Uganda Travel Guide
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Jessica Simpson Serenades Guests at the Kampala Serena Hotel
She’s back Stateside now but gossip website Popbitch has just had news of Jessica Simpson’s recent stay in Uganda for her new show, The Price of Beauty.
Apparently she stayed at the Serena Hotel in Kampala and was “nice and unassuming - so much so, in fact, that she even gave guests a guitar recital at the hotel (maybe she should take up busking – it also says her group’s credit card was later declined at the airport).
Rooms here currently go for $242, but if you’re not on a Simpson-sized budget, Popbitch reckons that the Red Chilli Hideaway is the nicest budget gaff in Kampala. Got a better idea? Let us know below.
[Photo of Serena Kampala: CourtneyMay]
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Uganda Hotel Scene :: An Upcountry Luxury Option Fit For A German President
HotelChatter's newest contributing editor Scarlett Lion is filing her stories from Uganda. Every now and then, she'll be sending us dispatches about the hotel scene here. Got questions? Send 'em to us and we'll get them answered.
There's not much about "post-conflict" that makes people think "spa," but that's only if they haven't been to Boma Hotel in Gulu, northern Uganda.
Gulu has been the epicenter of a conflict between rebels and the Ugandan government for more than the past two decades, but now that things seem calmer, the flak jackets are being replaced by mud wraps. While most upcountry hotels are never more than basic, Boma Hotel brings luxury in the bush to a new level.
The amenities range from horribly over-priced to a welcome reprieve from dirt roads and poverty just beyond Boma's gates. For 10,000 Uganda Shillings ($6), you can get a club sandwich that is essentially bread, butter, a fried egg, and a chicken that tastes as tough as if it had run a marathon directly before becoming your sandwich.
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Uganda Hotel Scene :: Upcountry Hotel Breakfast Offerings
HotelChatter's newest contributing editor Scarlett Lion is filing her stories from Uganda. Every now and then, she'll be sending us dispatches about the hotel scene here. Got questions? Send 'em to us and we'll get them answered. Earlier this week, we recommended you step out of your comfort zone and check out an upcountry hotel, and yesterday we gave you a vocab lesson to help you along. Today, here's the scoop on upcountry hotel breakfasts. Enjoy.
Breakfast is usually included in the price of an upcountry hotel room, which at JoJo's is 25,000 shillings non-self-contained, and 50,000 shillings self contained ($15 without a private bathroom, $30 with a private bathroom).
Breakfast is almost always the same at almost all upcountry hotels: bread, a boiled egg, a banana, and instant coffee. The bread will not be toasted, and will often be stale. There will also usually be a tub of Blue Band and a can of Zesta at your disposal.
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Uganda Hotel Scene :: Your Upcountry Hotel Vocabulary Lesson
HotelChatter's newest contributing editor Scarlett Lion is filing her stories from Uganda. Every now and then, she'll be sending us dispatches about the hotel scene here. Got questions? Send 'em to us and we'll get them answered. Earlier this week, we recommended you step out of your comfort zone and check out an upcountry hotel. Today, here's a little extra help navigating the scene. Enjoy.
The official language of Uganda is English, but English here is of its very own unique, um, interpretation. In Kampala, you'll find that most people will speak in a way that can be pretty easily understood, though some effort may be involved.
Upcountry, all pretense at British English of the traditional, colonial kind is pretty much abandoned and idioms are the rule of the day.
Here a are a few hotel-related idioms that are necessary to understanding what the receptionist is trying to tell you, in order of importance to the comfort of your stay.
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Uganda Hotel Scene :: Take a Chance on an Upcountry Hotel
HotelChatter's newest contributing editor Scarlett Lion is filing her stories from Uganda. Every now and then, she'll be sending us dispatches about the hotel scene here. Got questions? Send 'em to us and we'll get them answered. Enjoy.
Kampala, Uganda, may be a bustling metropolitan capital, but nothing about the rest of the country is "bustling" or "metropolitan."
Within minutes of leaving the city center, large buildings are nowhere to be found, houses with amenities like tile floors and running water and electricity recede into scores of banana trees separated by occasional mud-brick homes and concrete slabs that serve as stores and trading centers.
Traveling north from Kampala to a town in the Acholi region, Gulu, is a five to seven hour journey by road. Gulu is nothing like Kampala. Where Kampala is sprawling, Gulu is sprawled: about ten square blocks that quickly petered out into bush. There's no Sheraton or Serena or Emin Pahsa or other centers of luxury that tourists, businessmen and aid workers flock to in the urban capital.
Instead, there is the "upcountry hotel."
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Kampala Hotel Has No Problem With Evoking Colonialism
HotelChatter's newest contributing editor Scarlett Lion is filing her stories from Uganda. Every now and then, she'll be sending us dispatches about the hotel scene here. Got questions? Send 'em to us and we'll get them answered. Enjoy.
The Emin Pasha Hotel has what are undoubtedly some of the most comfortable couches in Uganda (a claim we can support after sitting on many, many a couch, resulting primarily in lower back aches). The décor and atmosphere is luxuriant to the point of evoking bygone days of slower paces, a simpler world, and, another relic of bygone days: colonialism.
