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Showing posts from October, 2013

Delhi's development and amusing culture to a Nairobian (Part II)

Delhi Gurgaon, New Delhi This bit has been written months after the former bit. Sadly,  I have little medium and long term memory,  the omissions may be glaring. It is continued from part I We got to Delhi at almost 2 AM in the thick of the night. Delhi is an expansive city, with lighting on and off,  a greater part of the city is illuminated,  and the main roads around the city can be mapped from the air. There’s also a good part of the city that remains unlit. Indira Gandhi Airport itself could do with better lighting especially on the apron side (where planes are parked). There’s just barely enough light here. The airport here is quite large - Jomo Kenyatta International Airport is one of the smallest,  actually,  the smallest country airport I have been through. At the airport,  a guard did stop our troupe of 5 black people,  inspected our tickets,  and our yellow fever booklets,  before letting us through. He did not bother inspecting any other person’s tickets o

Delhi's development and amusing culture to a Nairobian (Part 1)

Parts of Doha as seen from the air  Kenya is a country quite ahead of it’s peers, and developing at a fast pace. The traffic jams in Nairobi are a progress of our fast development that has outplaced planning. The past two statements are blatant lies, as i came to find out in the beginning of May. Nokia was launching a revamped version of the Asha operating system that runs it’s low end phones (Those costing under KSh. 15,000). The phone was being launched in India, which is the same country where the “Asha” name comes from. The launch therefore saw me and a number of other journalists scheduled for a trip to the country of 1.2 billion. For your perspective, the 54 or so countries of Africa have a combined population of 1.06 billion. For starters, one needs a visa to travel to India. This shouldn’t worry you though. All you need to do is fill in an application form online, print it out, and submit it to the Indian embassy together with 2 passport sized photos. Visa processin

A Kenyan in Istanbul: Show Me The Lira!

A 17th floor view of Turkey from the Barbaros Area.  I haven't been to Lamu, which is said to be the oldest city, existing from 1,400 AD. But I have been to an older city, Istanbul, or Constantinople, a Biblical Times city that dates to the year 685 Before Christ. You may go like wow, but it is a relatively young city, compared to neighbouring Athens in Greece, which dates back to a cool 11,000 years Before Christ. Flying from Nairobi, you'll be on Turkish Airlines, yes, that one that has a football advert featuring Messi and Kobe trying to impress a kid on the plane. One thing though, the flight takes off at quarter to 4 am, and it lands back at 2 am. Leather seats with curved leather headsets in Turkish Boeing 737-800ER It's 6 hours non-stop to Istanbul, and you will be probably in the newer Boeing 737-800 ER. They do have comfortable leather seats, with a curved leather headrest. The meals too are good in aeroplane standards. The flight gets to Istanbul at 1