - Mahe (2008)

Mahe: 22.4.2008

Muscat to Dubai to Seychelles was a 14 hour journey, including the 4.5 hour stopover at Dubai. Seychelles, a group of 173 islands, of which only 57 are inhabited, lies off the coast of Kenya, around 3 hours away from it as the jet flies. The flight from Dubai was over deserted sea, when suddenly, out of nowhere, we landed on a bigger speck called Mahe Island, the main landmass of Seychelles.

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We rode in on an airbus, all of 350 passenger capacity and full to the brim with gora tourists. A few Seychellois and we two ‘pore’ Indians were feeling throroughly minoritised. They were all looking forward to a few days of toe-wriggling in the sand. Some would stay for a week, some for a month. April to October is season time at Seychelles.

First thing that struck me about Seychelles was the greenery. Whenever we think of Seychelles, we usually thinK of sun and sand and a beautiful woman on the sand soaking up the sun. Perhaps selling sea-shells as well. But the place is absolutely verdant. There are hills with lots of trees and lakes between them. From the airport, which is on the eastern shore, we had to cross to our hotel on the western shore and the road took us across a small hill with mildly winding roads, with glimpses of houses on the mountainside, the sea below and islands in the distance. The ‘information’ girl at the airport was saying that tourists to Seychelles nowadays enjoy the hills as much as the beaches!
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Seychelles has a population of 85,000 inhabitants only. Victoria Town, which is the capital, has a town-centre that is hardly a kilometre long and is perhaps the only road with a divider! All other roads are single-track and fairly narrow, so much so that a Terios practically looks like a Prado on them! But we were really impressed with the cleanliness. Given the fact that here the climate encourages the locals to be mild, friendly and easygoing, the municipal authorities are doing their jobs well. However, public buses are few and far between and dependence on taxis quite high.

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The ride to our beachside hotel ‘Coral Islands’ took around 30 mins, which, by Seychelles standard is a long distance and cost us 200 Rupees ($25). It’s an oldish hotel, tourist-oriented, which meant that the rooms were small and functional and had no TV (you were supposed to be outside enjoying yourselves!). But it had a private beach and a swimming pool and that’s all the holiday-makers wanted. The hotel was full. We freshened up and rested for 1.5 hours before leaving for our first appointment at 11.00 am.......

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The son of our customer came to pick us up, in T-shirt and three-quarters, for an official meeting. I tell you, in full shirt and trousers, we were feeling like monks at a carnival! We saw his outlet, visited the boat pier where the ferries for the other islands leave from, and finally got dropped near the Clock Tower (city centre), where we dived into a restaurant for a spot of lunch. We had had breakfast at 3.30 am and so were spoiling for a fight!

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The place was, as expected, full of holiday-makers. The main industry as well as forex-earner for Seychelles is tourism, followed by export of fish (canned and raw). They import everything else. Last January, the Rupee was devalued by 43% against the Euro and prices of commodities have practically doubled. As per our customer who came for tea in the evening, an average Seychellois with a large family will have a very tough time making both ends meet. He himself has a bunglow nearby facing the sea where he lives with his girlfriend; they are DINK and so find it comfortable. Otherwise, the government is now selling islands to Arab sheikhs to get foreign exchange.......

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We spent the evening on my room balcony drinking Bacardi Rum, looking over the pool, the poolside restaurant and the rock band, and the sea at high tide — and realised that all the restaurants had closed. We were left with the wide choice of a tuna pizza vs a tuna burger as room service and we polished off a large tuna pizza with a lot of valour.

Mahe: 23.4.2008

Woke up at 7.30 am and went for a pre-breakfast swim. We walked along the beach for some distance before taking a dip. The sand was white and fine. There were hardly any brown grains. No sea shells, at least on this beach. The water was lovely, absolutely clear, low in salt and smooth at the surface, ideal for floating and snorkeling. We dried off standing around in the sun and Radha impressed the goras by doing a head-stand at the water’s edge. We then had a hearty breakfast and went for our morning meeting.

Our hotel is actually at the wrong coast compared to our main business area but it was one of the cheaper decent hotels (at $133 per day) and it took us only 20 mins to cross over anyway. Seychelles is about to go through an inflationary spiral and all rates will probably go up in the near future. Fuel prices have also risen from 6 Rupees to 15 Rupees per litre and THAT is going to cause some distress, for sure.

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Here people, though easygoing, are quite punctual. They do not have the laziness of the typical African, and do not like to consider themselves African for that matter. Apparently the Creole spoken here is quite different (and superior to) the Creole spoken in Mauritius, which is not too far away.......

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Our lunch was at the same cafe as yesterday, at town centre. Whereas today I had roast chicken, Radha repeated his plate of french fries. We followed this up with a stict at an internet cafe, sending off e-mails and reports, and returned to our hotel to await our pickup at 7.30 pm for a Creole dinner.

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I woke from a brief nap at 6.00 pm to find the sky overcast and the ground wet, the leaves dripping. A stiff wind was blowing droplets off the palm fronds in front of my balcony. It was very reminiscent of Indian rains. In Seychelles, such sudden showers happen throughout the year. Although April to September is the declared season time, winter is not at all cold. Now the tropical atmosphere is almost palpable, the air full of scents, the breeze sluggish — it all makes you feel like lying down on a deck chair and putting your feet up!

Our customer hosted the dinner at ‘Boat House’ near our hotel, famous for their Creole cuisine, with a variety of fish dishes. Surprisingly, there was a wide veg spread as well, including avocado and breadfruit. Fish dishes included dried fish ‘do-piyaza’, fish curry and tuna steak. Chicken additionally. We tasted the local beer as well and it was quite smooth.

Dinner here is an early affair and we wound up by 9.30 pm.

Mahe: 24.4.2008

Our last morning at Seychelles went quite well, starting with the pre-breakfast dip, as usual. The sea had more waves and swells today, and the temperature was cool enough to wake us up. We had a meeting at the hotel at 10.00 am and another one on the way to the airport.

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At the airport, we found that our flight was delayed first by one hour and then by another hour. When we told Kenyan Air officials that we’d miss our connecting flight to Mombasa, he smiled and said that the delay was on account of a group of Indians coming to Seychelles via Nairobi, who had gone missing at Nairobi airport. Bit of national guilt being dished out, I’d say. We did end up missing the connecting flight although we practically sat on the head of the Immigration Officer at Narobi to give us our visa quickly (Our visa application forms were the worse scribbles ever). The next flight was at 10.30 pm, 3.5 hours later.

.Weather during the last few hours at Seychelles had been sunny and sultry, which had cooled down around 2.00 pm after a heavy downpour. Nairobi, in contrast, was a pleasant 20 degC and Mombasa, when we finally landed, was at 25 degC. The White Sands hotel was a big resort-type one, located by the sea, although we were too tired to investigate. Since dinner was part of the tariff, we dozed through a couple of courses and hit the bed at 1.30 am.

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