We drove from Diani to to Mombasa and on to Kilifi today. Before we drove out, our Airbnb host turned up, freshly arrived from Christmas with her family in Austria. She seemed very pleasant and talkative, gave some recommendations for Kilifi, and I took the opportunity to suggest a daily emptying of the rubbish. A very comfortable place, Diani, despite all the slightly dodge people.
We drove first to Mombasa, where we parked next to Fort Jesus. Our driver insisted we had to take a guide so, rather unwillingly, we did. It turned out to be ok, he was not too annoying, and told us a couple of interesting things and had strong views on how pretty much every invader – Omani, Portuguese, British – treated the local population quite poorly. It was an interesting contrast to the Oman-sponsored shrine to the Sultan of Oman, which described a very different relationship.
We walked a bit through the old town, which was like a smaller, cleaner version of Stone Town, and then made our way to sample a Friday speciality from Mombasa, the local biryani washed down with tamarind juice. It was quite nice – as with a tikka a week or so ago, I had to first excise Pakistani assumptions of what a biryani is, and what emerged was some colourful rice with quite a tasty, sour curry on top. Glad to have tried it. For various reasons, I have not been able to try much local food.
We spotted a discreet little transaction going on behind a vehicle, the security guard buying something herbal from a young man. This I was told, was qat, which was very interesting and something I would like to try.
We continued from Mombasa and stopped at a cafe along the way. It was in one of the most miserable malls I have ever seen, and the cafe was one of those very aspirational types. Reasonable cakes, poor coffee; I don’t know why I even bother seeing as I’m not even that fond of coffee, and know perfectly well that this is only a slightly better country for coffee than Pakistan. The cafe itself was filled with people who looked like arms dealers of various ethnicities, and had a particularly striking collection of old, fat white men accompanied by very stylish very young black women. There was plenty of that in Diani, but here it appeared significantly more transactional. However my favourite fellow cafe patron was a Chinese gentleman seemingly dressed in luxurious grey satin pyjamas. Seeing the international clientele, we also went to the mall’s supermarket to stock up on a few bits, milk, pasta etc. as the shops seemed likely to be quite distant (this was indeed the case).
And on we went. A very long drive, with sisal plantations towards the end, with the odd baobab tree towering overhead. And a patch where there were scores of people walking along the road and it took me a few moments to realise they were factory workers going home.
Kilifi can wait till tomorrow. Suffice it to say, the place we are staying is rather a long way up a dirt road, in a place which seems blessedly far from others.