The area outside the hotels, it is very safe to walk out of the hotels and wander around amongst the locals and leisurely go in out of the small shops, BUT expect to have a bit of verbal persuasion put to your direction as you walk past the shops. It is also very safe here in the evenings as well in the Shanzu Beach area, when you can go out to the bars for entertainment and to the restaurants for a meal. Out of the immediate local area at night it is best to go to and from the area in a taxi. There are tourist police in uniform and in plain clothes here, they patrol this area between the hotels and a little way up the road towards the junction that leads to Mtwapa and Bamburi then on to Nyali

Firstly I must say, in the past four years I have been over to the Mombasa region of Kenya 9 times.

It is now June 2010.

Warning. It is a VERY long journey so wear flight socks. I had DEEP VEIN THROMBOSIS; DVT through sitting for so long on the plane, BUT this could have been because I was also on the computer many hours a day and also not moving about, anyway, this placed me in hospital for a week while doctors injected me every day with clexane and fed me a large dose for few days then reducing amounts of warfarin until my blood was thinned to a satisfactory level and then I was placed on regular warfarin and being monitored for 6 months.

WARNING. Take a torch with you, I carry a small flat windup one, it only cost me three pounds from Wilkinsons. The reason being is, the Kenyan electricity board are not very reliable and some of the hotels do not have a reliable generating units. It is all part of the experience.

WARNING. Water out of the taps is mainly salt water in the area because the bore holes are sunk into the rock, which is porous coral. It is best to use bottled water to drink and clean your teeth. Only drink and use water for your teeth from sealed water bottles. otherwise suffer the consequences of the dreaded Mombasa Express [peeing out of your backside]. Many sufferers blame the food, IT IS NOT, it is mainly the water [cleaning the teeth] and remember the salads are washed in water, what kind of water is anyones guess.

Take some kaline medicine or kaline and morphine mixture, this is safe for children. I swear by it for the trots [Mombasa Express].

WARNING. Do not use the water that has been pour into the jugs by your sink, the room porters many times do not clean it out after each person leaves to go home, only topping it up with water from the bottles. Ask the porter to leave the sealed bottles and not pour it into the jugs, or buy your own from the shop in the hotel or go along the Shanzu Beach road to buy it, the cheapest place is Janes Mini Shop.

In Janes Mini Shop you can also buy flour at a very good rate [maize flour to make ugali and wheat flour for making japati]. I generally try to buy some flour each day for the very poor families/locals up the road by the Paradise Beach Hotel. I also try to buy one pounds worth of biscuits to hand out to the children. As you wander around, have a walk up the road during the day to have a look around, they desperately need clothes that you do not want. many tourists leave their own clothes with them before flying home. I deliberately take over clothes to wear that I do not have any more use for in England.

Take a mobile telephone with you that is unlocked then use a Safaricom sim card it is very cheap and it is pay as you go. BUT BE AWARE never give your mobile to a friend you have met out here, they can transfer any amount of credit to their own mobile within a matter of less then half a minute. I got stung this way by a European living in Shanzu Beach. He has left the area now. Make sure you lock the transfer section with your own code. The shop where you buy the credit will show you how. A reliable one is Janes Mini shop or the gent who sells on the pavement outside the supermarket, both can be trusted to help you with anything to do with your connection.

WARNING. Do not have your bags or monies out on display in public. Kenya is a very poor and corrupt country and within it, there are very poor people who need to eat, many will steal to do so, please be aware of this at all times.

Tell the drivers of your transport to go slower if you are worried, [slowly slowly; pole pole in Swahili pronounced po lay po lay] BUT you cannot tell the kamikaze Matatu drivers to slow down whose aim is to get from A to B in the quickest possible time whilst giving you a switch back ride of something to behold.

WARNING. NEVER go out to sea no matter how far without a life jacket on. A lady was drowned a week after I left last year 2009 because she went out in a boat that had no lifejackets in it. The boat she was in went outside the reef and the boat was swamped. It might look calm within the reef and at the shore line, but outside of this calm area is the wide open Indian Ocean.

WARNING. A con I heard about last year was one of the beach boys got friendly with an European lady and through the course of her holiday she was persuaded to invest in half a boat so the Kenyan man could earn a living. He had shown her a boat on the beach in a very dilapidated state and said it was his and he needed money to work at fishing. This foolish woman gave him one thousand English pounds and afterwards found out it was not his boat and she never saw him again. We were told later a few of the beach boys have used this scam, and are still doing so today.

WARNING. Another man in my hotel wanted to go fishing for the day but the fisherman said he did not have any petrol to take him out so the man in the hotel parted with fifty pounds for the petrol against the fishing trip and the fisherman who was touting along the beach was not seen again until the tourist had gone home to England. On the beach DO NOT GIVE MONEY UP FRONT.

