The Train from Nairobi to Mombasa

December 20^th, 2023 

I took a matatu from Lake Naivasha back to Nairobi.  The trip wasn’t bad, apart from the last 3-4 kilometres with heavy traffic in downtown Nairobi.  I wished that I wasn’t sitting at the back of the van with my bag stuck underneath me as it would have been nice to get out and find a motorcycle taxi.  This was a strategy that German David used in Kampala - get out of the bus/matatu in the suburbs and then get a boda boda to avoid the traffic in the inner city.  It was early afternoon, and the sun was beating down.  Kenyans definitely have a different internal thermostat to me because I was in a t-shirt and sweating whereas they were wearing jackets and jeans.  One woman even had a knitted shawl.  And almost all of the windows were shut.  I didn’t have control of the nearest window to me, the guy in the row in front of me did and he was resting his head against it as he dozed off.  Shortly after he roused, I quickly reached forward and got a bit of respite with a bit of fresh air.

Plastic container anyone?!?

The traffic was nuts.  One thing that kept me entertained though, was checking out the colourfully painted buses.  From superheroes to sports teams to musical artists.  Just Google “the painted buses of Nairobi”…pretty cool stuff.

Not surprising to see Obama on a bus in Kenya (between the guys walking):

Busy, busy...

The Hulk.

Finally, out of the matatu, I grabbed a boda boda and headed back to the Mad Vervet Hostel, where I was staying before my two-day jaunt to Lake Naivasha.

There are many tall buildings in Nairobi.

The next morning, I was up early to catch the 8 am train to Mombasa.  I was glad that I had booked a ticket a few weeks prior as the trains were all sold out.  I had hoped to buy a first-class ticket as it wasn’t very expensive, but those were all gone by the time I made my reservation.  It was a bit challenging to book online as well as one needs to pay with Mpesa or by a Kenyan bank account.  As I mentioned in another post, Mpesa is a way to pay for many goods and services in Kenya with your phone.  I was still in Rwanda when I was looking at the train tickets so neither of those were an option for me.  I did find a website that would circumvent this problem, but of course, for a few.  It cost me about $27 USD instead of $10 if I could have bought the ticket directly, but at least I got a ticket.  It would be a 6-hour train ride versus a 10-11 hour bus ride to get to Mombasa.

 

My instructions from the website where I purchased the ticket were to show up an hour and a half before the departure time, which seemed a bit extreme.  We’re getting a train, not a plane right?!?  I did have to print the ticket out when I got there, but that took all of 3 minutes.  Security was pretty tight, similar to the airport in Kigali.  It started with a metal detector, sniffer dogs and x-ray machine before getting into the terminal.  And then one more set of a metal detector and x-ray machine after getting the ticket.  Really, I could have shown up 30-45 minutes before 8 am and I’m sure it would have been fine.

The Nairobi SGX Terminal:

That's my train:

Definitely a busy railyard.

The 10-year-old, Chinese made train was fairly nice, but the seats were rather upright and not super comfortable.  At first there was no one else sitting near me but one stop later and we were full.  The ride was uneventful but as least I did see one African elephant in the distance on the relatively green savannah dotted with the odd tree.

I got the aisle seat...so no table to put my laptop on.

Typical scenery for most of the trip:

This "Travel Notice" has one item that I found funny, it read:

  - The employees in the station or on the train are authorized to terminate the travel of passengers with highly contagious diseases, drunk passengers and passengers who pose potential safety risks to other passengers.  Such passengers can be handed over to the relevant sectors for disposal.

On the wall by the end of the train car was an electronic screen with scrolling text.  It displayed the time and date, the odd info message, the train’s speed and also the outside temperature.  I knew that Mombasa, even though it is on the coast, is much hotter and humid that Nairobi.  In the last hour of the trip, the sign was reporting 35 degrees outside!  Yikes.  It was definitely a bit of a shock getting off the train.

Getting off the train in Mombasa:

The Mombasa Terminal:

I grabbed an Uber and headed to the apartment that I had reserved in an area called Bamburi.  It wasn’t the one that I had booked online but during the train ride the owner told me she had another apartment that was available and although it didn’t have A/C, it was on the fifth floor at the corner of the building and I had read many reviews on AirBnB that it always had a nice breeze.  One drawback was that there was no elevator, so I was feeling toasty by the time I got up to the flat.

An elephant roundabout:

My place for the next 3 nights:

The view from my apartment:

Small fireworks were set off a number of times while I was here...this was the first one that caught me off guard.  They were exploding right by my windows!

Mombasa is the fourth of the big five cities that I would visit on this trip (Kampala, Kigali, Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam being the others).  Let’s see what it has to offer…got to admit, from first impressions, I wasn’t super stoked but I’m only here for three nights.