The long drive through swirling rain and dust to Chitimba is finally broken 25km north of the Rumphi turn, where I am hoping to meet Malawi's greatest living eccentric.

According to a huge red headstone in the far corner of his colourful garden, Mr Ngoma was born in 1913. He is a man obsessed with his impending death, which is why he has created a burial chamber in his back garden made out of scrap metal, old car bits and overland truck parts.

This bizarre mausoleum dedicated to Mr Ngoma's funeral and life in heaven shows signs of once being a highly successful grocery shop: a large sign proclaiming "God is love" merely underlines an even bigger one saying: "Get your groceries here." I might be hungry, but this eccentric building is too intriguing to pass by.

"People should prepare for their forthcoming death; it is the only thing in life we can be certain of," says Mr Ngoma as he shows me around the two-storey construction. The basement he has called Nyasaland, the old name for Malawi, while upstairs is a room dedicated to death. Inside there is a coffin surrounded by religious placards telling us the world will be fine if we love each other more. In another room there is a mortuary temple and chapel, complete with a 1960s record player and a giant speaker wired to the verandah so that all passing inhabitants can hear his hymns and sermons on why we should follow Jesus and not President Bush.

As part of his daily rituals, Mr Ngoma rings an ear-deafening bell five times a day before usually playing his gramophone, which has sadly just run out of batteries. Sitting inside the tiny chapel he presses lots of buttons on his mobile satellite phone, which he claims allows him to talk to God and deceased friends. "Would you like to talk to your mother?" he asks. I decline, slightly taken aback by his knowing that my mother was dead. Turning to the six visitors' books stacked nearby, I attempt to steady my nerves. Mr Ngoma shuffles off and shows me the bedroom, where he demonstrates his nautical toilet - a long pipe running straight the garden.

Outside, I have a full tour of his grave site, including the huge pit he has dug 6m into the hard African ground. Mr Ngoma seems to have everything he needs for his journey to heaven. Excited on hearing more people at the front of his house, he wishes me well with my plans for climbing Livingstonia and vanishes back inside.

As I walk up through a rock-strewn forest and along a dirt track which once formed part of the old Garode Road, I suddenly find myself confronted by a small boy who tries to sell me a miniature wooden coffin. However, unlike Mr Ngoma, I feel I have a few years left in me. A coffin is one African tourist memento I don't need.