We were definitely in need of a break and with Rachel’s birthday it made for a good reason to go on holiday.  Being December it was a choice of a few places in the world to go to that had some sunshine.  So with ONLY a time difference of 3hrs we chose Kenya.  With mad last minute prep to get Christmas plans together before we went, we got the train to Manchester for our evening flight.

We landed in the heat which was nice, but it was raining.  Not what the plane load of Brits wanted.  After finally getting through customs where they wouldn’t accept their own Kenyan Shillings currency (USD $ or UK £ only) we all got on the coaches.  The weather was short lived though as when we crossed over the estuary towards the coast we hit the sunshine then arrived at our hotel called Travellers Beach on Mombassa's northern coastline. 

We had read lots of good reports on the ‘Trip Advisor’ website about the hotel and were pleased that they where all true from the first pass with a great set-up, very clean and extremely friendly staff.  So after a quick unpack we had some lunch then went out for a walk about around the resort before melting by the pool in the sun.

At the welcome meeting (first package tour for years) we learnt a few other things about Kenya and what other ways we could spend our money on various trip etc…  Would you believe it’s illegal to sunbathe on the beach and there aren’t any private beaches in Kenya at all?  After dinner we sampled the all-inclusive bar.

You would think with not much sleep on a night flight the night before we would have slept real easy, but NO, this in turn made it real hard to get up early.  So when we finally stirred at 9am (6am UK time) we grabbed a late breakfast and had noticed the stereotypical Germans and Brits all very territorial had laid their towels out but weren’t laying on them.  It was funny seeing the same faces on the same beds all week when we didn’t mind different views.

No PC or phone in sight we spent most of the time relaxing lying by the pool, then in the pool cooling off and generally melting in the hot sun.  We took part in a bit of water aerobics with the Germans, made the most of the long sunny days by running along the beach when the sun was at it’s coolest, eating lots of great food, drinking and watching various evening entertainment.

We even bartered with the beach boys for souvenirs and traded a couple of times with socks and an old t-shirt.  Yes socks!  By all accounts their socks are of a poor quality and they like to wear them to church.  It was funny to see a beach boy in one of the green ASDA t-shirts.  What could you trade for that!

To celebrate Rachel’s birthday we took an evening dinner cruise on a Dhow boat.  A very romantic night!  With seats on the ‘lovers deck’ at the top under the stars, out in the Indian ocean with superb BBQ seafood and a cool band playing great tunes.  It sure was a moment, so that was the night I proposed…  Good job or about time too seeing as we had the wedding booked for May ‘07’.

Coming to Kenya wouldn’t be complete without seeing the animals on safari.  As we had done a safari the year before in South Africa and not wanting to break into our relaxing to much we opted for a day trip to the Tsavo east game park.  We were picked up at 5am in the morning and arrived at the park for 8am.  It probably wasn’t that far away, it was just the roads.  They are well and truly broken, never seen so many pot holes.  The off road tracks in the game park were smoother.  After a morning scanning the landscape we had some lunch in one of the local towns then back into the park for the afternoon.  We saw a variety of animals but not the usual amount as a couple of days prior they had seen lots of rain so the usual watering holes had other competing water holes for the animals to drink out of.  With another bone shaking drive back we where well and truly battered when we got to our hotel… The drive either way showed just how poor the country is with lots of poverty.

Overall Kenya certainly is a great place to come to with the people being really friendly and there isn’t the atmosphere of the ‘white’/’black’ thing like in South Africa.  It also went to prove that the biggest smiles do seem to come from the poorest people in the world!