Good evening Singapore and welcome to episode number six of Sleepless in Singapore. I am Julian and today is the 25th of February 2024. February 2024. And for tonight I will give you the second part of my story about my recent Kenya trip. And this part will be about the safari we did and then about Chalet Island, and then about our last day in Dubai. So make yourself comfortable, relax, sit back, lie down, and let my voice be your guide to a restful night. ride to a restful night.

Like I told you in the last episode of this podcast, we went to a party, the last party of the whole wedding event in Kenya. And we luckily didn't let it get too late, because the next day we got up very early, 5 a.m., to catch our car to the train station of Mombasa. So without any breakfast or any big preparations we left the hotel, which was already a bit funny in the morning, because we were almost not allowed to leave the hotel, because we apparently hadn't settled all the random bills they were giving us. But thankfully Hatim figured it out, and we were allowed to leave the sun and sands, and we made our way to the train station and we still had plenty of time to get the train but when we arrived I knew why we had to come in time. Taking the train in Africa or in Kenya is like taking a plane in any other country. There is security, there is luggage checks. There are two luggage checks actually, one before you enter the building, then another one in the building. The luggage check is actually quite good because they found a very small pocket knife. You know these pocket knives I had made for my company as Christmas gifts. I was bringing one and I was bringing one in my big luggage, which is not even a problem when you're on a plane, right? But on the train station they found that tiny piece of, like this tiny Swiss knife I had somewhere in my shoe in the big luggage and they weren't allowing me to take it. But then again Hatim to the rescue talked to the guy for a bit, and then Hatim got out his phone, and he was doing something with his phone and showing to the guy, and the guy said we could leave, like we could enter. So I asked Hatim, hey, what just happened? Did you bribe the guy? And Atim said, no, of course not. I don't bribe the guy. I showed him a little token of appreciation, a little token of friendship. I transferred him like a dollar twenty and just to show that we are friends and then he showed me that we are friends by not making a fuss about your pocket knife. Very interesting experience. I'm not sure what to think about it. Hatim reassured me a lot that this is only possible with small pocket knives. I could not have brought anything serious. Not that I wanted to, but of course, that's a question that came to everyone's mind. So a pocket knife is $1.20, what about a gun? Maybe $10, who knows. But, had Tim said, no way, it's only like small stuff.

Then at the train station there was a lady rushing to us with a menu in her hand and we thought like okay we didn't have breakfast we could have a coffee or something. So we ordered a coffee without paying yet and then the gates to the train opened and we walked to the train and we were wondering what happened to our coffee. But we also stopped caring because, you know, the train was there, we boarded the train, we found our seats, we stored our luggage. And then suddenly the lady from the restaurant appears in the train and serves our drinks, collects some money and disappears again. Which is a very nice appearance, right? A very nice service. The train itself, by the way, was very comfortable. It wasn't like the Japanese trains or anything, but it was a good train. It was comfortable. The seats were comfortable. The service was all right. There was constantly a woman walking up and down and mopping the hallway. And it was relatively fast. It wasn't bumpy or anything. I think this train might have been the most modern thing we saw in the whole country while we were there.

Then finally, about two hours later, we arrived from Mombasa at the place where our safari was, which is in the city or the area of Woi. VOI. We got off the train and we got picked up by already a traditionally dressed Maasai warrior and a couple of other guys in tropical uniforms, I guess. And they came in these big jeeps, or actually not jeeps, actually Toyota Land Cruisers, which had the seats on top in the back. I'll try to put a picture somewhere because they were really cool. They were also very comfortable. They were going to be our safari excursion vehicles. So they were huge. there was space for six guests plus the driver plus the guide in the front. And you were sitting relatively high, it was completely open, so you could not only look out without any problems, you could also shoot without any problems. By shoot I mean shooting pictures not shooting rifles. And anyway the guys were super nice. They collected our luggage, they carried our luggage and they were bringing everything to the car, loaded the car. And I feel like that was the moment when every one of us was getting in the car. I could see from Christian's face and from everyone's face actually, when the car started and we had the wind in our hair. That was great. Everyone was immediately happy. Not that we were unhappy before or anything, but that was just really cool. Like sitting in this open car, going first on a highway or on a, you know, like a proper road, but then quickly after turning to the step, not step actually, it's savannah. And then when we were blasting relatively fast through the savannah in these cars, everyone felt like free and good. It was a great time, a very great first impression.

