'I need to go to Acacia Mall!'

It's 5.45 on a Friday evening and I'm having dinner with a volunteer who is about to leave Uganda. The restaurant we've chosen is on the other side of Kampala in the new Acacia Mall and traffic on a Friday night is always very heavy. Glen is not joining me this time so the best means of transport is a boda. The advantage of a motorbike is that they can weave through the traffic to get you there much more quickly than in a car.

I don't use bodas very often at the moment as we have the car so there is no need. But luckily my placement organisation has some boda drivers that they use for work journeys so at least I have a couple of contacts I know are safe and reliable. After a couple of calls Sula arrives more or less at the agreed time. I climb on hanging onto the bag with my wrap in for later in the evening.

The journey across town to Acacia Mall is one of the longest I've taken on a boda. But it's a warm evening and pleasant to be outside rather than inside a car. We head around the back way through the industrial area, avoiding the worst of the pot holes, the cars that just pull out and the other bodas. The many speed bumps are always a little unsettling but unavoidable.

Soon we're into the traffic as we approach the double railway crossing and the lights that control the Jinja Road junction. Sure enough there is plenty of Friday night traffic.

There is always plenty of interest when travelling around Kampala in watching the antics of the drivers. No one has any patience so they overtake or undertake to get to the front of the queue. Then the traffic trying to get out of the junction is 4 or 5 vehicles wide so nothing can turn in. All of the vehicles then push their way across the left hand lane to join the queue going right so nothing can move at all. If that happens at several junctions then the whole thing comes to a complete standstill as no one can go anywhere! The traffic police try to control the traffic at key junctions at busy times but it's a thankless task.

Bodas are fairly immune to all of this as they can just go around. We've seen bodas going the wrong way up a road or even the wrong way around a roundabout! Sula feels safer than most so we move up around the queue but without taking any risks. Soon we are stuck waiting for the lights to change so that we can move.

But it's not long before we're out of the traffic turning off the Jinja road to use a back way to get to the Mall.

I'm very pleased to arrive safely and get off the boda. I never feel very comfortable on a boda so various muscles ache from holding on tight! But we still have the car so Glen is travelling across town to meet me after dinner so at least there is no return boda ride at the end of the evening.

We have a lovely meal and a good chat. We arrived on the same flight and now I'm the last one to leave, with just a month to go.