East Africa's most cosmopolitan city, Nairobi is Kenya's beating heart, an exciting, maddening concrete jungle that jarringly counterpoints the untrammelled natural beauty to be found elsewhere in the country. Kenya’s largest city and capital, Nairobi implores diversity in romance and puts forward exalted adventure.
Nairobi has experienced one of the highest growth rates of any city in Africa. Since its foundation in 1899, Nairobi has grown to become the second largest city in the African Great Lakes, despite being one of youngest cities in the region. The growth rate of Nairobi is 4.1% a year. It is estimated that Nairobi's population will reach 5 million in 2025.
Nairobi was founded in 1899 by the colonial authorities in British East Africa, as a rail depot on the Uganda Railway. The town quickly grew to replace Mombasa as the capital of Kenya in 1907. After independence in 1963, Nairobi became the capital of the Republic of Kenya. During Kenya's colonial period, the city became a centre for the colony's coffee, tea and sisal industry. The city lies in the south central part of Kenya, at an elevation of 1,795 metres (5,889 ft).
Tourist places in Nairobi that are worth visiting are National Museum, Railway Museum, Giraffe Centre, Karen Blixen, Karura Forest, David Sheldrick Trust Elephant Orphan Centre, Ngong Hills, Blue Sky Tours in Diamond Plaza, Nairobi Arboretum, Panari Sky Centre, Bomas of Kenya, Uhuru Garden, GP Karting, Village Market, Mamba Village, Paintball Fury Limited, Maasai Ostrich Farm, Paradise Lost, August Memorial Park, Kenya National Archives, KICC, Art Centres and Nairobi National Park.
Diamond Plaza 2 is a small but well-stocked shopping complex that offers everything from clothes to food. The mall has a brand new extension and is situated in the heart of one of Nairobi's busiest areas. The range of stores is excellent, and I found exactly what I needed quickly.
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Diamond Plaza showcases the best of us: it has within its walls the quintessential business model. Lots and lots of hard-working, determined and shrewd hucksters who set up their stalls in minuscule cubby-holes, work all hours and turn a neat profit by maintaining a tight focus on what their customers actually need, at a great price. This is the most basic arena of free enterprise: it’s where the little people set up shop and take their economic future into their own hands. Individuals, families, communities and entire nations have lifted themselves out of poverty in this fashion, throughout history.
Diamond Plaza offers a diverse range of activities from shopping to entertainment. Visitors have enjoyed the skating rink, movie cinema, and playpark for kids. The energy at the skating area was praised for its music and fast services.
Like some bizarre human-sized rabbit warren, full of confusing corners, surprising staircases and odd little businesses in basements, on roofs, in the car park. You can buy madafu in the car park at DP. Or watch others do it while sipping a coffee on a rooftop. You can get a quick haircut as the cars pile in, looking for that elusive parking space. You can buy newspapers from Mumbai, toys from Shanghai, bhindi from Limuru.
You can have a prayer said for you by a priest in full regalia in a tiny mandir, no bigger than a closet; or pick a choice cut from a butchery not too far away. You can eat anything: biryani and pau bhaji compete with chow mein and burgers for your culinary attention; but Kenya’s own Maru’s bhajia and mayai chapatti take pride of place. You can come here to buy rakhis for your brother, barfi for your mother, kurtas for your father. You can buy firecrackers for Diwali, semolina for Idd and tinsel for Christmas. You’ll get the best mangoes in December and a range of affordable umbrellas in April. You can choose from a full range of the world’s tackiest decorative pieces to adorn your living room. Or you could give it all a miss and go somewhere quieter. And cleaner.
Diamond Plaza also encapsulates the worst of us: it is dirty, disorderly and not a little dangerous. There is grime and litter everywhere, and no one appears to care. Most of those bustling eating houses have kitchens that would fail a health and sanitation test in Hades. The walls and floors are often pock-marked with the hideous remains of someone’s paan, ejected casually. Naked wires still hang loose from ceilings. Part of the place is always a construction site, with sand and cement piled up right outside shops open for business. What architectural plans are being followed, and what quality of materials is being used, are not questions you should waste any breath asking.
