Kampala city is Uganda’s main capital city located in the central part of Uganda, this is where most of Uganda’s luxurious environment is found which comprises of nice hotels, lodges, Bar & Restaurants, Clubs, Cinema Plex, Cafes, Banks, Forex bureau, Shopping malls, Supermarkets, Boutiques, Beaches, Golf, Rugby, & Football playgrounds, Commercial buildings, office buildings, warehouses, Markets, Workshops, Cultural sites and more.

Kampala central is divided into two parts named down town and up town, up town is where most of luxurious hotels are found like Serena hotel, Sheraton, Grande Imperial, Speke hotel, golf course hotel and more, up town is characterized with a cool and conducive environment which comprises of good compounds with green vegetation, different tree species which support in providing favourale shades.

Down town is where most of the slums are found which makes this place to be more congested, this place is composed of taxi parks like old, new, Usafi and Namayiba taxi park, Bus parks like Qualicel and Kisenyi bus terminal, Agricultural markets like container village, Shopping malls like Mini price, Jesco plaza, Aponye mall, Zai plaza and more, Market streets like Kikubo, Owino and more.

During Morning and Evening time you can best access down town via foot because of huge numbers of people moving on streets going for work in the morning and leaving work going back home in the evening and this makes it difficult to use a car because you can spend a couple of hours due to congestion, due to overcrowding this place is also characterized with theft so you have to be keen, alert and focused when moving on streets.

We really enjoyed the beauty of Kampala city and this all was done by a local tour operator which I can recommend if you want to do any Uganda Safari basing on all services, they provided to us while in Uganda.

Where to go for shopping while in Kampala?

While in Kampala and in need of some shopping like eatables Supermarkets are available like Shoprite Lugogo on Jinja road, Nakumatt - Garden city, Capital Shoppers, Tuskys, Mega standard for you to do the shopping, but if in need of shopping for clothing’s, sports wears, phones and more shops for all that available along Jinja road but only for luxury class, for budget class down town is available for you to get everything you need.

City tour experience

While in Kampala there are several touristic places you can visit for adventure but for us we started with a walk in the down town and visited some agricultural markets where we found local people selling their local products which include the African food like Matoke, Cassava, Tomatoes and more, we engaged into serious conversations with these people by teaching us how to speak Luganda, with our guide we continued into some sticky slum areas like Katwe where we found people struggling with life and we interviewed them to explain more how they make it with their way and standards of living, we came to discover that these people really suffer with life reaching to an extent of spending some days without eating food, the environment they live in is nasty which compromises of sewage trenches, rubbish and more, that’s how our first day went.

After our visit to the slum areas in Kampala next day we decided to visit different touristic sites located within the suburbs of Kampala and most of them are cultural sites as listed below; -

Kasubi Tombs

These are cultural shrines which belong to the Buganda kingdom and it was strategically located as a place where the kings are buried after death, it was constructed out of tree poles and grass but following the cultural norms, since Kampala is divided into divisions named Nakawa, Lubaga, Makindye, Central and Kawempe division these tombs are located in Lubaga division in Kawala.

These tombs were burnt recently in 2009 by unknown person which left a wound to the Buganda Kingdom because most of the cultural assets and norms were lost, but this did not hinder the Buganda kingdom from collaborating which made them collect funds from the Buganda people “Etoffali” and now the construction of new Kasubi tombs is in progress almost finished, as per our visit we found there a well-informed guide who explained to us all the information and history about these tombs.

Uganda Museum

This is where most of Uganda’s cultural and historical assets which were used in the past are kept, it’s located in Kamwokya near Mulago hospital, we passed via Wandegeya continued but the only challenge was traffic jam we found on our way to the Uganda Museum.

Uganda Marty’s Shrines in Namugongo

These shrines are found in Namugongo and this is where the Uganda Marty’s were killed from by Kabaka Mwanga, these shrines in Namugongo are divided into two, one for Catholics and the other for Anglicans, we were able to visit the shrines for Catholics and it’s such a big place to visit through visiting different cultural sites located inside being led by a guide.

The Royal Palace of Buganda Kingdom

This place belongs to the Buganda King named “Ronald Muwenda Mutebi” and it’s also located in Lubaga division. We toured this place and it’s really very big surrounded with a perimeter wall, different cultural sites are protected with in this wall plus land where Kabaka’s relatives and helpers carry out agriculture from. The guide on field was well informed due to the all information he provided to us regarding the palace, in local language the palace is called “Lubiri”.