Some time out

On Saturday we finish training a bit early and with Sunday off, we have a bit off time off to explore, rest and enjoy Mombasa a bit. We find out about a Swahili food restaurant which is close enough to walk to. I spend some time having a rest in the amazing heat, and catching up the sleep that I missed the night before when my aircon didn’t work and there was such loud music that I couldn’t have the windows open. Then at 6, we set off to find the restaurant.

In the lift, David meets a local man who comes to the gym at the hotel, and he suggests some Indian restaurants - one is closer than the one in Old Town we have thought of going to, so we decide to find it. We go a bit far down the road and ask directions at the Casablanca Club, where Mike is propositioned by a girl sitting at the bar. When David and I walk in behind him, she quickly gets engrossed in her cell phone.
We eventually find the Shennai restaurant – a North Indian restaurant which only opens at 7, but which allows us in a bit early, anyway. It is opulent and traditional – sitars and shennais (Indian flutes) on the walls amongst gilded pictures and brassware. The waiters are dressed in traditional garb – baggy pants and coloured hats and sashes. The service is amazing – our hot plates are placed in front of us between two spoons, napkins are opened for us and spread on our laps. And then there is the food – I have the best biryani I have ever tasted – chicken with saffron and fried onions – not just yellow rice with chicken, but hidden nuggets of saffron and chicken in fragrant basmati rice. It is food to dream about. And so is the saffron and cardamom infused kulfi to follow the meal.

We walk back to the hotel past a community centre where a charity event is happening – families, children, young men and women all lining up to buy tickets for 50KS to listen to music, dance and play games. As we walk back on the other side of the road, the bhangra type music is reverberating in the air.

Sunday is a day off and we spend the day catching up with some of the things we have wanted to do. David and I set off after breakfast to go and find the Fresh Produce market and the Spice shops. It is still the original market built by the British in 1914 and is crowded with exotic foods, fruit, veggies, spices – the array is huge! I am buying spices when a tout tries to muscle in, but David chases him off and we go into the street behind and find a spice shop where we buy some of the things we want – and some we didn’t know we were going to buy, like tamarind fruits. The smell in the shop is exotic and heady – I almost bought things I can easily buy at the Curry Pot, under the influence of spice scents! David buys a handful of vanilla pods – probably 30 of them for 400KS – about R40.

Then we set off for the Antique shop we visited two days before – Yusuf, the owner, will open for David at 10. A tout called Ali insists on accompanying us, although we know where we are going. He asks where we are from, and then makes a profound statement ;-) – He points to me and says “South Africa – Thabo Mbeki!” and points to David and says “Australia – kangaroo!” David and I can hardly walk we are laughing so much. Ali follows us all the way, insisting that there is no charge – he just wants us to be happy, but in the end, we end up paying him to go away.

We wait for the shop to open and make the acquaintance of 3 little girls who are going to throw the family rubbish away – probably in the sea – and share our strange chillied nuts with them and take their pictures. They come back later with some strange sweets they have made which they want me to buy. David and Yusuf, the shop owner, start looking at what David wants to buy – in fact he goes back again in the afternoon, trying to decide what to buy and ship. Some of the antiques in the shop are run-of-the-mill junk shop stuff– and then there is a huge collection of African statues and art – bisexual gods, masks, head rests and implements. I get bored and decide to go back to the hotel, and Yusuf, the owner, gives me a lift back.

I get back to find Mike has miscalculated the time of the rugby, so we watch the first springbok game. When I say to our driver, Jali, on Monday that I have watched the game, he assumes it is soccer – doesn’t even know that the World Cup is on.

We take a tuk-tuk to Nyali on the North side of the island – we cross the bridge and go to the beach at the Reef Hotel. We walk right though the hotel and down onto the most amazing white sand beach, with blue water sparkling just beyond it. Mike swims in the sea and says it is beautiful – sparkling and clean. On the beach there is a plethora of traders selling everything from scarves to massages. Everyone has a cousin who will organise a safari for you. Just off shore are dugouts and sailing boats, ready to take tourists on trips, but there don’t seem to be any takers. Along the beach, there is a camel which people are having rides on. I take a picture to add to my collection of animals on the beach – cows on the Wild Coast and camels in Mombasa.

We have lunch at the Reef Hotel – the food is a bit pedestrian but it is pleasant out in the garden and we watch money walking past us in the form of very pink and burnt European tourists, many wearing costumes people their size should not be wearing. One very white young man is being rubbed all over with sunburn lotion by a statuesque young black woman. We negotiate a better price for the Tuk-tuk and get back to the hotel in time for a rest before dinner.

For dinner we go back to Nyali in a much slower and more cautious tuk-tuk, and eat at a Bollywood vegetarian restaurant at the Cinemax centre. The food is nicer than the hotel but after the dinner at the Shennai, a bit dull. David has a dosa, which is a huge, crispy pancake which is rolled and arrives on our table as a ½ metre long tube. We have to ask the waitress how to eat it. A different type of Indian cuisine.

A good sleep ready for the next day’s work.