We left Jinja for a Kampala city tour. Kampala is the capital city of Uganda with an estimated population of 1,5 Mio people. I strongly believe that there’s around 3,5 Mio people in this town though. Kampala is a very busy city with heavy traffic and though mostly jammed. For a Swiss guy like me who even doesn’t like to drive in Zurich this place seems like hell on earth and I wouldn’t want to drive here at all. But I have to say, sitting in the back seat being chauffeured around is not that bad. Anyways we’ve seen the main street, the Parliament (from the outside only as one is not allowed to enter for security reasons), the national mosque that was sponsored by Gaddafi and many other places. We stopped at the king’s palace for a guided tour. It’s a fenced area of about 80 acres (1 acre ~ 4000m2) of which we were allowed to see maybe 2 acres. The depressing part of the tour was entering Idi Amin’s former torture chambers where hundreds of people must have lost their lives. The corridor was told to have been flooded and live. If a prisoner tried to flee he would get an electric shock and die, if a prisoner was making too much noise or complained about something or so he would be pushed into the water and die. One can still see bloody imprints of the prisoner’s hands on the walls. This place really gave me a shudder and I was happy when we left it.
We continued our city tour heading for the Kasubi tombs, a UNESCO world heritage. It’s the Buganda kings tombs and former palace of the kings. Unfortunately the main building is currently being renovated so we could not enter but there were some other buildings that contained tombs of less important member of the royal families. As the kings could have more than one woman they built many huts around the former palace where they could live and their descendants still live there. At the end of the tour the guide showed us some pieces of traditional art, paintings to be more precise. They used birch that was beat soft and reminded me a bit of suede. The paintings were pretty colourful and nice, so I bought me one after negotiating hard with one of the artists.
After visiting the Kasubi tombs we headed for Entebbe where we checked in at a nice hotel on the shore of lake Victoria where I ended that day with a light supper as my stomach was a bit upset.
uhm, welcome to Kampala…
this is the entrance to Idi Amin’s former torture chamber where hundreds were killed
chambers on the left, the corridor was flooded and live
entrance to the Kasubi tombs, a UNESCO world heritage
bus drums – each and every one has it’s own purpose
the place is currently being renovated
the kings’ families still live there and grow stuff like sugar cane or
jack fruit
traditional paintings on birch
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