Scrap the lunatic line - here's another of those visions

Now this is exciting, if it ever happens: Mombasa to Kampala in ten hours. It's part of Kenya Railways Vision 2050 (funny how the target year keeps receding). Wider track and bigger trains would be more likely to be useful in the 22nd century, never mind the 21st - and an average speed of 110kph (68mph) isn't exactly high-speed.

But it's the right idea, isn't it? Get people moving, working, trading, with low-carbon emissions, and bring tourists through one of the world's most fabled landscapes in comfort, maybe calling at a new Maneater's Hotel in Tsavo. I hope I'm still around to see it.

But first Kenya, Uganda and South Africa have to sort out this mess.

Restaurant prices in Kenya

Kenya is experiencing the same price rises in fuel and commodities that are hitting all the world's poorest economies hardest – Restaurant prices in Kenya are notably higher than in the current edition of the guide. Still good value – tourists won't find them unaffordable – but more than ever out of reach of 95% of Kenyans.

Photo: "Carnivore", Langata, Nairobi

Slum TV in Mathare, Nairobi

Interesting recent audio report from the BBC World Service about a new TV station in Nairobi's Mathare slum: SlumTV

Roots of the Rift Valley violence - Kalenjin and Kikuyu

Land and water rights in the Rift Valley lie at the heart of the post-election violence. But there's something deeper and less material going on as well, according to this detailed and thoroughly researched article by Horace Njuguna Gisemba. It implies that something in the "soul" (?) of some young Kalenjin men has made them bloodthirsty attackers of non-Kalenjin, and particularly of Kikuyu. Certainly, the Kalenjin were brutally treated by the British a century ago. Punitive expeditions massacred about 1000 Kalenjin warriors at the end of the nineteenth century, and the account by Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen (who murdered the Nandi leader during a meeting) makes chilling reading (Kenya Diary). But Gisemba implies there was organization behind the anti-Kikuyu violence and says we'll have to wait for the findings of the proposed Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission. That could take years: I'd like to hear from an alternative viewpoint.

Barack Obama slurred by link with Odinga slurred by link with Obama

It's dig-the-dirt time again in American politics and Barack Obama, part Luo like Raila Odinga (but not Odinga's cousin in the American sense of the term "cousin") is accused of very close ties with the ODM leader (they're part of some "socialist/Sharia law" conspiracy). Who in turn is accused of accepting an unfeasibly large donation from the Democratic contender. It's all some sort of desperate Republican smear.

And it seems to have backfired quite spectacularly on the Republicans with the disclosure that one of Republican nominee John McCain's senior advisors, Charles Black, was a lobbyist for the Daniel arap Moi government in the late 1980s and early 90s when the former Kenyan dictator was in power.

To draw the conspiracies out to their illogical conclusion, it's important to recall that Moi's greatest support came from the same powerbase in the Rift Valley and Western Kenya as Raila Odinga's.

Sustainable Mara

It's all happening. . .

An excellent initiative in the Maasai Mara:

"The Mara Conservancy, a not-for-profit conservation management company based in the Masai Mara, has launched a new Responsible Wildlife Tourism Award, aimed at encouraging tourism best-practice in Kenya. Sponsored by international wildlife charity and long-time friend of Kenya, the Born Free Foundation, the award is aimed at protecting Kenya’s wildlife from the potential negative impacts of increasing visitor numbers in the region. . ."

Read the full story here, at TravelMole.com.

The award is being judged by Cheryl Mvula, who featured in the Observer recently, in a piece about the Maasai benefitting properly from tourism.

Photo: Mara Wildebeest © Irv Weissbart

Return of tourism also benefits agricultural exporters

It's not just the tourist industry that will benefit from the return of charter flights. Lake Victoria's Luo fishing communities depend partly on tourist charter flights for their livelihood. Local food exporters have been hit very hard by the cancellation of the tourist flights in whose holds they normally ship fruit, vegetables and fish to Europe.

Mike Wooldridge on the future for Kenya

Mike Wooldridge's thoughtful, if disturbing two-part series for Radio 4
is being repeated on the BBC World Service. Or is it the other way round?

Anyway. Listen out for the crystal tones of Nairobi Kiss FM's Caroline Mutogo - breath of fresh air: "Every cabinet minister's on a million shillings. . .[but] I am optimistic, not about the politicians, but the Kenyans. . .What's slowly becoming clear to us as a people [is] don't ever put all your eggs in one basket and let that basket be Mister Member of Parliament. Ever."

Virgin kicks off the return to Kenya

Good to see Virgin Atlantic airlines helping to revive the Kenya tourist industry with a big UK press and underground poster campaign featuring the wildebeest migration. Richard Branson was in the Maasai Mara at Sekenani village near Sarova Mara camp at the weekend, where Virgin made a £60,000 donation to Sekenani village school.

Meanwhile, Gordon Brown has apparently invited Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga to talks in London. Is that good? Let's hope they meet David Miliband.

