In November 2004, I spent a month travelling around Lake Malawi with poet and comedian Rory Motion (Andy Evans) an old friend from Yorkshire. Andy had, a couple of years previously, been to 'Mchenga Nkwichi' - an Eco Lodge in Mozambique - on the eastern shore of the lake. He had learned a few words of 'Chinyanja' the language spoken all around the lake. This was enough to write some short comic poems, which the locals kids loved. He persuaded BBC Radio 4 to pay for a return trip, so that he could learn more of the language and perform a stand-up routine in Chinyanja. I went along as the sound recordist. We flew first to Lilongwe, capital of Malawi, near the south-west corner of the lake; then travelled across Lake Malawi on the lake steamer.

It was a 100km drive from Lilongwe to Chipoka, where we met the steamer. We had spent two days in Lilongwe with Matt (the manager of the lodge) buying supplies to take with us - food, booze, drums of parrafin and a cast-iron sewing machine. We had a Land Rover full of this stuff, which all had to be hoisted up to the top deck of the Ilala.

The MV Ilala was built in Glasgow, dismantled and transported to Malawi to be rebuilt. It has been making a weekly circuit of Lake Malawi since 1957. There is a bar on board; two restaurants, and we had a cabin with a bath - a very nice way to travel...

After sailing east across the lake, the Ilala then chugged north up the coast of Mozambique. The shoreline has changed little since David Livingstone passed through 150 years ago: there are no modern buildings, just grass-roofed huts and Baobab trees.