Mbale, Uganda

I've just freshly arrived from Kenya to Mbale, Uganda. I ate lunch and now I'm trying to change travellers cheques, which hasn't been as easy as my outdated ( but latest edition) makes it out to be. It's 4pm and most of the banks are closed. The ones that are open won't take my T/C. I take out some money from an ATM easy enough, just to last me the day. I write and relax and then eat again in Nuraili's cafe, a restaurant below my hotel. It has a large selection of Indian food which I think is much better than any Kenyan food or Ugandan food, which I have yet to have. I have been craving Indian food too. I have channa masala with rice, which is like chick peas in a spicy gravy, very delicious. I washed it down with a 500mL bottle of Nile Special, Ugandan brew. It's strange, the smallest bottle of beer I've seen has been 500mL, a little bit bigger than our (Canadian) 375mL ( pretty sure this is the correct volume, not much of a beer drinker at home) bottle but much cheaper. Even in this restaurant the bottle was just over one dollar US. The restaurant was pretty packed and a local guy sat down with me to nurse a sprite. He was well educated about East Africa and the world and we had some good conversation. I went to bed in my castle of a room at about 10.30pm.
I slept in my first full day in Uganda till 9. I ate some cereal I had left from Kakamega and ate some guava fruits I bought yesterday. Then I went downstairs and had a passionfruit juice, omelette and an African coffee ( coffee with milk). Now my mission to change T/C began. I finally found that Stanbic bank changed them but after checking my cheques out for 10 minutes, the teller said they couldn't change them because I didn't have an end number for the number of cheques in my 10 packet. I tried to explain that it says it's a series of 10 beginning with the written number but she didn't understand this. I wasn't going to take her word as final so I asked to see the manager. He was in a meeting so I talked with the assistant manager. He started to say the same thing the teller did until I pointed out the fine print and he said ' Oh, you are right, they are in a numerical series.' I had already waited in line before so he sent me right back to the same teller and she processed them. But now she was being a real bitch and giving me attitude, no apology...I made a mistake, nothing, just straight to the point, no courtesy. Obviously no thank you's when I left there. I was happy though, I had some money and knew I could get more from this bank while in Uganda.
My next stop was the Ugandan Wildlife Authority (UWA) for info about climbing Mount Elgon, my main reason for coming to Mbale in the first place. I got great information from the very kind and soft spoken Moses. The climb I want to do takes 5 days and by climbing standards is very cheap at $45 US a day for everything. Tomorrow I go to a smaller village near the base of the mountain to arrange everything and I should be on the mountain by saturday morning. More about the trek next week. I really like Uganda so far, I get a good vibe from the country and plan on spending the bulk of my trip here, 2 months or so. I hope everyone is enjoying reading my first blog and please feel free to leave comments.