WARNING. DO NOT go to the very large local market in the north of Mombasa, it is a muggers paradise even for some of the locals never mind the mgeni [foreigner].

WARNING. In some parts of Mombasa and as you are being driven by BUS or TAXI to your hotel or back to the airport, DO NOT HAVE THE WINDOW OPEN and your handbag on show or have anything on you that can be grabbed, like a gold necklace, watch, gold ring, gold bracelets, bum bag not connect to you, etc.  The opportunist thieves can reach into the cars and bus windows or while you travel around in a Tuk Tuk in certain areas, to steal what they can from you and run off. This happens more so in slow moving traffic in Mombasa and very, very much more so in Nairobi where there are parts there that even the locals will not go. Do not take your finest on holiday with you YOU DO NOT NEED IT.

WARNING. Be wary of the locals who try to befriend you and are too pushy, these are the ones that usually are street wise. Within about a minute or two they will tell you they love you just to get you hooked, this applies to the men and women. Be aware this will cost you a lot of money in the end. Both men and women charge for their company and their services in some way or another. This can come in the form of drinks, presents, and the men who charge for sex. YES; you are expected to pay for the both sexes, and they do not give anything for nothing. I have heard so many, many stories of women getting ripped off by the Kenyan men who had told them they loved them, and the European women fall for it because they are lonely at home. [This is getting more and more and more so with the Masai Men, this has increased just in the short time I have been going there, many are Masai becoming alcoholics and start fighting when drunk].

WARNING. I hear time and time again men getting ripped off by the beautiful ladies who lure them into their trap. Please be aware these people have to live and this is their way of life, DO NOT THINK you will be the only one they are stringing along. As soon as you get onto the plane and fly home that person, MAN or WOMAN, will be trying for the next easy mark, the next foreigner to lure into their web of deceit. I know of half a dozen Kenyan girls that I have met who have multiple relationships going; and I know more than a dozen Kenyan men, each one of them having multiple women from all over Europe sending them money. Especially some of the Masai tribe for whom the European women seem to have a fascination for.

There are many illegal immigrants from the neighbouring countries like Tanzania, Somalia, Congo, South Africa, etc. Also there are many Africans who are dressed as Masai who are only ordinary Kenyans, and not from the Masai tribe. The trouble is even the Masai will not tell you who is who until after anything bad happens. I was told by a Masai never trust anyone NOT EVEN ME he said. I found out over the years how true that small statement was.

WARNING. It is common to see fat old women of 60-70 with a young strong black Adonis, paying out for his wines, beer, meals, presents and those of his friends and family who they try to get into your company. Later when talking to the heavy woman you find out they are also sending over money to the Kenyan so the two of them one day can get married, little realizing that the Kenyan Adonis also has an African family, and me having seen him with another European person on the previous trip, and yet another old woman on the following trip.

The hotels in the area do not allow any of your African friends to stay over night NOR go into the rooms, that is unless you pay the booked in staying rate. If you ask for a pass at the reception desk, you can take them in during the day for a meal or/and a drink with you, remember this is a safety feature for you. BUT you can if you wish, pay for the night at the going rate for the hotel for them to stay with you, you will need a pass for the security gate and they will need I.D., which all genuine Kenya people have to have with them. so check it out if you are unsure of any Kenyan. Don't be fobbed off by excuses, sorry I have left it at home. The police can ask to see their I.D. it at any time.

There are many apartments, which are a little cheaper or, there are also many small guest houses that have rooms that you can use for your night of passion if need be and they are cheaper than booking your friend into a hotel with you. MAKE SURE THEY [male of female] BOOK IN WITH THEIR I.D. CARDS AT THE RECEPTION.

WARNING. It is the same with the men, you see fat baldy old men of 50-80 years old with girls who could be young 20-30 year old models. These men who are paying out for the girls food and drinks are getting sucked into the web of deception for the two weeks. Then when the man who they swore their undying love to has gone home and the man sends money over to her, little known by the man the following weeks the girls too have another Mazungu [European] to keep them going who is also sending them money. Many of the girls have Kenyan boyfriends of their own, some are married with children. This is the general way of survival all over. Yes you do find the good ones here, but be aware of the pitfalls, and most importantly DO NOT BELIEVE everything that is said to you by anyone here. DOUBLE CHECK and then DOUBLE CHECK AGAIN and AGAIN. The person will bring along someone who you do not know to confirm what they say is true they are probably a friend or a friend of a friend who over the next months will be with another Masungu [white European] and want their lies backing up.

