There was no problem at the customs of Mombasa and Dave and I shared a taxi to downtown Mombasa. After changing money at a bank we went to a hotel recommended in the guidebook, the Mvita (the old name of Mombasa). As we walked to the hotel we could ascertain that our palm hats were very popular in Mombasa as well even if it was not on the overwhelming level of Zanzibar.

The hotel was run by a friendly Indian and very inexpensive, £3 for a double room. It also, it would turn out, doubled as a brothel but we were not really disturbed by the traffic. I felt rather sorry for the girls, some who were very attractive. They looked healthy enough but according to a study I had read about in Time magazine, 80 % of the prostitutes in East Africa were carrying the Aids virus.

We took a walk around town and I quite liked Mombasa with its spacious, rather clean avenues and rather modern buildings. The pace was much slower than in Nairobi and I found people friendlier. This was probably due to the palm hat, which was causing a stir among the many souvenir peddlers. Mombasa was also deemed to be safer than Nairobi but it was still advisable not to flaunt your valuables.

We met two travellers who just had arrived from Nairobi and they could tell us that it was now calm. During the weekend it had been very unsafe. They had heard gunfire outside their hotel and they had met several tourists who had been robbed on the streets in clear daylight by roaming gangs who thought it was a free for all. We had a meal at a local restaurant for only 30 pence and then we went to the posh Castle Hotel for a beer at their veranda. But it was not really our scene and we went back to the Mvita.

The next morning I walked to the railway station to book a ticket to Nairobi. Whether it was safe or not I had to go back on the 23rd of July as my plane departed on the 24th. I paid £12 for my 1st class sleeper. It was a bargain I thought, as I have to pay ten times as much when I travel the same distance to Stockholm (800 miles). The station was a 45 minutes walk from the city centre and I continued walking for another half an hour to the Old Town. Its main point of interest is the Fort Jesus, built by the Portuguese in 1593. I think I wrote to you that it was quite interesting but that opinion was rather premature. The fort was quite small and there was not that much to see except old cannons. In no way did it compare to the forts I had seen in India. So I considered the high entrance fee, £ 2.50 to be a big rip-off. There was a large tour group of noisy Germans and they are a pain wherever they turn up.

I then strolled through Old Town. It was reminiscent of the Stone Town in Zanzibar with narrow streets, mosques and a big cat population. But the people were quite neutral, very far from the overwhelming friendliness of the Zanzibarians although my palm hat raised quite a few smiles. It was not as big either and more dirty and I did not find it very inspiring.

I then walked to the tourist strip of Moi Avenue with its remarkable city landmark four crossed elephant tusks (made of aluminium) spanning the street. I bought a book, "The Lunatic Express", which was about the building of the railway from Mombasa to Kampala in Uganda. The book turned out to be very interesting, giving a historical background to the British colonisation that I had been unaware of.

I also bought a newspaper and while Nairobi was quiet there was a lot of unrest in other towns. The death toll was now 13 and hundreds had been injured and thousands had been arrested. Buses and matatus were pelted with stones by angry mobs and transport had virtually come to a standstill. The Government's reaction was very hard-headed. The police minister suggested that those favouring a multiparty system should have their heads chopped off! The newspapers were generally very boring reading, much similar to Pravda of yesteryear. What was really disgusting to read was the big advertisements put in by Kenyan companies that saluted the greatness of President Moi and the "heroic" police force. Sometimes one could read excerpts from critical speeches held by the clergy but it would be balanced with at least 10 pro-Government articles.

I had lunch at a Wimpy restaurant and the hamburger was quite dreadful. It was very hot and I was very tired, having walked for almost seven hours and I returned to Mvita for some rest. In the evening I persuaded David that he had to see a Hindi movie. It was a rather terrible melodrama but David enjoyed the amazing dance numbers, the over-explicit acting and the unorthodox camera work. It was also amusing to note the lively reactions from the audience who booed as soon as the villain appeared and tittered during the bland (to us) love scenes.

After the movie we went to the Istanbul Bar which was opposite the Castle Hotel. It was a very lively place but we did not stay for long as we had no intention of getting drunk. Neither did we want any deeper involvement with the large number of prostitutes, some who were selling their goods quite aggressively.

My next stop was Malindi, a beach resort 90 miles north of Mombasa on the way to Lamu. David had to go to Nairobi to fix his air ticket although he would have preferred to join me to Lamu. David had been a nice acquaintance, much more mature than his 21 years indicated. He had previously had a lot of odd jobs, his most recent as a garbage collector. He had been rather undecided about what to do with his life, not that unusual at his age. But he would now start at the university to become a teacher and I wished him the best of luck.

The next morning I said farewell to him and walked to the bus station. I had wanted to go by matatu but the drivers were still on strike and I had to accept travelling in the vintage bus. The bus fare was only 50 pence.

The journey took only three hours but was quite uncomfortable despite the good road as the bus was packed beyond capacity. The landscape was very varied, from rolling baobab country, sisal, cashew nuts and pineapple plantations to thick jungle with beautiful creeks near Malindi.

