The Spice Islands

By K.C.Meera

This year, Christmas having fallen on a Friday, I had a long weekend off from my daily grind at New Business Age. A perfect weekend for an outing to Zanzibar, the Spice Islands.

On Friday, ten of us, mostly expatriates working for companies in the same group, took the Sea Star ferry to Zanzibar. We went first class, which meant the relatively less cramped upper deck. The interior looked more like the interior of an aeroplane than a ferry, with plush seats, pull-down trays and television sets.

We almost missed the boat, because three of the group, irresponsible bachelors, were late. We made it with just minutes to spare and were the last ones on the boat.

The boat ride was wonderful. There was a small space at the back of the deck where we could stand. The space there was cramped, but I could lean over the back, and watch the motor churn below and feel the wind blowing the salt spray in my face. All along the way, you could see islands, some large, some small, but all green and beautiful. Most of the islands in the region are the visible parts of huge coral reefs.

As the boat neared the shore, I was surprised to find how Indian the whole place looked. The Colonial architecture, with its tiled roofs, looked more like Kerala. The 2-3 storeyed brick and lime buildings looked more like the villages around Delhi.

We got off the boat and went through a cursory customs inspection. Although Zanzibar and Tanganyika merged to form Tanzania several years ago, Zanzibar has its own government and laws and everything moving to and from the mainland needs to go through a customs check. In fact, Zanzibar has its own President, the thick-set Salmin Amour, and it is his photographs that find pride of place in every shop in town, and not that of the even more thick-set Benjamin Mkapa, President of Tanzania.

In Zanzibar, we stayed at a lovely high tile-roofed place called Hotel International. The place looks like a museum. The wooden stairs that led upwards were very much like the ones in any Kovilakam. The huge wooden chests covered with brass ornamentation, wooden corner stands, reminded me of our ancestral homes. In fact, since Zanzibar was ruled by the Arabs for a long time, and the Arabs, both in Arabia and in Zanzibar, traded extensively with India and Kerala in particular, perhaps there was an intermingling of architecture.

What I admired, though, was the way Zanzibaris had preserved their buildings intact as hotels, etc, without compromising on quality.

The only problem with Hotel International was that it was not on the seashore. Which meant, when we took a boat to Prison Island that day, we had to take a taxi to the shore first. Zanzibar is the first place I have seen where taxis come in several sizes. There are 4-seaters, six-seaters, eight-seaters, etc etc, the largest being more like buses.

Coral reefs at Prison Island

The boat ride to Prison Island was very pleasant. The sun was up, though and all of us wore huge straw hats, which we had to hang on to, since the wind was very strong. Prison Island is a coral reef jutting out of the sea. The island is so small, you can take a walk all around it in about 1-2 hours, depending on whether you stroll along and admire the clear waters of the sea, or whether you put your head down and plunge ahead. There is a tiny beach in front, where the Western tourists have a great time getting a tan.

The best part of Prison Island is a spot where, if you know how to swim, you can put on snorkelling gear, and see the abundant marine life within the corals. Unfortunately, none of us knew how to swim. We also had two seniors in the group, parents of one of my colleagues, so instead of us going off by ourselves, we decided to just have a picnic and laze about.

The sea was a stunning blue, and the water was the clearest I have ever seen. It not only did not look like sea water, it didn't even look like salt water! You could see into it a long way. When we returned to the boat, we discovered it was high tide and there were transparent jellyfish swimming all around the boat, and flopping onto the sand.

The next day, we went to Kizimkazi, where we took out a boat to the middle of the ocean where dolphins congregate. We waited for a while and then were rewarded by the sight of two, then three, then five dolphins swimming near. There were several boats in the area, and many of them were filled with Mzungu (White) tourists who were trying to play with the dolphins. As soon as the dolphins got anywhere near, they would adjust their snorkelling gear, and jump into the water and try to chase them. Twice or thrice, they almost got run down by the boats. The dolphins, far from being afraid of the boats, were having fun too, because they would run away, then reappear, and wait to get chased again.

When we returned to the beach, it was low tide, so we had to leave the boat several yards from the shore and walk to land. There was simply not enough water to bring it any closer. Before having lunch, we walked far into the sea. We tried snorkelling in chest-deep water, just bobbing down and looking at the sea anemones, and other creatures growing among the rocks.

Seeing something inside the water makes such a difference. Sea anemones that looked black from the outside, had coloured dots all over which you could see only from within the water.

On the way back, we went to Jokani forest and to see Red Colobus monkeys. The monkeys were very tame, but the walk through the forest was good, rather like Kerala. In fact, the landscape around Zanzibar is also very Kerala-like, except for a few fauna that are not found in Kerala.

The third day, we just walked about Stone Town, the old Zanzibar. What is special about Stone Town is that every house has a carved wooden door with brass knobs. (sounds familiar?) . We visited the palace and read of a Zanzibari princess who led a revolt against her brother the King, failed and then eloped with a German. She has written a book, "Autobiography of an Arabian princess", which I am trying to get hold of.

But the ferry would leave at four, so we left some of the landmarks of the city unvisited, such as the slave market and the place where the Sultan kept his concubines. The related story is very gory, so I am not posting it on the site. There are children among the Net Varmas, after all.