WARNING. If you befriend someone, be very wary of bringing into the company of yourself and your new found friend, a friend of theirs. If they see you are an easy mark they will have you buying drinks for a large company of friends, not only for that night but every night as long as you stay. They [mainly the Masai] have a habit of inviting more than one friend into their company, so please be aware, the bar owners love it. Also be aware of what you are buying as the locals have a habit of placing their drinks on your bill and at the end of the night you will be hit with a bill for four or five times the amount of what it should be if you were on your own with your friend.

Do not think the people you are buying for are sitting with you.

I have seen some of the locals order a drink and point out a person, who is across the room with their European friend, and say put it on their bill. At the start of the evening say to the bar person, 'every time I buy a drink tell me who I am buying/ordering for', and tell them who you only want to buy for, then tip them. By tipping the bar person, they will look after you. It will save you a lot of money in the long run. The reason for this is; the bars in this area have glasses into which they place the bar tab, then every time you buy a drink it is added to on the slip of paper bar tab, KEEP YOUR EYE ON IT.

WARNING. Be very careful of leaving your drinks on the bar in certain areas, especially in the night clubs, you can get them spiked with drugs. In clubs I now drink only out of the bottle not out of glass. When leaving the bottle, if it has something still left in it, I place the cap back on it and then leave it on the table in safe company or where I can keep my eye on it while dancing, I still keep my eye on my drinks even in what could be termed safe company.

This is something that happened to me in the company of an English tourist who I thought I could trust, Werner Kuhn [of German origin] living in Norwich UK, a person I had befriended a few days before in the hotel I was staying, I had even been out and about with him and his Kenyan girl friend during the week.

shwarn1                                                                                  shwarn2

Above is Werner Kuhn who tried to drug me. He was locked up by the police and had all the money he had in Kenya taken off him to get released. I should have pressed charges, and he would have been locked up until I had come back into the country. By the way you have to feed yourself in prison, your food is not supplied, just slop. One photograph of him was taken at Mombasa Moi Airport, the other beside the pool in the Dolphin Hotel where we were staying at the time. The lady was his girl friend.

I found out in December 2009 near the Christmas time, an American man had died by a drugs overdose in a ladies Mtwapa apartment. I did not hear if it was administered by the girl or whether the American had bought it and taken it himself in the club where he got picked up by the girl or whether someone had put drugs in his drinks to knock him out then try and rob him later in the girls flat. Or it could have been the girl had had an accomplice and someone was working with her to rob the American. I never did find out. I was told by a Kenyan friend I met who was visiting her in the prison and taking her food each day.

[more details of how he spiked my drink, and photographs of all these not so nice people to be placed on here].

This comes from first hand experience.

I actually caught out a Kenyan lady friend of mine by going over to Shanzu Mombasa and not telling her that I was arriving. [Samantha Njeri who came from Nairobi]. We were both phoning and texting each other every day, stupidly I had fallen for her, and I thought Samantha felt the same. It was all an act to get money and presents from me or get me bring her over to England.  I had bought her bedding, lots of bits for her room in Shanzu village and food each time I came over to see her. I found her in the night club where I regularly went, she was on an Europeans knee with her tongue down his throat. I found from friends who live there Samantha had been planning things and chatting up this European man while I was there and I had not noticed. Over the course of the following holidays I gradually found out the whole story.

How it happened:- I was in company drinking in the Forty Pub one evening and I phoned Samantha to come down and join me; there were a few Europeans drinking there as well, I was not taking any notice. Next day I was told by my friends, the barmaids, that when I went to the toilet Samantha had been giving the man her phone number.

That night I had said I would not be going out tonight to the Casaurina night club as I felt tired and unwell [the start of my DVT I think] and was going back to the hotel to go to bed early. Next Samantha said she thought she had seen her cousin go into the Safari Inn pub about 50 yards up the road so she went there. When she comes back she said to me, 'if you are you definitely going back to the hotel and not going to the Casaurina I will go home myself, but if you go to the club tonight without me I will kill you'. Me as I am; I go against people who threaten me, it is like a red rag to a bull. So later in the evening while I was still in the bar with company Samantha gets onto a motor bike to go, she said was going home having an early night like me, so off she went.

I stayed in the company for another hour and said I was going to the Casaurina night club, did he [R from Birmingham] and his good lady wife want to come along with me. R said he would come with me but would only be coming on his own as his wife was a bit tired, the sun had worn her out. So off we both went to the Casaurina in Mtwapa in a cab, first arranging the price 300 Ksh there & 300 Ksh back (this is May 2010 some taxi drivers will do it for 200Ks) and for the taxi driver to pick us up later. [most will wait for hours at no extra cost, as your custom is very valuable to them, the competition for business is so intense]. There are plenty of cabs outside the night clubs all night.

