Kenya Dig It?
July 1, 2009
I left London's Heathrow Terminal 5 today; what poor planning! When constructing a new terminal, why on earth would you make it so that you have to take a train to your gate? Haven't the British heard of moving walkways? The reason I think it's a bad idea is that if you're a first-timer in Terminal 5 (I am not) you could wander around endlessly in the shopping areas and then realize "OOOPS! My flight boards in 20 minutes and I have a 15 or 20 minute train ride to Concourse B!". This piss poor signage does not make it clear that there are two concourses (for now). It just kills me that 4.3bn pounds were poured into this terminal and that it suffers from such basic flaws. Oh well. At least I got an upgrade to business class! Thanks BA!
So there I was minding my own business in British Airways business class waiting for boarding to finish when someone whacks my magazine from me. WTF? Holy cow it's my buddy Richard Onyango (AKA the Ugandan Ninja)! He's also going to TC & Jen's wedding, but how random that he's on my flight? Either way he got the impression that I'm some sort of high roller since I'm in business class but I quickly cleared the air that I'm still a lowly runt who just happened to be upgraded. We promised to catch-up once we landed in Nairobi for our connection to Mombasa.
After a pretty uneventful flight, we landed in Nairobi at which point when I reached the immigration desk the clerk flips through my passport and says "Sir you have no empty pages for the visa". I unfortunately didn't realize that you needed an entire empty page for an entry visa in Kenya, but so be it. After MUCH haggling I think I pestered him enough that he finally just pasted the visa onto the "information" page in my passport. Thank you for NOT sending me back my friend.
I met up with Richard at baggage claim and guess what? He wasn't booked on my connecting flight to Mombasa; he was booked on the next day but his plan was to hang out at a roach motel for the night and catch the early morning flight to Mombasa. Nonsense. He decided he'd try and get on my flight.
As I rushed over to the domestic departure terminal, which requires one to actually exit the international terminal and go outside, a gentleman approached me and said "domestic terminal sir?" I did my best NYC "you don't exist" move and kept on walking. Persistent as always, he walked by me and pointed me to the domestic terminal. It was about 100 meters away so it's REALLY REALLY TOUGH to miss. When I was about 50 meters from the door he's like "Glad I could help you Sir. Tip?"
I'm sorry what? TIP??? Are you kidding me? It's not like I gave him my bags to carry or anything. He just walked alongside me. Ridiculous. But once again the NYC skillz came to good use and I just walked right into the domestic terminal. I checked in and made sure there were extra seats on the Kenya Airways flight and I texted Richard to high-tail it over to the domestic terminal to buy his ticket.
I was hanging out in the gate area when I ran into some friends of Jen and TC's whom I recognized from a party. Richard eventually made it in one piece to the gate but he lost his ATM card. Well to be more accurate, he left it in the ATM 'cause he forgot to wait for it to be spit out of the machine. Unlike most ATMs in the U.S. it's not just a swipe or dip; in Kenya it's the old school "insert card and you'll maybe get it back after you get your cash".
We embarked on the Kenya Airways flight where right in front of there were a pair of girls who were at the Teachers College @ Columbia University. How did I find out? I was wearing my Columbia hat and of course that begs the question "Hey did you go to Columbia?". One of these days I'm not going to be my polite self and I'll say "No honey, I went to Devry but I wished I went to Columbia." I mean seriously. Do you think I'm wearing the hat because I didn't go there? I have Columbia-envy? Is that it? Anyway, I chatted for a bit with these two ladies but no sparks flew. I was travel-weary and wished them well on their journey.
After about an hour we landed in Mombasa. Richard and I sought out our driver (Stephen) who picked up our group of 7. It threw him for a loop that Richard was there since he wasn't scheduled as part of the arriving party, but he got over it. When Stephen was taking our names it was kinda funny. He read out
"Mohammed? Is there a Mohammed?"
I responded "Yes, but it's Mahmood" (Pronounced MAH-MOOD; look at that, it's phonetic!)
"Okaaaay.... So we have Mohammed?"
"Yes that's me, but it's Mahmood"
"Okay, you are Mahmood. So where is Mohammed?"
"No you don't understand. My name is Mahmood and what you are reading there is pronounced Mahmood, not Mohammed."
I still think to this day Stephen feels like he picked up the wrong person at the airport.
The drive to the Leopard Beach Resort at Diani Beach was long; we didn't expect it to take over an hour but it did. One of the more eventful parts of the journey was the ferry ride. So it's like a typical ferry ride; the cars drive on and then people clamber on (they get to go for free; cars have to pay). Eventually we disembarked for the other side of the river and it was SOOOOO abominably slow. It felt like we were adrift. At that point Richard relays a story from Stephen that a few weeks ago the ferry's engine stopped and the craft drifted out several miles to sea! Fingers crossed we did not share the same fate as those poor souls.