And that first impression was even topped when we arrived at the place, the place where we were sleeping, like our camp. They call it a camp and technically we were sleeping in tents, but our tent was nicer than some people's living rooms, I would say. Anyway, we arrived at the camp and we got out of the car and the guys there were handing us towels, like moist, cold towels, for cleaning the dust of our faces. And maybe I'm exaggerating, I don't know, but these were the best smelling towels I've ever had. There was some kind of eucalyptus or something in there, and after going through the sandy savannah for half an hour to reach our camp, receiving these towels were the best thing ever. And so was the whole camp. There was an open area, like an open sitting area where we had our breakfast and dinner. And there was a huge pool that was overlooking the savannah from a bit of a height. And then there were small walkways to the tents. And thankfully, for reasons I'm not 100% sure about, we got upgraded even. So I was having a bit of a bigger tent together with Nat, which was even nicer than the other tents. But even the other tents were nice. And I gotta say, really the whole time at this place we had a wonderful time. It was a camp, it was in the middle of the savannah, so obviously it is not the five-star hotel comfort with a super fast Wi-Fi you have in different places. But actually our Wi-Fi was kind of better than in the hotel we had before, the actual hotel we had before. The food definitely was much better. We had a chef, Chef Daniel, who was not only a great chef, but also very funny, because before every meal he gave a little speech, like announcing his food, like a proper three Michelin star chef in a TV show. But his food also was really good, so fair point introducing it like that.

So first day after we arrived, it was like afternoon I guess, it was in the afternoon, We used our time to rest a bit, to use the pool. There was a bar, people could have drinks. And then when it got dark after the first dinner, we went for our first game drive. We didn't see a lot. Apparently someone saw leopards, but that is unconfirmed. And I think that might have been fake news. But we saw some kind of rabbit. Oh yeah, we saw a nice little porcupine in the road. I don't think I've ever seen a porcupine, especially not a wild porcupine. It was kind of interesting. And then we went back and we slept like babies. We were lucky enough to have a halfway proper shower in our tent. When I say tent, I really mean that was big. That was like bigger than my actual living room here in Singapore. And there was an extra room, or it was like half outside of the tent, where there was a shower, like a proper bathroom and a shower and a toilet and everything you need. I think the one category smaller tents, they did not have the running water in the shower. They had like a tank or something. Anyway, nobody complained. Everybody was very happy with the accommodation and we were lucky enough to have the running water in the shower so we could take longer showers. And we had this absolutely magical view both in the evening and also in the morning for sunrise over the savannah. And it happened to me a few times now that I'm recording this to, you know, one hand to entertain you or better not even to entertain you, or better, not even to entertain you that much, but to put you to sleep by giving you these stories. But mostly I'm doing this to keep my own memories, right? And I want to describe what I saw, and I have a lack of words, because it's very hard to describe this view we had. Actually, I took pictures both with the phone and the camera and it is even on picture it is hard convey the feeling and the view and how magical that is. Basically you sit there and there is nothing. You see the savannah, you see some mountains very very far away. Actually we've been told when the weather is clear you can even see the Kilimanjaro. We didn't see it that night because it was dark already. But you could see there was like a 180 degrees panorama with nothing in it but savannah. Savannah, that means like little bushes and grassland and a tree here or there. And this vastness and emptiness, but at the same time beauty. I don't know, it did something to me. I really liked it. I really enjoyed it. It was beautiful. I can highly recommend to everyone going to that place. I forgot the name, but I will make sure to put it in the links so you can look it up.

