Mombasa to Johannesburg in one easy step!

15/11/06 – Leaving day from Mombasa .

I have to go to Nairobi tonight and then tomorrow inspect a couple of venues that Cricket Kenya want to use as International grounds for an upcoming tournament in January. That’s tomorrow but today is all about packing, paying bills and getting ready to play golf! I have a game organised this afternoon at Nyali Golf Club on the North shore of the mainland. It’s the best course in the area and I’m playing with the professional Jimmy Mbongo and one of the Chairman’s friends Vishnu Dhutia who is a very steady player. He and I play as partners against Jimmy and a friend of his – whom for this purpose we’ll call……….Bandit!!!! The guy played off 20 and shot 17 over gross getting 6 pars and a birdie to boot, we had no chance not that I’m a bitter loser or anything but this guy will be playing off single figures within a few weeks! Anyway I enjoyed the course and the company and should I go back to Mombasa I’ll certainly make a ‘B’ line for it again.
I had to rush after the game because my flight to Nairobi was at 9pm and I had to shower, close my case and meet up with my liaison who was getting me to the airport. No problems everything went smoothly and the flight left on time, it’s only 45 minutes to Nairobi and I was soon touching down. I was greeted by Tom Tikolo and taken to the Norfolk Hotel where I was staying for the night. This hotel is the oldest in the city and there are some parts of it that could certainly do with an upgrade but I was only there for one night so that didn’t bother me too much.

16/11/06 – Thursday.

Tom picked me up again to go and inspect these 2 grounds on opposite sides of the city. Both grounds had been inspected by Mike Procter last June but needed further inspecting because he recommended some improvements. Unfortunately not much had been done at either venues so I was unable to pass either of them but my hosts and I did come up with an action plan that may have them up to scratch in a few weeks……..we’ll see!
Time for quick bite to eat then off to the airport for my flight to Johannesburg and the start of the Indian tour! This is where the problems of the day started! I went to the check in desk and got asked for my Yellow Fever certificate which I didn’t have. This was partly my fault because I came to Kenya in 2000 for the Champions Trophy and must have had the jab then but I forgot to bring the certificate this time because I was only told the day I was leaving England that I’d be going on to SA. They refused to let me on the plane but they said I could get a certificate if I crossed the road and went to the first floor of arrivals where they would issue me with a replacement. Unfortunately this was closed! Back to check in for another suggestion, this time they checked me in and I was taken through passport control to another office where an in-house doctor would help me out. This she did but only after she’d given me a half hour lecture about the importance of carrying important documents and some currency had changed hands!!!! Well, this is Africa !!!
Time to board the plane and no sooner had we all done that than the captain came on the internal radio and told us we had to wait because a VIP was due to land soon! This VIP was the President of Kenya and it took 40 minutes for his plane to land, taxi into the terminal with his military escort and permission for us to be given the go ahead. There could be no more problems now surely? The flight took 10 minutes short of 4 hours and it all went smoothly. I did some work on my computer until the battery died and South African Airways looked after us very well. Now back at Nairobi airport I got chatting to a lady who was looking concerned for her friend because the authorities had taken her away from the boarding gate because she didn’t have 2 clean pages in her passport for the South African authorities to put their stamp in. 2 clean pages ……why? Anyway I saw her on the plane and sure enough her friend had not been allowed to board!
I hadn’t bothered to check my passport but I do a lot of travelling and sure enough when I got to passport control they picked up that I didn’t have 2 clean pages either. I had 4 or 5 pages with only one small stamp in one corner but they insisted they had to have 2 clean pages. OK send me home, I thought, this had been a bad day and I wasn’t going to argue any more. The guy went away to see what he could do and came back after 5 minutes to say he would stamp the passport but that I’d have to get a new one for future trips to SA. I’d made it through the most troublesome travel day I think I’d ever had! I was met on the other side of customs my Mike Gajjar from Cricket South Africa who took me to the Grayston Southern Sun Hotel in Sandton where I would be staying for my time in Jo’burg.

17/11/06 – Nothing much to do today as I’m the only official in town at the moment. My 2 local guys were involved with an Indian warm-up game last night and wouldn’t be booking in until the afternoon and Billy Doctrove, my Elite Umpire, wasn’t due to fly in until 11am so he would be catching up with some sleep for the rest of the day. I needed some shorts so a quick trip into the Sandton Shopping Centre was in order. This is one of the main shopping centres in Jo’burg it is also a little bit more expensive than the others because of the close proximity of all the major hotels in Sandton but it does have everything and as we are staying fairly close to the centre it seemed the obvious place to visit.