Mombasa - Under the Sea
After traveling across the rest of Kenya, Mombasa was the much looked forward to destination. We had big plans of just unwinding by the sea, soaking in the sun and eating delicious seafood. While Mombasa turned out to be every bit the excitement we had anticipated, it wasn’t exactly as planned. For one, it was rainy and not sunny. But read on to find out how even the rain couldn’t put a damper on our holiday.
Mombasa is the second largest city in Kenya and is well connected to all other parts of Kenya and Africa by air. We traveled to Mombasa by air – we took a flight from Jomo Kenyata International Airport in Nairobi to Moi International airport in Mombasa. Flying time was a little over an hour and we flew Kenyan Airways. While the journey between Nairobi and Mombasa can also be traversed by train, the Kenyan railway network is less reliable than expected, which was the feedback given to us by an Indian family in Mombasa.
Most people expect to be traveling within a country on national highways and expressways, however this is not really the case in Kenya. The roads are not freely motorable at all points and so the drive between Nairobi and Mombasa can take up to 8 hours. It is not really advisable to travel by this route.
As is characteristic of any coastal region, climate in Mombasa is tropical – there are hardly any variations in day and night temperatures and for that matter hardly any variations in month on month temperatures either. Average temperature throughout the year is around 28 – 29 degrees. The monsoon season in Mombasa is in the months of April and May, while as we experienced, there can be rain showers in August as well.
We arrived in Mombasa around 4 in the afternoon and there at the Moi International Airport was a Minibus waiting to take us to our hotel. The airport, neatly lined with palm trees and statues of dolphins leaves no doubt that you have just landed in a coastal haven. Our stay had been booked at the Sarova White Sands. The Sarova group is owned and run by an Indian family and is hugely popular in all of Kenya. Enroute to our hotel (a one hour bus ride), we probably saw all of Mombasa. The airport is a fair distance away from the main city and the ride to the hotel almost felt like a mini tour.
















Mombasa being such a big and multi cultural city, there are various kinds of foods available here. The hotel of course served up lavish 3 course meals which consisted of Kenyan, Indian and Arabic dishes. So yes, there was goat liver, ox tongue, cows hooves and other animal organs that I am not usually drawn to. Given that there is a large Indian population in Mombasa, they even served Pav Bhaji for breakfast one day. Dal and Rice are easily available even in the city. In the city, there are many small street food sellers that sell Muslim style kababs. We didn’t try them but they looked delicious. A delicacy on the beaches are these fried chips made of tapioca which these little vendors sell. These are hugely popular among Indians and locals.
As mentioned earlier, there are many curio shops in Old town Mombasa where you can buy beautiful items much cheaper than when hawkers sell them on the beach. Leather crafted bags are all over the markets and bargaining is possible to a certain extent. However, one warning, when they tell you its elephant tusk, its not, and when they tell you its ebony wood, it most likely isn’t, and when they tell you its pure leather, I wouldn’t be so sure of that either. So go ahead and buy whatever you like if you feel its worth the price you’re paying for it.

Lovely stand alone curio shop
While an individual trip to Mombasa would work out quite expensive, there are package tours covering the whole of Kenya which would not cost more than Rs 1 lakh per person for a period of 10 days (inclusive of airfare, hotels, meals and transport). However, beautiful beach side hotels in Mombasa are quite affordable and those wanting to have a week long beach holiday could spend a few days in Mombasa and then take a boat trip to the Zanzibar island off the coast of Tanzania.

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