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If you’re picky about probity and exacting about ethics, you might find it difficult to shop here. Most of the music and videos on sale are clearly bootlegged, and only the KRA knows whether any duties or taxes are being paid here. But for most DP shoppers those are laughably irrelevant issues, nahin?
And then there’s the people issue. It’s an open secret that most of the folk in those shops and eateries are ‘rockets’ - illegal immigrants from the sub-continent. Rumours about brothels have always abounded, and many a marriage was rocked during DP’s early days by husbands marinated in cheap whisky cavorting with dancing girls into the wee hours. And yet, could it have been any other way?
Perhaps we needed all those rockets to fly in and light up the place, giving us a live testament to the chaotic continent our forebears left behind aeons ago. Perhaps we needed a little India within the large Africa that is our home. Everyone is of immigrant stock in Kenya, after all: some wandered in from the Congo forest or down the Nile; others came in dhows under imperial order. Today’s pioneers are flying in on coach class on Kenya Airways.
Perhaps these busy little nouveau immigrants are happily doing what we pampered and lazy third- and fourth-generation descendants can’t anymore: they’re working hard; they’re doing whatever work they have to do in order to get by; they’re saving most of what they earn, instead of squandering it on fripperies; and they’re providing service with a smile, rather than the studied scowl that most of their hosts have perfected. Perhaps, when we open a free-for-all marketplace where all needs are met, we should not be too surprised when drunken debauchery is also traded. It only happens because people want it to.
And yet DP is evolving. Its worst seems to be past, and a brighter future may be shining through. The dancing girls are gone - or at least are out of plain sight. It’s cleaner and brighter than it used to be. Many of the music shops are offering ‘original’ CDs and DVDs - and are finding a customer base that is willing to pay a little more for quality and legality. A one-way traffic system with new exits is easing the perennial traffic jams. Shops are growing, sometimes buying out their neighbours to create more space and a better shopping ambience.
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It could be so much more, our DP. It is already an example of unprompted, unplanned commerce at its best - perfectly in tune with its market without a planner in sight. It is already a showcase for spontaneous enterprise, a place where the goods of the world arrive to be met by willing wallets.
If we had more mutual tolerance, more belief in doing things right, and more acceptance of the laws of the land, Diamond Plaza might be a different place. But then it wouldn’t really be DP, would it? Most of its supporters love the place to death. Do they see the chaos, the disorder, the squalor? Heck, no. They see range, relevance and refreshing informality. DP is us. You want order, hygiene, careful planning, safety? Go to the Village Market. DP is an eruption, and that’s the way we like it. In any case we choose, because it’s a market: we vote with our wallets, or we vote with our feet.
Diamond Plaza 2 offers a diverse range of activities from shopping to entertainment. Visitors have enjoyed the skating rink, movie cinema, and playpark for kids. The energy at the skating area was praised for its music and fast services. However, some reviewers found it confusing to navigate between floors and encountered issues with security personnel being unhelpful and intimidating.
If visiting with children under ten years old or looking for family-friendly activities, head to the playpark on the 10th floor which offers a blast of fun. Be prepared to pay extra charges for certain activities such as VR stations, PS Games, hoverboard riding; ensure you budget accordingly. Avoid confusion by researching beforehand or asking staff about specific locations within Diamond Plaza 2 due to potential navigation challenges between floors.
The stalls were just a piece of cloth laid on the ground with the wares displayed on top of them, just as in street markets across Asia. The tourist trade is often drawn off into shops inside malls where exactly the same things are sold at a premium. We saw more tourists in those places than in these Masai markets. Economic theory fails to explain this.
Diamond Plaza showcases the best of us: it has within its walls the quintessential business model. Lots and lots of hard-working, determined and shrewd hucksters who set up their stalls in minuscule cubby-holes, work all hours and turn a neat profit by maintaining a tight focus on what their customers actually need, at a great price.
Diamond Plaza Apartments, Nairobi, Kenya
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