BEST PURCHASE (in Kenya)....- Definitely the cooker - having decided we didn't need one, we keep going to more and more remote places that you have to cook for yourself. The 'top 10' US couple had finished using their cooker and sold it to us for 60 US dollars (good deal). It takes Kersosine, Parraffin, Petrol, or if you can't find anything else - Jet fuel. A litre of fuel lasts about 3 weeks and costs about 20p so, if we can just get our recipes sorted out, we'll be sussed.

WORST PURCHASE - UJI. Rich was sent out to buy porridge (v. good / cheap breakfast option if you've got your own cooker). He came back saying that he'd chosed this particular packet becasue it was small and very cheap. He'd bought Uji - it's cornflour and soya basically, which the Kenyans mix with water into a gruel and call it porridge. It tastes a bit like liquid sand. A fair mistake on R's part you might think, apart from the fact that in big letters across the front was written the name of the brand -

MAIZENA. BEST THING WE BROUGHT WITH US - Our Fleeces. It was not warm in Kenya. Washing took about 3 days to dry. The other Godsend was Ziploc bags (plastic bags that seal and re-seal) - we would both have died from the fumes from R's socks if we hadn't been able to seal them.

WORST THING WE BROUGHT WITH US - suntan cream - a complete waste of time

BEST JOURNEY: First a bit of background. One of the cheapest ways to get from A to B in Kenya is on a Nissan minibus - otherwise known as a matatu. In the UK, the maximum number of passengers is 8. In Kenya, there is no limit - but vehicles won't even start their journey unless they have 18 passengers. A tolerable level of comfort is pretty impossible (especially if you are 6'4" tall) - the main aim of any trip is to get both butt cheeks on the seat. Anyway, the best seats in a matatu are in the front next to the driver - legroom, ample width and, if you're lucky, seatbelts - but these get grabbed by the locals pretty quickly. After four weeks travelling around Kenya in matatus we still had not managed to secure the front seats on any trip - then finally, on our last day in Kenya, we got them from Kitale to Bungona. A pleasant journey (1.5 hours) at last!!

WORST JOURNEY: We have a clear winner in this category and we could go on for ages about it but we'll try and keep it short. After a number of scary, white-knuckle matatu rides, we decided that it might be a good idea to start taking a few big buses (much safer options). We sure made a poor decision when choosing the trip from Maralal to Isiolo for our first bus ride. The bus turned out to be a truck (a normal bus would have disintegrated in about 5 minutes) and was jam-packed solid with people. It was the only public ttransport across this stretch of the country (the bus doubled as an ambulance) and we were sitting next to local villagers in traditional Samburu dress (spears, knives, beaded/plaited/red-mud-soaked hair). The journey took 9 hours in total but we only covered about 1 75km - that's less that 20km per hour!. The bumpy track meant that you were catapulted up to two feet off your seat at regular intervals. The window next to ours was broken - so we had dust flying into us for the entire time. To add insult to injury, about three-quarters of the way through the trip, we stopped for about 1 hour in Wamba. The reason for this stop - well it was the driver's home town and he had a few things to do around the house! The end of our journey was signalled byt he end of the dirt track and the beginning of tarmac. We now know how the Pope feels every time he gets off a plane in a new country and kisses the ground!

BEST PLACE: Kitale, in north-west Kenya, was the winner. It's a quiet laidback town. Great breakfast at the hotel. Lots of friendly people

WORST PLACE: Remember, the bus journey from Maralal to Isiolo? Well, to top it all, the town of Isiolo was the pits too and we had to hang around there for 1.5 days waiting for transport to get the hell out of there. So what was so bad about the place? Basically, it was a poor town - probably the poorest we've come across and so our western afffluence was that much more distinctive. You couln't move around town without being watched, stared at or followed by a vast array of beggars/touts/con-men. Everyone chews miraa leaves all day long (you might know it as chat), so the whole town is stoned, has no money and won't leave you alone - not the best of combinations.

BEST ACCOMMODATION: Fortunately our room in Isiolo was the most comfortable we'd had in Kenya (which is just as well since we spent most of our time holed up in it). It was a self-contained room with double bed, mossie net, ensuite bathroom with flush toilet, shelves and round-the-clock electricity (not just in the evening) - cost = 4$US. In fact, it was so good we've still got the key to the room!!

WORST ACCOMMODATION: This was undoubtedly at Robert's Campsite, Lake Baringo. Lake Baringo is the most northerly of the rift valley lakes and Robert's Campsite lies right on the shore about 1 km from the largest village, Kampi Ya Samaki. It's a beautiful place - a pet giant tortoise crawls around the grounds, a baby crocodile poses on a mud island in the morning sun and there are hundreds of brightly coloured birds....but is was completely INSECT INFESTED. The day before we had arrived in Baringo, it had rained and the mossies had come to the lake shore to lay their eggs. So by the time we got there, there were literally thousands of baby mossies flying around the place. A profusion of ants and termites also crawled around the place but the worst thing had to be the birds. Now our fine feathered friends are great to admire at a distance but when they're sitting in a fruiting tree right above you alternately bombing you with half-eaten fruit skins or their droppings - then it's a different matter.

BEST TOURIST: Quentin - a French guy with 3 weeks holiday we bumped into a couple of times. His English was pretty sketchy (but better than our French) and he kept saying, 'Okay' in a really singsong manner. He got up every morning at 6am and walked for miles until dark - then came and smoked 200 cigarettes and told us about his day.

WORST TOURIST: Sorry Duncan, but is has to be said that Overland trucks in general are a complete nightmare. One particular truck arrived at our campsite (Lake Naivasha) at 1am and proceeded to pitch their tents (it turned out to be in a circle around us - but in a huge empty campsite). Anyway, when that was over, one of their number picked up a guitar. Now we were awake, we were obsessed with working out what tunes he was 'singing' - it was that bad - in fact, we couldn't guess any of the first four songs he played until we realised that they were the same one. So we don't know who he was but he definitely qualifies as the worst tourist we met in Kenya. Watch out for our next email - 'the thing about overland trucks'

WORST VALUE: This was at Yare Safaris Campsite near Maralal in Northern Kenya. Not only were the camel trips incredibly expensive but the western meals in the restaurant charged separately for each vegetable. Needless to say, we soon headed into town for a cheaper option And finally.... Kenya - to us - will be remembered by bus horns going off at 3am and 5am to call passengers to the bus. Also by the phrases, 'give me one shilling', 'i'm not lying to you' (when they were) and 'i saw you yesterday, do you remember me?' (when they were one of 200 people you passed in the street) Rich & Tams If you know anyone that's been inadvertantly left out of this circulation list, please let us know. Otherwise, keep in touch all - speak to you from Tanzania

Rich & Tams