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Uganda Hotel Scene :: Expats Can Be Found Poolside at Hotels
HotelChatter's newest contributing editor Scarlett Lion is filing her stories from Uganda. Every now and then, she'll be sending us dispatches about the hotel scene here. Got questions? Send 'em to us and we'll get them answered. Enjoy.
Every time Saturday or Sunday rolls around, or an unpredictable "public holiday" is declared in Uganda, you can be sure to find expatriates and wealthy Ugandans flocking hotel swimming pools.
While the Sheraton was once the place to see and be seen, and maybe spot a government minister or two, such is no longer the case. It now has some Olympic-sized competition in the new Speke Munyonyo Resort.
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Uganda Hotel Scene :: The Serena Kampala Takes You Out of Africa
HotelChatter's newest contributing editor Scarlett Lion is filing her stories from Uganda. Every now and then, she'll be sending us dispatches about the hotel scene here. Got questions? Send 'em to us and we'll get them answered. Enjoy.
If it weren't for that guy peeing in the street about a hundred meters away, a stay at the Serena Hotel in Kampala, Uganda, might feel a lot like a stay at any nice hotel, just about anywhere.
The lobby houses a fountain and plush couches, as well as well-mannered waiters ready to serve you cocktails for New York prices. And the rooms are New York-priced too.
While a prostitute-filled lodge on the other side of town might cost about $2 a night, don't expect to pay less than $250 for a small Hilton-esque room, and up to $550 for a suite.
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Uganda Hotel Scene :: More Places to Stay in Kampala Than There are Hills
HotelChatter's newest contributing editor Scarlett Lion is filing her stories from Uganda. Every now and then, she'll be sending us dispatches about the hotel scene here. Got questions? Send 'em to us and we'll get them answered. Enjoy.
People have been known to call Kampala, Uganda's capital city, a city of seven hills but it's not really true.
It's a hilly city, but the number seven doesn't correspond to all the swells of land with luxury homes at their peaks, nor are there seven valleys, flooded and filled with slum dwellers.
In fact, it's hard to count just about anything in Kampala. Estimates of population vary from 1.5 million people to 4 million. Estimates of the number of hotels that have besieged the city of late are also difficult to come by.
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The Hairy Lemon is Neither Hairy Nor a Lemon But Just Right
With a name like Hairy Lemon, this hotel has completely piqued our interest. What is a hairy lemon? Does the hotel serve them here? Not quite.
The Irish owners of this Ugandan retreat along the Nile River outside of Kampala named the place after a favorite pub in Dublin. You'll find birds, monkeys, and kayakers, but no lemons and not that much hair.
If you haven't been, Kampala is hot, dusty, dirty, and busy. Thus the Hairy Lemon might just be the best place within an hour's drive to get away from all that pollution and those con men trying to get away with your money.
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Queen E Checks Out Hotel Renovation, World Summit In Uganda
This past weekend, Queen Elizabeth II stayed at the Kampala Serena Hotel in Uganda during her three-day visit for the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting.
Why did Lilibet herself select the hotel? Perhaps she was curious to see the results of the 18-month renovation project and redesign by architect Jon Cavanagh. The former Nile Hotel reopened in November 2006. The exterior of the 65-room hotel now resembles the landscape of the country, minus the impoverished people. A new manmade waterfall spills into a stone pool, surrounded by miniature lakes and 17 acres of indigenous vegetation, birds, and butterflies.
Most likely, the Queen chose the hotel because it is connected to the conference center that hosted the summit. She is joined by over 5,000 other guests to the event, from 53 countries, only the most elite of whom joined her as a guest at the Serena -- including her husband Philip, son Charles, and daughter-in-law Camilla.
Related Stories:
· British Royals In Uganda [Times UK]
· Queen To Stay At Serena [Uganda News]
· Hotels In Uganda [HotelChatter]
Tags: Cubicle Dreamin' / Africa Hotel Reviews / → All Tags
Cubicle Dreamin': Exotic Luxury in Uganda
Growing up in a Commonwealth country, I always loved the acronym given for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting: CHOGM, pronounced like it looks. How could anyway take a "chogem" meeting seriously? I can't, but I am keen to check out one of the new hotels that's just been built for the 2007 CHOGM in Kampala, the capital of Uganda.
If you're not sure--I admit, I wasn't--Uganda is pretty much right in the middle of Africa, a landlocked nation next to Kenya. Its capital, Kampala, has just become home to the (nearly completed) Imperial Royale Hotel. It's a 275-roomer, with three restaurants and several bars, which will offer 24-hour service, and four floors of parking. A local newspaper had this to say about the Imperial Royale:
If you see the design and the furniture of the spacious rooms and you are asked to price them, you will give them a price much higher than what Mr Karim Hirji, the proprietor of the Imperial Royale Hotel, is asking.
Not only is it in an exotic land that I'd love to visit, but it's good value as well. The CHOGM meeting will be held at the end of November this year, so by then the Imperial Royale should be well and truly open for business. Ready for my end of year vacation, perhaps.
Related Stories:
· Ugandan Hotels Ready for CHOGM [Daily Monitor]
· Africa Hotels [HotelChatter]
· Africa Travel Stories [Jaunted]
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