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Oh, and I am told that the sporting facilities are good too. If you like that sort of thing. I don’t. A good place to go at the weekends is one of the local ‘resort’ clubs. Basically bars and nyama choma joints, they are places Kenyans take their whole family on Sunday afternoons after church. They will have a band, maybe acrobats, face-painting. Nyama choma is literally ‘roast meat’ – a big plate of char-grilled goat, chicken or beef, with a side-order of ugali (a stiff maize-meal porridge) and katchumbari (tomatoes, onion and chilli) is a standard treat for the weekend. Roasters has long been one of my favourites, but there are any number to choose from – Kati Kati in Hurlingham is another good one (out of many). No tourist should leave Nairobi without a visit to Carnivore on Lang’ata Road – on the list of Top 50 restaurants in the world. The three-kilo mixed game-meat platter is something everyone should experience at least once in their life. Unless you are a vegetarian, obviously. A friend once innocently asked a waiter “what do vegetarians eat here?” The casually terse reply was “they don’t”. Maybe the Kenya National Museum isn’t the place it could or should be, but it is definitely worth half a day. The exhibits on the development of early man are good (and one of the tableau figures looks exactly like a boy I used to teach in Essex). There is a Snake Park next door that displays snakes, fish, and crocodiles – my four-year-old daughter and her friends like it. Ignore the signs on the snake displays that say things like “deadly neurotoxin” – common in Nairobi area. It’s not that they are not true – quite the opposite in fact. That’s why it’s best to ignore them – too disturbing otherwise. Mind you, the number of times I’ve actually seen a snake in Nairobi could be counted on the 'fingers of one finger'. And that one was dead. The Railway Museum on Haille Selassie Road is definitely worth a visit. It has been quite run down over the past few years, coinciding with the brief period of privatization. It’s now back in the hands of Kenya Railways, and things have improved. There are ten old steam engines to scramble over; and you can even see the railway carriage in which, on June 6th, 1900 Mr C.H.Ryall, having told two companions that he would keep an overnight lookout for a reported man-eating lion, fell asleep himself. The lion had seemingly been keeping its own lookout, and slid open the carriage door, climbed over one of the sleeping men and grabbed Ryall by the head, and dragged him (one hopes he was already dead) off into the bush. On the other hand, given that Kenya as a country would not exist at all if it were not for the railway (even a brief explanation of which would take a whole article in itself - indeed several whole books), it really should be given a huge revamp to make it the museum the “lunatic express” really deserves. For a visitor there are more than enough places to buy souvenirs – ranging from the truly awful, to exquisite and unique works of art. Get away from the hotel gift shop as fast as you can. The original Maasai market above Globe Roundabout is still there, but they hold markets at Village Market, Gigiri, on a Friday, and at the Yaya, Hurlingham, on a Sunday. The same people selling, but they are better regulated (one doesn’t get the ‘helpful’ young men who have made the Globe Roundabout site a very stressful experience for any but the thickest skinned). You will be expected to bargain them down from the first asking price – try to get them down to about 30-40%. Money no object? Get out to Utamaduni in Lang’ata – a portion of the money you spend goes to support environmental projects. For basic souvenirs you will pay much more than you would spend in one of the street markets, but it is a great place to get unique items of very high quality (and they will even ship them home for you). There is also a little market at the Bomas of Kenya, also in Lang’ata that is little frequented, but can offer some surprisingly good stuff. Some people find the Bomas a bit naff, but again, you really should pay a visit – I used to go nearly every weekend when I first lived in Kenya, and was a five-minute walk away – and they also do good basic food. In a huge rendition of a traditional round hut a professional company of dancers put on a two-hour show every afternoon of the week. They have a repertoire of about thirty-five dances and musical items, and do about eight or nine per show. They also have a great acrobatic troupe of the type very popular in the coast hotels. The bomas themselves – traditional houses and compounds from a variety of tribal groups – that were intended to be a living museum of tribal culture are still there, but getting a bit shabby. Again, like the railway museum, it is something that needs money pumped into it – and the money just isn’t there. Oh, and I haven’t even told you that the Nairobi Game Park is a fabulous place to spend a day – the only thing you won’t see are elephants. It’s only a twenty-minute ride out of town, and has one of the finest restaurants, in town, Rangers, just by the main gate. And the horse racing in the season out on Ngong Road … What are you doing still sitting there? Gareth Evans AUTHOR: Gareth Evans  TAGS: Travel narobi travel BOOKMARK: Digg it | Add to Del.ICIO | Add to FARK ACTIONS: Comment Save Print Register free acount 
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