We finally arrived at the Leopard Beach Resort and WOW! What a gorgeous set-up. I was whisked to my "Chui Cottage". I dumped my bags, sought out Jen and TC. A few of us hung out for a few minutes and I returned to my gorgeous cottage to pass out after traveling for the whole day.
So there I was minding my own business in British Airways business class waiting for boarding to finish when someone whacks my magazine from me. WTF? Holy cow it's my buddy Richard Onyango (AKA the Ugandan Ninja)! He's also going to TC & Jen's wedding, but how random that he's on my flight? Either way he got the impression that I'm some sort of high roller since I'm in business class but I quickly cleared the air that I'm still a lowly runt who just happened to be upgraded. We promised to catch-up once we landed in Nairobi for our connection to Mombasa.
After a pretty uneventful flight, we landed in Nairobi at which point when I reached the immigration desk the clerk flips through my passport and says "Sir you have no empty pages for the visa". I unfortunately didn't realize that you needed an entire empty page for an entry visa in Kenya, but so be it. After MUCH haggling I think I pestered him enough that he finally just pasted the visa onto the "information" page in my passport. Thank you for NOT sending me back my friend.
I met up with Richard at baggage claim and guess what? He wasn't booked on my connecting flight to Mombasa; he was booked on the next day but his plan was to hang out at a roach motel for the night and catch the early morning flight to Mombasa. Nonsense. He decided he'd try and get on my flight.
As I rushed over to the domestic departure terminal, which requires one to actually exit the international terminal and go outside, a gentleman approached me and said "domestic terminal sir?" I did my best NYC "you don't exist" move and kept on walking. Persistent as always, he walked by me and pointed me to the domestic terminal. It was about 100 meters away so it's REALLY REALLY TOUGH to miss. When I was about 50 meters from the door he's like "Glad I could help you Sir. Tip?"
I'm sorry what? TIP??? Are you kidding me? It's not like I gave him my bags to carry or anything. He just walked alongside me. Ridiculous. But once again the NYC skillz came to good use and I just walked right into the domestic terminal. I checked in and made sure there were extra seats on the Kenya Airways flight and I texted Richard to high-tail it over to the domestic terminal to buy his ticket.
I was hanging out in the gate area when I ran into some friends of Jen and TC's whom I recognized from a party. Richard eventually made it in one piece to the gate but he lost his ATM card. Well to be more accurate, he left it in the ATM 'cause he forgot to wait for it to be spit out of the machine. Unlike most ATMs in the U.S. it's not just a swipe or dip; in Kenya it's the old school "insert card and you'll maybe get it back after you get your cash".
We embarked on the Kenya Airways flight where right in front of there were a pair of girls who were at the Teachers College @ Columbia University. How did I find out? I was wearing my Columbia hat and of course that begs the question "Hey did you go to Columbia?". One of these days I'm not going to be my polite self and I'll say "No honey, I went to Devry but I wished I went to Columbia." I mean seriously. Do you think I'm wearing the hat because I didn't go there? I have Columbia-envy? Is that it? Anyway, I chatted for a bit with these two ladies but no sparks flew. I was travel-weary and wished them well on their journey.
After about an hour we landed in Mombasa. Richard and I sought out our driver (Stephen) who picked up our group of 7. It threw him for a loop that Richard was there since he wasn't scheduled as part of the arriving party, but he got over it. When Stephen was taking our names it was kinda funny. He read out
"Mohammed? Is there a Mohammed?"
I responded "Yes, but it's Mahmood" (Pronounced MAH-MOOD; look at that, it's phonetic!)
"Okaaaay.... So we have Mohammed?"
"Yes that's me, but it's Mahmood"
"Okay, you are Mahmood. So where is Mohammed?"
"No you don't understand. My name is Mahmood and what you are reading there is pronounced Mahmood, not Mohammed."
I still think to this day Stephen feels like he picked up the wrong person at the airport.
The drive to the Leopard Beach Resort at Diani Beach was long; we didn't expect it to take over an hour but it did. One of the more eventful parts of the journey was the ferry ride. So it's like a typical ferry ride; the cars drive on and then people clamber on (they get to go for free; cars have to pay). Eventually we disembarked for the other side of the river and it was SOOOOO abominably slow. It felt like we were adrift. At that point Richard relays a story from Stephen that a few weeks ago the ferry's engine stopped and the craft drifted out several miles to sea! Fingers crossed we did not share the same fate as those poor souls.
We finally arrived at the Leopard Beach Resort and WOW! What a gorgeous set-up. I was whisked to my "Chui Cottage". I dumped my bags, sought out Jen and TC. A few of us hung out for a few minutes and I returned to my gorgeous cottage to pass out after traveling for the whole day.
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I spent 5 nights at the Leopard Beach Resort in a Chui Cottage. The Chui Cottages have views of the water and have a back-yard of sorts to relax in. Very well air-conditioned and super clean. The staff was very courteous. My only minor complaint was that checking out took forever!