"Behind the Smile: the Tsunami of Tourism"

Tourism Concern's brilliant photo essay, "Behind the Smile: the Tsunami of Tourism", is back on the Tourism Concern site once again, having been inaccessible for some time. The photos by John Wright, part of an exhibition originally shown at London's Oxo Gallery in early 2006 (which also included photos by Jenny Matthews from tsunami-affected areas of Thailand), are a stark indictment of the rotten end of Kenya's tourist industry: untenably low wages, callous disregard for human dignity and scant concern for maintaining a sustainable hospitality culture. John Wright's explanation of the "quote cards" held by the subject of each photo is eloquent. Kenya desperately needs its tourists back –  tourists who are happy to tip, leave the hotel, bargain for souvenirs, jump on local excursions as well as pre-booked safaris, and generally get stuck into the country. People returning from visits say the parks are incredible with so few visitors, and the welcome as warm as you could imagine.

National Museum reopens in Nairobi

Nairobi's national museum, the city's most important tourist attraction, and a good museum in its own right, has recently re-opened after more than two years' closure for refurbishment. Thanks to Mark Fairweather for the news - the National Museums of Kenya site is still saying it's going to reopen at the end of 2007. . .

This is rare. . .

The trial has started of two policemen accused of murdering two demonstrators in Kisumu in January. It's rare that the police go on trial for human rights offences – and any observer of the Kenyan scene knows how brutal and undisciplined Kenya's police can be (there are many good police officers, but the bad ones are extraordinarily brazen) – so this trial, of a shooting that was witnessed by the world through  KTN footage (relayed by the BBC) is very welcome. 

Elgon – stay away

One area of Kenya you don't want to be wandering around in at the moment is Mount Elgon. The Sabaot Land Defence Force are a particularly unpleasant gang of thugs – whose original grievances about land-grabbing and resettlement have been muddied by post-electoral reprisals and counter-reprisals – but the Kenyan military's clumsy intervention and clear evidence of abuses by legitimate government forces needs to be exposed. The Human Rights Watch report makes chilling reading: there's a sense that the armed forces think they'll get away with murder while the world is watching Kibaki and Odinga, and if anyone notices, the even worse atrocities committed by the SDLF will cover for them.

Castle Forest Lodge and Karen Blixen Camp

Map detail from Rough Guide Kenya & Northern Tanzania map



Castle Forest Lodge up on the southern slopes of Mount Kenya (on p.179) is not very well known, though it gets a good write-up in the Rough Guide.


Meanwhile, yet another new lodge, the Karen Blixen Camp, has opened outside the Mara. Not good timing, perhaps, but by all accounts visitors to the area are sharing it with very few other tourists and getting unusually good service.

Kenya fuel price rises. . .

. . .and inflation passes 20 percent and ranges up to 30 percent regionally.

If you're driving in Kenya, expect to be paying around Ksh100/litre in Nairobi and up to Ksh200 or more (€2) out in the sticks.

Kenyan authors and publishers losing out, and students losing out even more

Book piracy is a worldwide problem, but particularly acute where there are hundreds of thousands of school students, most of whom don't have the money to pay for one $5 book, let alone two. So this story is bad news for Ngugi Wa Thiong'o and Ibsen's estate, but East African Educational Publishers should have been quicker off the mark if they wanted to sell The River Between and An Enemy of the People to 700,000 form 3 and 4 students. But rather than trying to compete conventionally with quick-witted (if evidently semi-literate) publishing pirates, with all the print bills, shipping costs and accounting that traditional publishing entails, they should look to install print-on-demand sites with low unit costs for schools. Students and teachers with extra cash could then buy more books, and everyone gets English literature – and more – without the pirates' typos. In less than a decade, the set-up costs would be repaying publishers (and country) with book-buying adults and a literate workforce.

Kenya gets live football on TV

Live Kenyan football on TV? Is this going to come to Setanta? That would be fun. . . And wouldn't cost them an arm and a leg right now. 

Cradle of Man trail?

An interesting editorial in Nairobi's Business Daily pushing the idea of tourism in the Lake Turkana region. It's true that it's a vast and under-visited region, with some interesting fossil sites and great camel-walking and people-to-people opportunities for determined operators and undaunted visitors. Happily, also, Loiyangalani – the microcosmic "town" of the lake's eastern shore that featured atmospherically in the misleading closing scenes of The Constant Gardener (Fernando Meirelles's adaptation of the John Le Carré thriller about Big Pharma) – is evidently peaceful and secure, having escaped any of the recent conflicts further south in the Rift Valley.

Go there, it's a fantastic region to explore.

Kikoi "brand" threatened by British company

This is annoying: why would a British company happily trading with Kenya, importing the popular woven kikoi cloths (the sarong-style wraps favoured by the coastal Swahili people) seek to trademark the name kikoi for its own benefit to deprive small Kenyan exporters of access to the European market and squash the competition? It seems that the Swahili word for basket – kiondo – has already gone the same way (to Japan, in 2006). The Kikoy Company took an ad in the Rough Guide too. Perhaps there's an innocent, or reasonable, explanation (anyone?) but I expect they'll want to take their advertising elsewhere next time.

Chinese tourists come to Kenya

An interesting report in Business Daily. With China's usual (outside Olympic years) censorship of the media, perhaps the market there is less sensitive to Kenya's turbulent reputation. They certainly can't be any more sensitive than Germany, also visited by the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife delegation.

Photo of Chinese tourists in Maasai Mara National Reserve © Business Daily