Verbal diarrhoea in a taxi

After a remarkaly short night's sleep, thanks to a fantastic wedding the days before, we left Manchester in the wee hours with a taxi driver who, according to himself, has fought the communists, been arrested and detained in Yugoslavia, and witnessed friends tortured by police.

We can only assume he learned his own torturing tactics from the same episode - we were unable to get a word in (save to point out which terminal he was meant to be heading to); so evil were his tactics that he refused to give us the change from our fare, until he had finished telling us about the Yugoslavian legal system. I should point out that he was just your standard Mancunian chav driver... not a Yugoslavian Salman Rushdie.

Every British-owned company and just about every European giant has come to take a slice of Africa

Somewhat bemused by the start of our trip, we saw our holiday taking shape when we were not allowed to check in on the automatic machines. Why not? Because "the computer never lets two people with the same initial check in together". I see.

However, things normalised during our 11 hour flight to Jomo Kenyatta International, Nairobi, via Amsterdam. We arrived to a massive queue of eager tourists (and British soldiers) all awaiting their visa approval. But before we knew it, we were outside, meeting Charles, our very courteous and friendly driver, who had come to transport us to our hotel.

Driving through Nairobi was an interesting experience.

Firstly, absolutely EVERYTHING is written in English. From road signs to adverts, shop names to street names. If that wasn't bizarre enough, I suddenly became aware of the concept of globalisation. Nivea, Barclays, HSBC, Vodafone, BP, Mobil, Shell, Cadbury, Nestle and so on; every British-owned company and just about every European giant has come to take a slice of Africa. So besides the tiny huts of the slums we passed, there was little industry left for the locals.

Second, the road system seemed pretty diabolical. We were driving on the Mombasa highway - one of the busiest roads in the country, connecting the two major cities. With no lights, no road markings, and a road surface that made the moon look like it was freshly plastered, it didn't take a genius to worry what the isolated country roads would be like.

Third, at night, the place is virtually dead. Save the occasional person walking down the middle of the 'motorway', no one was in sight - suggesting that the nickname 'Nairobbery' may not be so far from the truth.

En route, we had a good chat with Charles, who started to teach us the essential Swahili phrases (hello, thanks, your welcome, sorry, goodbye etc), and told us about his family, and a little on his life. Probably in his forties, one might not expect him to be collecting us from an airport hundreds of kilometres from his hometown, but that is the way of life in Kenya; his is considered quite a respectable job.

We arrived at the Parkside hotel, at the northern end of the city centre, at about ten pm. Protected by G4S, yet another UK company, we entered the 1970s reception, checked in, and said goodbye to Charles who was staying somewhere less luxurious.

So, we settled for our first night in Kenya, with its single 60W bulb, mosquito nets above each bed, and a bible for night time reading...