Going inside the club my friend R and myself immediately saw Samantha sitting on this guys knee with her tongue down his throat, something she never did with me in public. I pointed her out to R and we stood there and watched. They got up to dance and I pointed at her so she could see, Samantha saw me, immediately started kissing him again on the dance floor. I waited until they sat down and she went off to see her friends I went over to the man and said to him I have no problem with you but I had been giving the girl money and you are going to be paying out a lot of money, it is going to cost you a lot. He said nothing but got up and went over to her and left the club. Samantha had lost two mugs at one stroke I found out the man had been going around to her home in the day time when I was elsewhere. He was also buying things for her. I now buy nothing at all for any of the girls I meet until I really get to know them. I found out Samantha was telling people that she was going to live in Switzerland with this guy, I live in England; what a fool I was. No fool like an old fool.

A lady friend of mine, I will call her F, went with me to stay in Shanzu beach area in 2009 and we shared a room in the Dolphin Hotel, nothing involved just to save each paying the single supplement, anyway, she met a Masai man that had joined us, as they cheekily do, all suitably attired in the traditional dress. Moses found out she was not with me as an item and F thought Moses was lovely, so a friendship blossomed. Every night she would buy him drinks [F was always just on 2 orange juices a night at the most 3 drinks] and the company of Maasai friends became bigger as F was buying all their drinks, I had ducked out of this situation early on by getting my own bar bill. This carried on each time she came over with me to Kenya [3 times then]. With F sending money for him and his supposed family, also buying Moses all different presents and buying many of his meals as well, and the same thing in the bar every night, Moses and his Maasai friends hanging around F getting free beer until they were very drunk. I kept on telling her and telling her she was a mug, and I still do now, she never takes any notice. She said to me the other day, it does your ego the world of good getting all the attention of these young bucks all the time.

I found out the two of them were phoning each other when apart and F sending Moses money by Western Union over to him in Kenya. The third time when F went over there that year to see Moses. Moses said, this time I will take you to the Kenya Masai Mara to meet my family. He explained what sort of a family he had, so J took over a lot of clothes for them all, brothers and sisters of different ages many of them children.

On the following day after we arrived F said she was being taken to Nairobi from there, they were going to the Kenyan Masai Mara to see Moses family and to stay for a few days F said she would be back in about four or five days. A day and a half later, I came back into the room and there she was asleep in her bed across the room. Next day when we woke I asked her what had happened.

F said she had gone by bus to Nairobi arriving about 4.00 pm in the afternoon, when they got there she was shaking like a leaf and feeling very ill. Moses said she probably had malaria so she went to bed and Moses left the room to go around the city. Moses returned at ten o clock that evening and said they were moving hotels after an argument she went with him after paying for that hotel and booking into this new one. She promptly went to bed  and woke up at 2.00am in the morning no sign of Moses and nor her hold-all. The clothes she had bought for his none existent family and her spare clothing were on the floor, gone were her two mobile phones, one brand new, a new expensive camera that her daughter had given her as a birthday present, and a thousand pounds. I learned later that he had already been making different excuses over not giving back to F, her mothers ring and necklace, that he had worn on a previous trip that she had allowed him to wear in the bar one night.

Moses had left her, a woman, high and dry in a very dangerous city at night she did not know with only just enough money to get back to Shanzu Beach and the Dolphin hotel. He must have made his way around to a hotel where he knew the porter and later paid him to walk out with Fs hold-all, we think that is why they moved hotels.

Luckily a stranger, who was a musician took her to the police station [even then she was taking a chance with him, a stranger] and then to the bus stop to catch the coach and the musician said you should never go anywhere around here on your own, there are some very, very dangerous places here in Nairobi, there are places even he would never venture into.

That day of her return to our hotel, both of us went to the police station in Bamburi Mombasa and sorted things out, the police saying they would look out for Moses when he returns because they said he would. They never did watch out for him as far as I know.

After we returned home Maasai Moses rang F [the cheek of him, BY THE WAY this is the norm of these people] and said to her our cows are doing great, he had bought a lot of cows with the money, then a few months later he rang again and said could she F send him some money as he had no food to give to his cattle. Over a period of time I found out from F that Moses had been ringing her a few times. The Masai think women are a lower class than the men in Masai society many get beaten with heavy canes. Just ask the Masai women you meet if you go there, many of them will show you their scars on their backs and legs.

