Journey west to Uganda

Border crossing miracle

The scene of thousands of people with food, produce, animals, clothing crossing the border by foot and bicycles - and the thousands of other people who loiter around looking to cross and for money/food was absolutely shocking. I've never ever witnessed such a chaotic scene in my life. In any case, I took a deep breath and got off the bus trying to pretend I'm just a normal person like everybody else even though in a sea of people as far as I could see, I was the only non-African.

My plan didn't even work for one second. As soon as I started walking, people from all sides swarmed me with stacks of Ugandan and Kenyan money. Farmers with bicycles offered me to ride across the muddy zone. My mind was laughing with the ridiculousness and itchy with the temptation of busting out my camera and take pictures of this amazing scene. I've never been in the middle of this kind of attention before in life. People were alternatively using broken English to offer me help (sell me stuff and services) and uttering "Chinese words" and calling me "M-Cheena".

In any case, the border is nothing more than a dirt road that goes through a ditch/stream with some armed police/militia and a couple of barracks housing the border crossing agents. If you are African you just walk right through. Of course I was so noticeable that walking through wasn't even an option. I only had Kenyan shillings and didn't realize you had to pay 50 USD (in Greenback) as an American to enter Uganda. I was very lucky to encounter an extremely helpful/amicable Kenyan border custom official. I handed him my American passport and he asked me if i was Chinese. I said that I'm an American and he continued: oh so you hold both Chinese and American passports. In the end, I was content with being Chinese and pretended I never owned American money. The custom official was then kind enough to exchange 4000 Kenyan shillings for 50 dollars (better than the market buy exchange rate).

From being totally suspicious of everybody to asking everybody for directions and help to literally survive this chaos, I had learned my first life lesson of living in Africa - people are genuinely nice and are there to help you if you just give them a chance.


Meat and protein-containing food is scarce in this region of the world. Even consuming egg is a luxury and you see kids carrying baskets of eggs and selling them to passengers on long distance buses and taxis. Restaurants may have elaborate menus featuring goat, chicken and every kind of meat but frequently they are just for show - they have none. Whenever our minivan saw a food stall, it would stop and passengers would buy tomatoes, pineapples, eggs, and chili peppers even though the tomatoes are green and small and would hardly be considered edible for American standards.

The diet is simple enough that sorghum is the staple food of Uganda. The people there eat it in the form of Chapati (which is actually Indian in origin). Sorghum is probably the most coarse grain you can get on earth - not much better nutrition-wise than switch grass. Don't get me wrong though, Chapatis are pretty tasty at first - especially when baked to the right extent with vegetable oil. And they are supercheap - only 200USH - .9 US CENTS for a big Chapati pie in Uganda. Ugandans eat Chapatis daily with little else. If lucky, some banana/plantain is mixed in to spice up the flavor.

Not only does the food lack variety and nutrition, there are no electricity, running water, sanitation and a village clinic is unheard of in most places. When I finally arrived in Sipi Falls, a small village situated on the foothills of the majestic Mt.Elgon towering 14,000 feet above sea level and reportedly containing the largest caldera of any volcano on Earth, I was shocked to see that this "crows nest resort" featured in the lonely planet book is located just off this mountain road totally blended in with local village huts. The "resort" was actually built by peace corp volunteers in the late 90s seeking to develop the tourism industry in this impoverished mountainous region of Uganda. The place had no electricity except for the "main office" cabin and the toilet was just a hole in the ground.

All of those amenities didn't matter. This was exactly what I wanted to experience in Africa. Even though people live in huts and if lucky enough, buildings with tin roof so rain doesn't get in and birds don't make nests inside your house, one can appreciate the simple lifestyle away from the modern material world. The lack of electricity makes star gazing an absolutely sensational experience - you could see the milky way clearly.

With a view of a great water fall from the volcano on one side and the vast expanse of the rift valley savana on the other, the place is astoundingly beautiful! The best view is on top of a cliff reminiscent of pride rock in the Lion King movie. It was nauseating to experience the ginormous African sun setting over the majestic kingdom of savana.