Bahati Diani House Glamping — Hotel in Kinondo ward

Did you know that the South Coast of Kenya, Diani Beach, has won the award of Africa’s Leading Beach Destination?||Not once, not twice, but thrice! In 2014, 2015 and 2016! Beating the famous beaches of Cape Town, Mozambique, Egypt and even Zanzibar!||A good reason for us to visit Diani Beach early 2017 to see if it deserves to be an award nominee this year as well… ||||Diani beach has an uncountable number of hotels, guest houses & backpackers. Which one to choose? In 2016 we had already been to Diani and stayed at KenyaWays, a quite luxurious guest house, located just next to the beach. It has a variety of rooms in different price categories, good meals with mainly organic ingredients at their restaurant Lymingtons Bistro, a nice pool plus a kitesurfing school. This time we went here only for lunch and decided to try out a more low budget option for our overnight||stay.|| ||In general the most expensive accommodations in Diani are of course the ones with beach views while the cheaper options can be found opposite of the roadside, a few minutes walking from the beach. Stilts Backpackers is a good example of this: it has affordable tree houses and cottages and a nice bar, though no pool, but it has other benefits. For example a chilling area, a platform on tree height, where you can feed bush babies and see colobus monkeys. It has a slightly hyper host, named Wayne, who is willing to assist his guests with absolutely everything to make their stay comfortable. After this second row of touristic constructions you will find the villages where most of the locals live. This time we wanted to stay there and have a more local experience.|| ||We directed the taxi driver to take a right at the main road to drive in the opposite direction of the sea passing the village, numerous baobab trees and even the dropped pin on Google Maps, which gave me the idea the owner intentionally made the accommodation look closer to the beach than it actually was… After quite a drive we reached fields full of palm trees and at the moment we though we were lost suddenly a small sign popped up written Bahati Diani House Glamping. We made it!|| ||We received a warm welcome from the owners, a Kenyan and German couple and told us everything about their one year journey of the implementation of their dream which resulted in the opening of their place in December 2016. It was a very green area and it was noticeable most plants have been planted recently and were not yet fully grown. The place had several cottages and tents including private bathrooms. Now we understood the word Glamping, which means glamorous camping. Camping, being in nature, though having a bit of comfort. Apparently the word Glamping exists already since 2005 though we have never heard of it…|| ||We decided to take a bungalow which has a cute little porch with a view over the green garden. While we thought we would be going to the beach every day, the first day we never even left this porch. It was very relaxing to just be surrounded by nature, reading a book and eat local food. The host made delicious and affordable meals with mainly ingredients from his own shamba (swahili for farm/garden). When we wanted to spice the food up he run into the bushes to pick some pilipilis (red chilli’s) for us. It made us feel at home, like the food made by Shay’s momma. || ||Bahati Diani House Glamping||Bahati Diani House Glamping||To reach the beach it takes about a half hour walk or 10 minute pikipiki ride (motorbike) through the palm fields and the village and it gives you a good picture of how most people live in the coastal areas than to just lock yourself up in a resort. We don’t have anything against resorts though we know from our own experience that once you are in a very comfortable place it is very difficult to open yourself for what else is out there. We even admit, we went for a day trip, to one of the most luxurious hotels in Diani… An overnight stay at Swahili Beach is way out of our budget with prices of $600 per night though the restaurant and bar are affordable, especially on Friday night when it's pizza night! For 1500 Ksh per person you can use all of their pool which are over 10 if we counted well… || ||To move around from one place to the other is very easy. Of course a walk along the beach is beautiful though for long distances or at night you can take a tuktuk at the main road. There is a fixed price of 50 bob (50 Ksh) per person as long the destination is along this road. Forty Thieves and Bidi Badu are good places to eat, have drinks and listen to live music and Kokkos Cafe Bistro is cute little place for a good coffee or a nice desert.|| ||This time we have been pretty much lazy and made a beautiful dhow trip to the coral reefs to do a bit of snorkeling though next time we might try skydiving and dive with dolphins… Because we only had positive experiences and there is still so much to discover we think Diani deserves it to be awarded this year as well for Africa’s Leading Beach...

We had a really disappointing experience at Bahati over the holidays. The overview - Joseph (the owner) is kind and this hostel is something different than what you would get at the beachfront hotels, but the management seems disorganized and messed up our booking, and the facilities are not comfortable or clean. I understand that it is supposed to be a more authentic and local experience, which we embraced, but that does not mean the place should be unclean or disorganized.||||I booked a private banda house weeks in advance and even directly contacted the management to ensure our booking, which they confirmed, but when we showed up they had given our room to another group who had came with more people than expected. Instead of ensuring that we still had our room, our banda was given to this group, likely because they were paying for more rooms than us and Bahati didn't want to lose their business. It felt like we had been thrown under the bus for the management's mistake and was so disrespectful. The management didn't reach out in advance to tell us about the issue and seemed to expect that we would accept that they gave our room away. ||||It was too late to change hotels and we were put in a tent. I never would have chosen to stay here if I knew we'd be in a tent, since Diani is very hot and buggy. The tent was musty and didn't seem clean. My boyfriend woke up with a rash on his neck and chest. By 7 AM it was like a furnace inside. There don't seem to be quiet hours for the place so it was very noisy at night from guests at the kitchen/bar and also smokey since the smoking area is adjacent to the tents. We barely slept that night.||||The banda that we were able to move to the next day was much nicer, and I enjoyed it more, although it was still very hot, the bedding did not seem clean, and the mosquito net had large holes in the corners that allowed insects in. We woke up in the morning with lots of red bites.||||Bahati is also a lot further from the beach than it seems and is difficult to access by car. It is not correctly located on Google maps - it's further back off the road. The signs directing you down the dirt road to Bahati have also become overgrown with plants and it took us several tries with our driver to find the place. It is difficult to access by Uber and cab on the dirt road especially as it becomes rocky and narrow. On our way out we had to take motorbikes with all our luggage to the main road and call an uber.||||On the bright side, the breakfast that is included is nice and there's lots of cool animals wandering around the place (including two dogs with puppies). You can arrange motor bike transportation with hostel to get you to the main road if needed. We didn't eat here or use the pool, but it was nice to know that those features are available. We also enjoyed driving through the villages on our way to and from Bahati and seeing a more traditional way of life.||||Overall, don't be fooled by the name of the place - this is not in any way glamping - and unless you're willing to rough it for a budget place, I'd recommend a place like Stilts, Diani Backpackers, or Baobab Beach House Bed...

The only dowside of this place is that it is really far away from the beach - 4,2 km. But someone can usually drop you or you can borrow a bicycle.

Now let's talk positives.

The host Yuseph is amazing entertainer smiling all the time. A peson with a great personality who build his beuatiful place from scratch. He can provide you anything you ask for. I've never seen such a service even at some overpriced and luxorious stays.

As a fruitarian I've found here a paradise, Yuseph garden is full or amazing and delicious fruit. He has many orange papayas, mangoes, passion fruits, different kinds of bananas, pineapples, tomatoes and other vegetables.

You sleep on a simple but mostly spacious hut which offers everything you will need. It's a secluded property so you get a feeling that you live in a jungle without anyone around.

Last but not least he grew up at this place with his family and he still lives here with them. So you have the best possibility in Kenya to finally spend some times with locals drom small village and see the eay how they live.

Recommend for anyone. This place is a hidden gem for a great price and with such a delicious, fresh and healthy food, regarding you are fruitarian, vegan, vegatarian...