Trainspotting

So after our very relaxing train journey from Mombasa we arrived nice and early back in Nairobi. I wanted to check out the train museum before trying to organise the next phase of the trip, as it's only a short walk from where the our train pulled in. Mind you, I had to put up with Negator (my latest cute petname for Sarah - those who know me best will be able to work it out) complaining about having 'absolutely NO interest in going to a bloody boring train museum', but in the end it was actually a gem of a place (as the Lonely Planet correctly described it), and she really enjoyed it in the end (hint: negative people really annoy me!).

Turns out the entire history of Kenyan is very closely tied in to the construction of the railway from Mombasa via Nairobi to Kampala, and the very friendly curator did a great job of explaining it all to us. He also took great pride in showing us the museum's pride and joy - the actual claws of the famous man-eating Lions of Tsavo who reportedly killed 140 railway workers before finally being shot (the rest of the lions are stuffed and are in a private museum in Chicago and the Kenyan government is trying to get them repatriated apparently - good luck to them I say (and the Egyptians trying to repatriate loads of national treasures from the English tomb-robbers)). The claws were stolen years ago, but the thief was caught trying to sell them for $5M, and they're now safely locked away, only to be shown to 'special' visitors. But then he just left us with them ('cos we're 'special' or course) and wondered off for ages - very high security.

They also had a mad railway bicycle contraption which never really worked, but suitably demonstrated the eccentric nature of the people involved in building such a crazy railway. You could also climb all over the ancient old engines they used to have - no glass cases here or roped-off sections, it was all very hands-on. Lots of cool photos of English royality lording it about back in the day too, all very atmospheric I thought.

So after our 'not at all boring' few hours at the museum, we headed to the airline office and discovered that flights to Kampala in Uganda were all booked up, so that only really left the overnight bus option. So after running around for a bit organising tickets I had a relaxing few hours before the nightmare bus journey began.

It's a bit weird traveling again (proper, long-term traveling I mean) - even though I've done loads of long distance overnight bus journeys in the past, the prospect of this one, our first on this trip, was still a bit daunting. I remember feeling exactly the same way 8 years ago too (i.e. worrying because we'd be crossing our first border, with all the attendant niggly worries about immigration, visas, money changing issues, etc.), so I suppose 'The Machine' has been successfully nibbling away at all the experience built up on the last trip and managed to instill a fresh dose of 'fear' back into me. But of course, everything went without a hint of a hitch, as they always do really.

We even had the added bonus of not having to pay anything for our visas, seeing as how Irish people are exempt - probably due to the Irish missionaries or Roy Keane (all the lads over here know Keano) or something - the poor English have to pay double the visa fee of every other nationality in South Africa apparently, so it's all a bit arbitary really.

So I arrived in Kampala quite relieved that everything had gone so well (I even slept a bit on the bus), went straight to an ATM and got Ugandan cash out with no problem, and then celebrated by going straight to the best Indian restaurant in East Africa for a slap-up feed. The journey had been 17 hours and we arrived at around lunch-time, so a reward was certainly well earned, and Haandi restaurant in central Kampala certainly lived up to it's reputation.

So now, once fed, we had to work out what Uganda was all about and why on earth we'd bothered to come here...