This time, Tom's gone to Kenya: February 2010

I received a notice in my P.O. Box informing me that a parcel had arrived for me, and I had to go pick it up. The Kenyan postal service doesn't deliver to your door, you have to check the P.O. Box, which only accepts documents. It doesn't seem like a desperately efficient system.

So I trundled off to the main depot with my passport and receipt, eagerly anticipating the delights of a whole morning spent collecting one parcel. As I'm sure you can imagine, the central Kenyan Post Office is the epitome of efficiency and common sense.

Here's how. You will need:

Some small change
Passport
Time - lots
Patience - infinite

Step 1: Main counter. Present my ID and receipt and they immediately hand me my parcel. This is easy.

Step 2: Take it to the next counter where they unwrap the package to log the contents. A t-shirt which came free and a home-made DVD.

Step 3: Another counter. The contents must be valued. £3 for the t-shirt and £2 for the DVD.

Step 4: I owe tax and excise. Of course I do. Am directed to the customs cashier who calculates the amount. £1 for VAT, £1.25 for import duty.

Step 5: Next counter. This lady's job is to add up the total amount. It comes to £2.25. She used a calculator.

Step 6: Back to the 2nd counter. She stamps and approves the previous lady's arithmetic. Sends me to a side-office for payment.

Step 7: Turns out this lady doesn't actually accept the payment. Her job is to print off the payment form. An A4 Form F147. In duplicate.

This is where it gets fun.

Step 8: In order to pay the duty, I have to go across town to the Revenue and Excise Office, with all my forms, as the Post Office can't process payments. By happy coincidence the Revenue Authority is on the ground floor of my office building. I am back where I started - but at least I have now paid the tax, and had my form stamped.

Step 9: Back to the Post Office. Can I pick up my parcel yet? First the cashier (the adding-up lady from before, turns out she has multiple responsibilities) must stamp my payment receipt.

Step 10: There is a Post Office charge of 70p. Of course there is. Another form. Another stamp.

Step 11: Back to the first counter and I am handed my parcel. With a smile.

Step 12: On leaving the building, I am putting the parcel in my bag when security approach me and accuse me of smuggling. An innocent mistake, I'm sure. Show my ID, fill in another form and they let me go.

A mere 2 hours, £2.95, 7 stamps and 4 cases of showing my passport later, I am back in the office. I open the parcel, to find this note.

Si poa!

I do, however, like my t-shirt.

Went to Mombasa on the coast for New Year's and came back without my camera (I'm going for stolen, but it could just as easily be lost). So no photos = no posting.

Fortunately, however, I have a little something kept in reserve. Before flying home for Christmas I took the morning to visit Nairobi National Park.

It's not the most spectacular safari in the world, but it is literally on the outskirts of Nairobi, so you get great photos of wildlife with the city in the background, like so.

Apparently trips the National Park can vary wildly in what you might see, but at 6 in the morning on a Monday the wildlife seemed pretty prevalent.

More excitingly, I was driving back up one of the main roads, having given up any hope of seeing a big cat because it's pretty rare, when I saw a face pop up by the side of the road.

As I screeched to a halt, a whole family looked up to see what was happening, including this badboy, barely ten metres away from the car. So, obviously I wound down the windows to get a better look (just about stopped short of getting out of the car).