So yeah, then we slept. And then we finally, in the next morning after a breakfast, which was also delicious by the way, we hopped on our jeeps again, on our land cruises again, and we made our way to Tsavo National Park in Kenya, which was kind of close. Maybe like half an hour, 40 minutes away. It's hard to say because the first part of the road was this dirt road through the savannah, which, by the way, also gives you a proper... How do you call that? You're properly shaken up right in the morning. But it was fun. Didn't hurt. And then we arrived at Tsavo. We went up very early because we were supposed to be there very early because the animals apparently are active early in the morning or in the evening or at night and during the day when it's too hot they are not which makes sense so we got there very early and then again just like in the National Museum for the National Park in Kenya you can only pay via some weird online system which I believe is to prevent corruption and to prevent people pocketing the money the tourists pay or I don't know. The problem is it does not work very well and our credit cards didn't work very well. First I thought it's my DBS credit card which gave me a lot of trouble many times before because DBS has a very serious fraud detection, which in my opinion is way overboard, because like every second payment in a foreign country, and sometimes even here in Singapore when I do online payments, I have to call this hotline first to unlock the payment, and then they give me a whole speech that by unlocking the payment, they are not going to be responsible for anything anymore. Yeah, long story short, I thought it was my credit card. So we tried Hatim's credit card, didn't work. We tried Nat's credit card, didn't work. We tried Emmanuel's credit card, didn't work. And after a while, it got a bit frustrating because we had to deal with that stuff for, in the end, more than an hour for no good reason. Just because some systems are not working and because the people there were very strict and they said we cannot go in first and settle the payment later. So yeah, 10 people were standing there waiting for more than an hour because the stuff doesn't work. Wasn't so cool. Especially wasn't cool because we were like being early to see the animals and then our time was like running out. They finally managed to figure it out somehow. I think in the end Hatim was calling the lady from the camp we were staying at and she was transferring the money and Hatim was transferring to her or something like that. But it worked. And then we made our way in and then it started to be super awesome. We saw... The first thing we saw was a bunch of zebras. Super cool. I've never seen a zebra before. I don't even really remember seeing a zebra in the zoo. We saw zebras everywhere. They were just standing by the side of the road looking at us. And, you know, they just look like horses but with stripes but it's a very unusual sight and it's very cool and then we went on and then somebody was shouting giraffe and then we all pointed to the direction where we expected to see the giraffe and turns out it was like super far away but that's what the long lenses are for, right? So we pointed at the giraffe and there was not one, there were like two, three, four giraffes coming out of the bushes. And again, it was magical. And then we went on. It was quite a lot of driving, like this national park. I feel like national parks in Germany, from what I know and from what I'm used to maybe, from my expectations, they are different than national parks elsewhere. The national park in Kenya, the Tsavo National Park, you could drive in one direction for hours and still not arrive at the other end. So what I'm saying is they are really big and we were doing a lot of driving, but we also saw the most amazing things. We saw the zebras and the giraffes and then we saw a herd of elephants, like a herd of wild elephants. Then we saw this elephant at a watering hole, drinking from a water pipe that was going in the ground and had a little leak. And then he was like sucking on the pipe to get the water out in his, how do you call the long thing the elephants have? He was sucking the water out and then he was like showering himself and then splashing it around. Super amazing. Just like out there in the wilderness. Not in a zoo, not in a very confined space. In a completely open space and maybe three or four meters from the car without being bothered by it too much. Very, very cool. And then there were a lot of birds too. I know nothing about birds. I can't say I'm particularly interested in birds. But they were beautiful birds, very colorful. There was this blue, a small blue bird, very, very pretty that we saw a lot. And there were a bunch of big birds, like eagles and stuff like that. And so it came, the time passed in, well, no time. And it was like late afternoon already and everyone was like A, tired and B, super dirty. My camera is not black anymore, it's red from sand. And we decided to go back because the next day we had another safari planned at Tsavo East. Actually, I don't remember 100%. There's Tsavo East and there's Tsavo West. And we did one on the first day and the second one on the other day. So we went back to the camp and we freshened up a bit. We jumped in the pool. We had a couple of drinks. And then there was a sundowner, which is you walk through the bushes a bit and then they found a beautiful place for us, like magical. Some rocks overlooking the whole savannah, like looking down on the savannah, a little bit like what I described from our tent view, but even better. And there were a bunch of guys and they made a big fire and there was like half a lamp stuck in that fire and they were grilling it and then they were cutting it and passing it around and they had brought like half a bar up there. You could have gin tonics and all that stuff if you wanted to. And we were just sitting there and watching the sunset, our group of 10 or 12 people and about as many staff, and they put out pillows and everything. It was really like a five-star camping. It was very, very beautiful, and I'm not the biggest fan of sunsets, you know, like sunsets kind of look alike after a while. But that one was absolutely stunning worries and life is just good.

Then the next day we went to the other part of Tsavo National Park and luckily they had the payment figure out beforehand so we could basically just drive in and everything was good. And the second day we were on the hunt for lions, because by then we had seen most of the bigger animals that are in the national park, but we haven't had the chance to see some lions. So again, there was a lot of driving on the second day and we saw more elephants that we could count. We also saw a lot of deer, but we couldn't find the lions actually we were almost about to give up but then in the afternoon the driver stopped next to another car and they talked and the other guy said oh we spotted lions so we went as fast as we could, like right into the savannah. And there were two more cars. So we weren't 100% alone with the lions, but fair enough. We saw the lions. They were wild lions. They look like on pictures. They look like in the zoo. But they're just out there. And we're in an open car. But honestly, it doesn't really matter because the lions seem to be more afraid of us than we were of the lions. But we saw real-life lions in free nature. Absolutely fascinating. So that was definitely the highlight of that day, maybe of the whole safari. And we got a couple of shots even. Everything went very quickly and the lines were gone quickly. So there wasn't much time to adjust cameras and frame the perfect shot. But I feel we all got at least some phone shots. And like I said two or three episodes ago, even though I am a big photography nerd and I enjoy using the camera, some things you got to focus on experiencing first and then capturing later. And that was one of these moments. We were just sitting there looking at the lions in awe.

