Receiving and sending
mail
Stamps can be
bought only at post
offices and large hotels.
There are main post
offices in all the towns
and, except in the far
north, sub-post offices
throughout the rural
areas. City
post
offices are usually
open Mon-Fri 8am-5pm,
Sat 9am-1pm, while those
in the country generally
open Mon-Fri 8am-12.30pm
& 2-5pm. Prepaid "
aerograms " are the
cheapest way of writing
home, but they tend to
sell out quickly. If you
want speedy delivery,
pay a little extra for
express. The internal
service, like the
international one, is
steadily getting less
efficient and things do
go missing.
Poste restante
(general delivery) is
free, and fairly
reliable in Nairobi,
Mombasa, Malindi and
Lamu. Have your family
name marked clearly, but
look under any
combination of initials
and be ready to show
your passport. Smaller
post offices will also
hold mail but your
correspondent should
mark the letter "To Be
Collected". Parcels can
be received, too, but
expect to haggle over
import-duty payment when
they're opened. Ask the
sender to mark packages
"Contents To Be Re-exported
From Kenya".
When posting things
home, out of Kenya,
airmail packages are
expensive but surface
mail (up to a
maximum of 20kg) is good
value, reliable and
worth considering if
you've accumulated
things on your travels.
Parcels must be no more
than 105cm long and the
sum of the three sides
less than 200cm, and
must be wrapped in brown
paper and tied with
string. They are usually
examined in advance, so
everything has to be
checked, in the post
office, before you wrap
it. Cheaper for large
consignments (over 10kg)
is to get yourself and
the parcel to the
British Airways cargo
counter at Jomo Kenyatta
International Airport in
Nairobi. BA can send it
to any airport they
serve - rapid and
efficient to London, but
can take weeks to
anywhere else.
Telephones
The local telephone
service is generally
dependable and
inexpensive; not so long
distance, which gets
close to international
rates. Outside the big
towns, you can spend a
long time waiting for a
connection or passing
the time of day with the
operator. Phonecards are
a help, if you find any
(no easier outside large
towns than finding a
working phone that will
take them).
To make local
calls from a call
box you need a good
handful of Ksh1, 5 and
10 coins. When you pick
up any pay phone you'll
hear a sustained tone
and, in the background,
a series of beeps. After
five beeps you dial (you
can dial before that,
but you might lose your
money). Use the area
code or dial 900 for the
operator.
The easiest and most
economical way to make
an international call
is to dial direct from a
cardphone (most
commonly found outside
Telekom offices and post
offices). The prepaid,
credit-card-sized
plastic phonecards used
in them can often be
bought at newsstands,
Telekom offices and post
offices, but are often
unavailable. Cardphones
are also useful for
using a charge card
from your own telephone
company (they don't take
ordinary credit cards).
You dial 0800/44 for the
UK or 0800/10 for the
USA or Canada and get
through to an
international operator
in your country. The
operator should be able
to tell you how much the
call - charged to your
account - will cost; the
Kenyan Telekom people
have no idea.
In the absence of a
cardphone it's possible
to make operator-assisted
international calls from
a main post office ("station-to-station").
Charges are about £10
($14) for three minutes
to Europe, more to North
America or Australasia.
Shorter calls are now
possible, but cost more
per minute (about
£6/$9). When you ask for
a station-to-station
connection, you pre-pay
for a specified number
of minutes, and you get
your money back if you
fail to get through, but
not if the conversation
ends up taking less time
than you expected, for
example if you get
through to an answering
machine. If you want
more minutes you have to
specify how many - all
very user-unfriendly.
You can also usually
phone from large hotels,
but you could pay well
over twice the usual
price for this facility.
Collect calls
can also be made, but
not from call boxes.
Three minutes' worth
costs about £13 ($20).
It works out cheaper
overall if you call your
correspondent briefly
and ask them to call you
back at a hotel.
Larger post offices
and some internet or
telecommunications
offices have fax
machines - the
international rate is
around £5/$7 per page -
or you can use a private
fax bureau, where the
rate will sometimes be
cheaper. Charges for
receiving faxes, however,
are nominal.
Internet and email
One of the best ways to
keep in touch while
travelling is to sign up
for a free internet
email address which can
be accessed from
anywhere, for example
YahooMail or Hotmail -
accessible through and .
Once you've set up an
account, you can use
these sites to pick up
and send mail, but
Hotmail in particular
can be painfully slow,
and often seizes up
altogether after about
10am, so if you have a
Hotmail account, try to
use it before that time.
Internet offices are
reasonably widespread in
Kenya, but they can be
thin on the ground in
small places, and also
much more expensive due
to the cost of long-distance
calls to the nearest
server. The cheapest
places to use the
internet are Nairobi and
Mombasa, where you can
pay less than a shilling
a minute. The price can
be as much as ten times
more than that elsewhere.
Useful numbers
International
operator/directory
enquiries 0196
Line
problems 980
Emergency
(fire, police,
ambulance) 99