The next time we went back, about three months later, another friend was with us and Fs sister. I was out of the hotel at the time. Masai Moses turns up at the gate of the hotel about four days into our trip. The taxi driver in whos taxi he had travelled from Mombasa with no money was phoning the reception and saying that F had better come out and pay otherwise he would be going to the police. This friend J2 who was there said to F give me that phone and asked what was going on. the taxi driver said if you dont send F out here right away I will get the police. J2 said good get the police but make sure Moses is there with you. F never heard from him again. I would have made sure he was staying there at the gate and had the reception get the police to have him locked up.

Then what happens the next time we go out of the hotel, the Masai in the village outside the gate come around us and are saying we will find out where Moses is and we will tell you. We are having a meeting to discuss all of this problem, next day they bring a person who said he was the head man and would find him and hand Moses over to the police. All a load of lies they never did anything and he was not a leader in the tribe and everyone of the Masai in the area knew where Masai Moses was and warned him to hide away until we had gone. I heard later he was holed up somewhere in Mtwapa village. We found out eventually Moses was from Tanzania not the Kenyan Maasai Mara as he had said. A lot of the alleged Maasai in the tourist areas are NOT true Masai especially not Kenyan Maasai, they are illegal immigrants from Tanzania. It must be said there are many true ones though. The Tanzanian Maasai have mainly white bracelets and necklaces.

During the rest of that trip F was very flat and low so she was brought into company when ever possible, BUT the fool being an easy touch brought into the general company the Maasai she had previously been buying for, YES, Moses friends. One in particular who was and is loud especially when drunk, which he is as often as possible, because it is free off the tourists. Tumaka or John in his English name. [A lot of the African people take on English names.] during the evening while drunk Tumaka [John] said to me, F and the others in the company do not trust anyone here as they will take you for a ride and try to get everything from you, he said YES, DO NOT TRUST ANYONE NOT EVEN ME.  Which later on proved very truthful from him.

F liked him because he was good looking, strong and young, I must admit he is many times funny and entertaining, BUT can be very loud when he has drink in him. I had a lot of respect for that man until this incident. Then I saw his true colours and as most of the rest. Most of the Masai in the area are drunkards.

Kindly Tumaka  [John] took F to his village and to meet his family, F stayed in a lodge. She said that is was a really good experience. After they came back there were always rows over them not being alone always someone being with them. At least another one, two or four plus Masai in their company, and she was paying BUT she did not stop it. One night she was unhappy but put up with it, Tumaka  [John] went into her bag which was on the bar. Took out the purse as he was looking at the bar bill, which I thought he was paying then goes off into the toilets. Next thing F comes back to pay the bill and there is no money and no purse in her bag so we tell her what happened, and the security guy was asked to watch him. Tumaka  [John] comes back from the toilets and bends down onto the floor after he had thrown the purse onto the floor [seen by the security man, of course it was empty. To this day F says Tumaka  [John] has never stole anything off me. There was about one hundred pounds in her purse. Besotted or what. We found out that while we were there for the first week and F was ringing him, Tumaka  [John] was in Mtwapa three miles away with another woman. Every time someone told her, especially a Masai who thought the world of her and followed her around like a lap dog and tried to tell her the truth, F kept on saying I can hear the cow bells. He must have had a cow bell he was banging or a pan in his house or a piece of metal. I heard last time here July 2010, on one of the nights Tumaka  [John] slashed the arm of another Masai with his knife, which he always carries, in a drunken fight. I am getting the impression that most of the people there in Kenya lie and cheat in one way or another. It is a great place as long as you understand this, and IT IS AFRICA.

YET Again. No fool like an old fool.

WARNING. Sadly most of the officials in Kenya are corrupt. The police have road blocks along the road and if stopped they expect some money to be placed inside your driving documents. There are moves afoot to try and stop this practice but not having much success because it is so lucrative.

I got stopped at the customs coming into Mombasa, because I had two bottles of spirits, the customs man wanted 65% of the value so I produced and offered him less than he had asked for, he said that is not enough and then said give me £10, which I did, he promptly put it into his back pocket NO receipt.  

When going for a ride in any sort of transport get a price of what it is going to be and then haggle over the price, even going to the next driver in the row. I say this because a taxi driver took this lady, an American Female soldier, who was over in 2009 for a conference staying at the Continental Hotel to change some money with Shaban in Bora Bora. The fare is generally 500 Ksh there and back, she was charged 3000 Ksh so be careful. I do not know which taxi driver it was but IF I FIND OUT he will be photographed and put on here. You do not mind a bit of profit taking but that was ridiculous, down right robbery. If you find a good taxi driver stick to him, he will generally give you his cards and mobile number.

I will give you instances:- more later, if possible with photographs of perpetrators.