Oh how refreshing! I’m not talking about the weather; as that’s pretty far removed from refreshing as we’re basically sitting on the equator right now. Nope, I’m talking about Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. It’s great! It is distinctly African but despite this endearing/infuriating (delete as applicable or alter your answer every two minutes as would be fair and normal) characteristic it is terrifically well organised, genuinely friendly (Even the taxi drivers!) and, joy of joys, well endowed with decent bars, eateries and coffee shops. Where’s the downside? To be honest I’m not entirely sure.

Obviously Idi-ot Amin was a particularly nasty blot on the recent history (though I must confess that both my brothers and I used to find it quite fascinating that he killed so many folk and dumped them in Lake Victoria that he clogged up the hydro electric dam and that the crocodiles, who call the lake home, actually got sick of eating human flesh so wouldn’t bother! On come on! We were young – such things are as appealing to young lads as bogies, dirty knees, saying the word “knickers!” and picking off scabs) So that’s it then, a really great place to visit and it’s blessed/blemished with a bloody past.

You may think that’s what brought us here, but you’d be quite wrong. What actually brought us here was a crime. We purchased a bus ticket from Nairobi to Jinja, which I believe is the second city of Uganda, and which stands at the source of the world’s biggest river, the Nile. We had high hopes for Jinja. We were planning to do some volunteer work, to see the spot from which the mighty river springs, and of course to indulge in some silliness by hopping in a blow up boat and “floating” through some serious white water rapids. But none of this was to happen as we were the victims of a kidnapping. Now that might sound just a touch dramatic but I’m sure that is what it would be called in law. When we got to Jinja and attempted to alight our passage off the bus was barred and we were told that our baggage would not be taken out from the hold. Well cheers! Why not? Not entirely sure. Perhaps the driver was being honest when he said it was for safety as this area was rife with thieves (this I can, with the benefit of hindsight, assure you is utter BS) or perhaps they thought we might be worth a small ransom (I suspect we’re not even worth a very small ransom) or, and I’ll be very charitable, they were hoping to reach Kampala, where the vast majority of passengers were heading, not too far behind the scheduled time. But, as we made several stops for toilet and snack breaks after leaving Jinja I’d have to conclude that it is unlikely that this was the rationale behind our kidnapping. So, what’s left as a motive? Ahh, yes; that’ll be the old: “I-really-can’t-be-arsed-to-get-out-of-my-seat-and-open-the-hold-for-you” thing.

This hacked us off. Especially as the hostage takers proceeded to take 3 hours to cover the 80 km from Jinja  to Kampala and take an odd, extended lay over at some warehouse, which despite being only a couple of miles from the town centre, we were assured that we were still a significant drive from the destination. Bastards. Still, I must reiterate that Kampala was a huge silver lining to the black cloud of kidnapping.

Oh! One other thing. You know all those old T-shirts and clothes that you donate to charity after you’re done with them? Well, it seems that most of them end up in third world countries as a secondary business being sold from street carts to people passing by. We've noticed quite a few interesting clothing items that seem to be out of place, but this one we just couldn't pass up mentioning in our on-line journal.