July 18th, 2012 
Emily 
Last weekend, I went to Mombasa, a coastal city in Kenya. Mombasa is about 475 kilometers (about 300 miles) from Nairobi. The trip is a 50 minute flight, or a 7 hour drive. Instead, our group opted to take the train, which is lovingly referred to as “The Lunatic Express”.
When my husband told his Kenyan coworkers that we were going to take the train to Mombasa, they said things like, “I’ll start walking to Mombasa now and I’ll probably beat you there,” and “Why would you do that?”. Clearly, we were lunatics for taking the train.
We bought first class tickets, which entitled us to a ramshackle room with two bunk beds, worn-out bed linens, and a mediocre dinner and breakfast on the train. That’s right, we needed two meals on this train because apparently it was going to take us 14 hours to get to Mombasa.
at the station in Nairobi
on the road to Mombasa
I imagine that our train car was “first-class” fifty years ago. And to be fair, it was nicer than third class, where passengers spend the entire night on hard plastic seats. But the first-class car was lacking in certain first-class amenities, such as toilet paper, light bulbs, and cleanliness.
First-class passengers had their own waiting room in the Nairobi train station.
This is what the Upper Class Waiting Room looked like.
Surprisingly, we left the Nairobi train station on time. Unsurprisingly, the train’s generator broke immediately. So, we began our journey chugging through one of Nairobi’s slums in the dark. I stood at an open window, breathing in the dirty air of Nairobi and taking in the scene until a train employee said, “You should shut the window. We are in a slum and sometimes people outside throw rocks in here.”
I dutifully shut my window.
The train had a disconcerting pattern of lurching from side to side, so dinner was a messy affair. We spilled our soup, and our drinks. We worried that the lantern swinging wildly above my head, might fall. Luckily, it didn’t and after two lengthy stops, the generator was back up and running and the lantern was turned off.
Reading the dinner menu after the generator broke.
The rocking of the train made sleeping difficult. My husband slept on the top bunk and we actually had to fasten a net across his bed so that he wouldn’t come crashing to floor in the middle of the night. I found that I would usually fall asleep when the train stopped moving (and for some reason, it stopped a lot), and then I would wake up when it started moving again.
My bed/bench on the train
At breakfast the next morning, we learned that we would be arriving in Mombasa “a bit late”. So we settled back down in our tiny cabins and watched Kenya roll by. Children stood next to the track and waved. Men sat outside traditional bomas, watching us pass. Women waited patiently at the intersection of the train tracks and the road, huge bundles balanced on their heads.
Children waved as we drove past.
Boma + garden
At 10:45 am, we pulled into the Mombasa station. It had taken us almost 16 hours to get from Nairobi to Mombasa. Luckily, we had already booked the 50 minute plane flight home. We agreed that while “The Lunatic Express” was worth it for one ride, it wasn’t something that we ever needed to do again.
We made it.
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Totally reminds me of the train trips in China. I hope your “restroom facilities” were better.
haha, I don’t think they were: squat toilets that emptied straight onto the tracks.
That’s it! LOL!
Emily, you two are quite the adventurers. I enjoyed the story especially the part about eating in the dining room. It brought to mind my experience dining on the “All Electric Train” from London to Scotland. While the trip was only a few hours, we were served dinner… UGH! My plate was at an angle tipped toward me which I had to keep rearranging. And – one little tilt of the train made me so nauseous that I swore never to eat on a train again. However, touring Scotland was worth the agony to get there.
Keep the stories coming. I am so proud of you.
Janet
I can picture your misery: train food + the jolting of the train sounds so nauseating. Also, I didn’t know there was an electric train up to Scotland, cool!
So funny. I’m glad you made it!
Great details Emily. I felt like I was here with you but am honestly glad I wasn’t.
It sounds a little like “the night bus” from Harry Potter. THe lurching, in particular, but the Night Bus moved quickly.
The whole time we were in the train station, I kept thinking of Harry Potter! I never saw the movies, so in my mind, the train station looked just like this.
What a fun blog post! I loved reading about the whole thing and kept laughing out loud. What an interesting and fun experience.
Well told. I laughed out loud throughout the reading. Im Kenyan, I will take that Lunatic Express one of these days. Thanks for sharing….
Thanks for reading! It’s worth the one trip, but I would take a plane or a bus back!
Back in late 2010, I was assigned to Kenya and once seriously considering taking this trip because some people said it’s romantic, even though the local staffs in our Embassy were all told me against it…
… This review summarized it best, IMO. I have a good laugh, but I’m still curious to try it one day, if I ever go back to Kenya