FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Hilton Salt Lick Lodge {ZAF} (no longer Honors)
Old Apr 3, 2001, 10:14 pm
  #7  
estnet
 
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: bay area, ca
Programs: UA plat, , aa plat, marriott LT titanium
Posts: 4,821
I was in Kenya to about three years ago. I stayed at the Nairobi Hilton for a few nights and it was a real dump - I wouldn't stay there again (even for free). Of course things could have changed dramatically since I've been there.

Nairobi has extreme crime problems -- since the economy has gotten worse since I was there I can only imagine how bad it is now. I was warned by a nice hotel as I was leaving to take the watch off my arm (a three dollar Bangkok bargain) because of the possibility that I would be seriously hurt in an attempt to steal it. in fact two people were seriously injured in the parking lot of this hotel (not the Hilton, one of the best in Nairobi) a few days later and ended up in the hospital -- even though the parking lot is "guarded". I can relate other incidents of this kind but you get the idea. So many people are so extremely poor that they are really desperate.

I really enjoyed seeing the wildlife, but had some real problems with a number of issues (lodges that charge us $500 and locals $50 - too much difference for me to be comfortable, the exploitation of the poor people in ways that are not uncommon but overwhelmingly apparent here, real concerns about safety issues on a variety of levels besides the one mentioned above). I won't repeat the trip until conditions change.

clearly these are value judgments within my own particular frame of reference and yours may vary. this is the only place I have visited where I felt really unsafe (and I would not have except for multiple warnings by Kenyans, reading the English language paper, and seeing stores with the boarded up windows as the result of rocks thrown through them (at that time a fairly common occurrence). As a frame of reference I have traveled in Thailand, Indonesia, a variety of small islands in Micronesia, India -- well you get the idea.

I am so sorry to have to post this because I love travel and enjoy unusual places (as well as usual) -- but had I known the real situation I probably would not have gone.YMMV
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