There has become an increasing amount of hotels in Gambia which offer an "All Inclusive" package, while I can see this would be good for some, for us it is our idea of hell, only tour operators profit from this, no money goes to local businesses, with Gambia being a poor country and there being very little employment we try to put money into their economy - with the trips out and eating/drinking & taxis we usually hand over more than £1000.00 .
We take breakfast in the hotel and usually the first evening we eat there too but for the rest of the holiday we go out and about.
Breakfasts : the hotel we stay in has a very good breakfast buffet which is served from 0730 until about 0930. The buffet has hot and cold food - bacon, sausages, eggs, beans - this is usually Ken's selection, I usually have fruit. Of course the one day I decided to have some toast the toaster broke and there was no butter so I ended up with jam on warm white bread ! Also on the breakfast buffet is tomatoes, cucumbers and slices of cheese & hams - I would rather have this for dinner but the Scandinavian guests seem to like it !!
You can eat in (under the arches) or outside (under the umbrellas)
Previously we had had a good steak and chips for dinner here so we both had that on our first evening again - apart from a snack at the airport and the 'meal' on the plane we hadn't eaten since lunchtime the previous day, the steaks were as good as we remembered and the chips still hand made not frozen, a few Julbrew and glasses of wine were consumed too.
Locally brewed, the bird on the label is a blue breasted kingfisher - we have seen a real one too!
The next day (don't worry I'm not going to list 14 days worth of meals) we decided to have our dinner at the Restaurante De La Mer - the restaurant in the Bakau Guest House, this is a 10 minute walk from our hotel, we like to get to the restaurant early we have a drink or two before ordering and then we are back at the hotel for a night cap, we prefer early starts to late evenings.
The guest house is owned by an Egyptian Canadian the menu is very Arabic inspired. We ate here several times during our holiday, I had some lovely lamb kebabs - Ken has since replicated these for us back home. Being situated above the fish market the fish/shellfish is always good too, however we decided to stay away from the "deep fried Aborigines" which we saw on their menu - we presume this was meant to be aubergines !
The outside eating area over looks the Bakau Fish Market so we spend time watching the local fishing boats landing their fish while having a drink waiting for our food.
It seems like total mayhem to us but they seem to know what they are doing !
Once the fish has been sorted it is up for sale,
The owner buys African carvings/sculptures which are displayed in the corridors or the guest house, mainly they are from Mali - Ken has ideas of buying some and selling them on once he's home - they will go in his case not mine !
After dinner the 10 minute walk back to the hotel seems too much of an effort so we sometimes get one of these :
there is seating for 3 in the back and it costs about .50p from Bakau down to our hotel - I wouldn't want to go much further in one !
Across the road from our hotel we found an Indian restaurant called Taj,
picture from Trip Advisor
On previous trips to Gambia we had eaten at The Clay Oven if we wanted Indian food, the food, service and setting were great but you paid well for it and a taxi was needed there and back which of course added again to the cost. So we were pleased to find this one and the food was of just as good a standard, we ate here a couple of times, I had some nice chicken with spinach which again Ken has replicated back here.
The local Gambian dishes are chicken/fish yassa (spicy) or benachin (spicy as well!)
fish yassa - we had this at Stala camp spicy fish with vegetables and rice,
picture from adventuresofjt.blogspot.com
benachin, usually peanuts are added to the spice base,
A short walk along the beach from the hotel we were staying at is a beach bar, The Sunshine Bar
We had only had a drink here before but one day we decided we would have lunch and very nice it was too, Ken had the fish of the day - you can see how close the sea is so it had to be fresh, I had prawns and salad, we have found that a lot of the restaurants have discovered Maggi gravy mix and seem to think that as Brits we want gravy with everything we try to ask for all our meals at bars such as this as "without sauce" the waiters understand English but sometimes this doesn't translate to the cooks in the kitchen and on more than one occasion we have had "sauce/gravy" over salads and fish dishes. We were lucky here not a splash of gravy in sight. A couple of glasses of wine/Julbrew and then it was a slow walk back along the beach to the hotel.
Well, you will be pleased to know that this is the penultimate Gambia blog - and the last one is mainly pictures !!