And then finally all dirty and all thirsty we went back to the camp and we had another great afternoon. We jumped in the pool, we had drinks, we had fun, we were talking, just felt great. And the dinner was great again. Again with the speech of Daniel. I remember there was some nice dessert. So we went to bed very happy. Actually before we went to bed I was trying to take a picture of the night sky. Because you could see the Milky Way. You could see all kinds of stars. I don't know. And I pointed my camera at the sky and I played around with the settings a bit. And then after taking the pictures we went to bed.

And the next day we took the train back to Mombasa and then from Mombasa we took a car to a little private island called Chalet Island where there is one of the supposedly best hotels in the Mombasa area and yeah hotel was great we had a room in what seemed to be like a little tower with a nice view over the ocean. The food was quite nice. I had a bit of work to do so I maybe wasn't the most relaxed person over there. Manny went diving and the girls and Christian were spending most of the time in the pool, I think. And I honestly don't know what we did for the two days because I think we weren't doing anything much. Which is probably a sign that we relaxed good. So we had two good days on Chalet Island. They had this beautiful place where you could overlook the ocean, again for sunset, and you could lie in these nets and enjoy your drinks and your snacks. They always gave like, they always gave like little snacks with the drinks. So all in all, very nice, good nice good experience and after two days and two nights there we had to say goodbye to everyone. I feel I've seen a few tears here and there. We spent quite some time all together, we had a great time. So saying goodbye was not the easiest part, but we kind of made it quick and hopefully painless. And we hopped on a boat to get back from that private island to the mainland and We got a driver. And because of our experience with the timing that I told you about in the last episode, we planned for a lot of buffer, which meant we were in the airport area back in Mombasa super early, like plenty of time until our flight. And that gave us the chance to drive around the city a bit and do some sightseeing. So we went up to the waterfront and we did some souvenir shopping and I found this little statue I really wanted. It's called Master Chum Chum. It's a little wooden statue like a carving of a local Kenyan person, which looks quite interesting. So I was happy I finally find my souvenir and packed it up and we spent our last couple of hours at the airport lounge and finally made our way to Dubai. We were flying with FlyDubai again and unfortunately much unlike the way to Mombasa the way back from Mombasa to Dubai with FlyDubai was not so great. There was a change of airplanes last minute and even though we paid a lot of money for upgrades of our seats, the seats we finally had were nothing like a proper business class seat. They were nothing like the seats we had on the way there they were not not life-lad they could go back a little but when you went back you couldn't put up your footrest and when you put up the footrest you couldn't put back the seat so i'm not 100 sure what there, but that was kind of annoying because it was an overnight flight and our plan was to sleep on that flight because on the next day we landed in Dubai very early, 4 a.m. And we had a whole day sightseeing package booked. So we had this private driver, private tour guide that picked us up early in the morning, around 6 or 7 a.m. in the morning at Dubai airport. and he took us around Dubai to see the Dubai Marina, to see the Burj Al Arab, to see the Burj Khalifa, to see these shopping malls. At the shopping mall we went to this ramen place, Nat knew for some reasons, that had wonderful ramen, like really good, like in Japan. So we enjoyed our lunch a lot. And then we went around more, we saw the frame, we saw this museum which by the way is an insane building i'll try to upload a picture somewhere and even though we're basically half sleeping we had a good sightseeing time in dubai in the end we went to dubai old town we saw the markets we went to Dubai Old Town, we saw the markets, we went to the Gold Souq and we went to the Spice Souq. And it was a really good, like, last day of our adventure. And then we made it back in time for our flight. We freshened up a little. I think that might have been the first time I took a shower at an airport lounge, but it worked out great, I felt almost fresh. And then we boarded our plane to Singapore, Singapore Airlines plane. And I already got the feedback of some of you, I should not talk about Singapore Airlines too much because it gets annoying, but what can I say? It was amazing flight, amazing service. Everything was perfect. And we landed back in Singapore at 7 a.m. sharp and even though we had to fetch our luggage and do immigration and find a taxi back home, we were home, upstairs, in our place, at 7.45, 45 minutes from touchdown to sitting on the sofa back home. And that was a very nice ending to the whole Kenya trip.