Bamburi Beach, Mombasa

on arrival in the hotel you are treated like royalty and given drinks and as much help as you can take!! the hotel is clean and rooms are not majorly luxuriuos but you have what you need. who spends much time in the hotel room anyway!
when you first arrive there are guards on the gates but you soon realise this is to keep the beach boys out. if you even look over the balcony of the hotel you are being hassled to go and buy things. they are only trying to make a living but can be a bit much.we did go on the beach for a walk and soon learnt that you should take no money and say you have already bought everything and have no money. some of the boys came for a walk with us and showed us alsorts of marine life we would never have known existed if they hadnt pointed it out to us so we bought some name engraved keyrings from him, they start off giving you a ridiculously high price, but if you then go in with a ridiculously low price you end up somewhere near the right price, we paid about a pound each for the keyrings! i think the starting price was about a tenner!! on the last day of the holiday we went down to the beach with pairs of worn socks, worn t shirts, pens,lilos, half used toiletries etc and they get so exited over these and do really good deals. so take stuff you dont want to bring home so you have room in your case for many oil paintings, carvings, chess sets and sarongs!! they still want a small amount of cash but not alot. over all it is a very different experience but a very good one. just dont go execting a costa del sol holiday! it is far from it.