Kenya's southernmost town, VANGA is also the largest of the coastal settlements to have been left alone by the tourist industry. Getting here involves travelling down one of the country's most beautiful, and usually deserted, roads, from the Shimoni junction to Lungalunga, on the Tanzanian border. The seventeen-kilometre murram road to Vanga begins, curiously, midway through the Kenyan border post at Lungalunga, where you have to explain your purpose to the officials. There are a couple of lodgings here - Muthangini Border Lodge (under Ksh500) and Thomas Bar (under Ksh500) - but nothing of interest. Turning left, the track skims the Tanzanian border through shambas and, as it nears the sea, tunnels through tall forest in deep shade. Vanga itself is in the mangroves , approached through the swamp down a causeway which is regularly flooded by spring tides.

 

The largish village has a main street and a number of stores and hotelis , where men come in the evening to chew miraa and reflect on the community's isolation. "We have no employment", is a common complaint; the fishing co-operative is the only local provider of a cash income, but it isn't always able to buy the entire catch and members are not supposed to sell to anyone else. Many people sell garden produce in Mombasa, which explains the matatu departures through the night to ensure early arrival at the markets.

Most people are unlikely to come to Vanga as there isn't anywhere to stay in the town or anything much to do. The big old house on the seafront is a nineteenth-century British customs house, cared for, in theory, by the National Museums of Kenya but in practice falling down. For the less fastidious, dugout canoes can be rented very cheaply for wobbly punting trips through the mangroves. Vanga is a sure antidote to a surfeit of Diani and Malindi: local residents are more than willing to accommodate visitors and you may be plied with excellent palm wine