I stayed at the Travel Inn, which was situated by the beach. The beach was a disappointment. It was very dirty and in the low tide one would have to walk very far to get to the water. The nice beach was situated a mile north at the luxury hotels. I had a pizza at the I Love Pizza restaurant and then I hired a bicycle at the guesthouse.

Malindi was divided in two parts. One part was typically African, dusty, noisy unpaved streets, crowded with people. The other was the tourist area, paved streets, posh restaurants, luxury hotels and souvenir shops. The town gave a schizophrenic impression, as if it could not decide which foot to stand on. It was heavily influenced by mass tourism and I did not like it much. The hawkers addressed me in German and I did not like that either.

I booked a flight to Lamu as I was tired of buses and had money to spare. The flight would take 45 minutes and the bus 6-8 hours on unsurfaced road and I thought the ticket was worth the £25.

I then sneaked one of the Sauerkraut sanctuaries, the Eden Roc, ignoring the big sign saying "Guests Only". No one tried to stop me as I was taken for a German. The place was beautifully landscaped and had a big pool. The beach was a hundred yards away and I found it odd that it was practically deserted. Instead the Krauts crowded around the pool. A large group was playing cards by a table and I thought it was a peculiar way to spend the time in Africa. In fact, if it had not been for the black Kenyan waiters, this sanitised place could have been anywhere in the world. The Germans had paid a lot of money and seemed to enjoy themselves so perhaps I should not be bothered but I found it rather alien to my kind of vacation. Still, I enjoyed the pool too! But there was a loud and very silly argument between a fat couple about the hotel's table tennis tournament. It went on and on and I had to flee down to the beach where I was almost alone.

After reading "The Lunatic Express" for a few hours I went back to the Travel Inn. I had spaghetti at the "I Love Pizza" restaurant and then went back to have an early night. It was the low season and hardly any people except for the omnipresent Germans, whom I had no interest to mingle with. There was no fan in my room and it was a bit too stuffy to sleep well.

So in the morning I left the guesthouse to another one, Uzi's Guest House which was very nice, clean spacious rooms with fans and mosquito nets. There was a nice view from the balcony of the Swahili part of the town with a beautiful mosque nearby. The prices were twice as much as the Travel Inn, but still only £3 for a double. At 11 am I took a bus the three miles to the Malindi Marine National Park, the major attraction as far as I was concerned. The fee of £5 included snorkelling equipment and a trip to the reef a few hundred yards from the shore in a glass bottom boat.

It was worth every shilling and one of my best experiences in Africa or anywhere for that matter. When we got to the reef the sea was absolutely boiling with fish as they (correctly) associated the boat with food. It was a phenomenal experience to swim in the shoal of thousands of coral fish with every conceivable combination of colour and shape and a few inconceivable ones too. It seemed impossible that fish should be such colours. The ostentatious dazzle of some of them, particularly the absurd-looking parrotfish, was hilarious. When I swam the fish would move out of the way in mysterious unison, each one avoiding the others in a kind of natural light show of fantastic beauty. They were also very tame, eating bread out of my hand almost like dogs.

We stayed at the reef for 1 1/2 hours and it was far too short. I met a Swedish man, Lars who was travelling with his 10-year old son Fredrik. I was envious of their camera, a one film disposable Kodak underwater camera, a very recent technological wonder. It was their third visit to the Park. They were nice to talk to and I enjoyed speaking my own language for a change.

We decided to walk back to Malindi along the beach. We stopped by the Driftwood Club, another resort hotel, where we had lunch. We continued along the beautiful shore back to our guesthouse, passing the Vasco da Gama Pillar, a navigational aid built by the Portuguese explorer in 1597.

Outside the hotel I met an American, Brian, who vainly was looking for a room. Everything was full, rather surprising since it was the low season. I took pity on him and let him share my double room. It was something I rather regretted, as he was a traveller of the grumbling and penny-pinching variety. I was totally uninterested in his gripes about cheating Africans. I also found his constant spraying of the room with insect repellent very silly.

I went out to dinner by myself. I went to the Baobab Cafe by the seafront, very aware of the guidebook's label of the short stretch of road as "Muggers' Paradise" But nothing happened to me except being wooed by a surprisingly large number of prostitutes.

I woke up the following morning already at 5.30 because the muezzin's wailing that it was time to come to the mosque and pray. My flight was due to leave at 3 p.m. I spent most of the day reading at Lawford's, another five star hotel catering to the German package tourists. It started to rain and I was rather surprised, as it was only the second time I had seen rain in Africa. I had lunch at the nearby Blue Marlin, whose claim to fame was that Hemingway used to stay there. I took a taxi to the airport at 2 p.m. The taxi stopped 300 yards before the airport and when I wondered why the driver said he had "problems" with the airport police.

At the airport I thought something was wrong, as I was the single person there apart from a few staff who were very impressed by my palm hat by the way. But nothing was wrong and the five-seater plane took off with me as the only passenger.

The pilot was an expatriate Englishman and he had been flying up and down the African East Coast for five years. The flight was quite scenic with the contrast of the emerald sea, the white sand beaches and the dark green rain forest beyond. From my bird's eye view I could see how utterly vast Africa was.