The Telegraph (UK) 05 10 20

GRIFF RHYS JONES ALISON ‘I am incorrigibly GOLDFRAPP restless, but house arrest The singer talks has changed me’ page 21 about life on DREAM tour and wild TRIPS swimming by Discover the moonlight hidden delights page 24 of Croatia page 22 TravelMAKE THE WORLD YOUR OWN

My Indian Ocean idyll As a new photography book from Assouline captures the magic of , Michelle Jana Chan reveals why she fell in love with this exotic archipelago

anzibar quickly works League football matches. There’s a two’s the world’s last open slave markets, its magic. From its group of men smoking roll-ups, company and its streets are now dotted with go-slow airport, I drinking gritty Arabic coffee and Catch of the day on monuments and memorials marking tumble into a cab to playing bao, a traditional board game , that time. Even beneath one’s feet, head to town, passing made of a plank of wood and polished main; Emerson there are remnants to be found: the on the road women in seeds. They tell me games can last for Hotel in Stone dark, cramped underground chambers voluminous patterned days. I watch for a half-hour or so; only Town, left where slaves would have been Z dresses and children two men have a turn, the rest of the imprisoned, if they survived the walking to school in immaculate time the players appear deep in harrowing journey from the African uniforms; girls in navy pinafores with thought, or daydreaming. mainland. Back up at street level, in matching hijab, boys in starched white This East African archipelago must contrast, are some of the last vestiges shirts and pressed shorts. I ask the have the most seductive sounding of wealth from the same era, seen in driver if I can get out at the waterfront, name the other side of Timbuktu, as the historic Zanzibari doorways made where rusty container ships and well as a most alluring location, of ornately carved Burmese teak with fishing boats pull up alongside 20-odd miles off the coast of Tanzania brass studs; some with intricate dilapidated whitewashed buildings, and bathed in the warm waters of the designs, like looping chains, indicating some topped with crenellations, Indian Ocean. But unlike other beach it was a former home of slave owners others with colonnades of arches idylls, Zanzibar carries a complex, or slave merchants. beneath sagging red-tiled roofs. On painful, mixed-up past that makes it In fact, Zanzibar was once a global foot now, I pass a wall strung with the much more than a tropical holiday isle, centre of trade on Africa’s eastern front pages of daily newspapers in or a simple add-on to a safari. seaboard, coursed by dhows that Swahili and English. Another wall is The capital’s historic quarter, Stone

chalked with results of Premier Town, was the notorious site of one of ALINE COQUELLE/ASSOULINE Continued on Page 20 The Telegraph (UK) 05 10 20

ZANZIBAR

 Continued from Page 19 island life sailed on the trade winds, arriving Villa Casadamere, with cloth, sugar and dates, leaving main; Jambiani with slaves, spices and ivory, Seaweed travelling across the Arabian Sea to plantation, right; Kochi and onwards to the East. try kitesurfing with Nearly 200 years ago, the Sultan of Zanzibar Kite Oman even moved his imperial Paradise, below capital here from Muscat, bringing yet more untold wealth. Down from the 15th-century mosque with its decorative cone-shaped minaret is the Arab Fort, now an amphitheatre, as well as the colossal House of Wonders, so named because it was the first place in Zanzibar with electric lights, and later the first time I visited, I found Captain elevator in East Africa; it is now the Giopapa under the shade of one of the IMAGES OF ZANZIBAR Museum of History and Culture. island’s biggest baobab trees. When also became a he knew I meant business he called Zanzibar (£70; people, whether strategic hub for early explorers over his engine man, Bongo, who assouline.com), hauling their such as David Livingstone, who arrived carrying the two-stroke on his out this month, catch on to an spent a few months here in a back, and we wandered across the is the latest idyllic beach three-storey stucco house preparing sands towards their boat, Super Glue, travel title from or dancing in his last expedition, hotly pursued by which might have been held together luxury book the streets. foreign correspondent Henry by little more. publisher Stanley. During the subsequent We had motored perhaps five or six Assouline. In its Scramble for Africa, the island miles offshore when Bongo suddenly pages, Parisian played host to the shortest war in cried out, pointing at a pod of dolphins photographer history – the Anglo-Zanzibar War in as they broke the surface, the curve of Aline Coquelle 1896 – which lasted all of 38 minutes. their backs glinting in the sun. I captures the Nowadays Stone Town’s winding quickly put on my mask, snorkel and dazzling beauty alleyways are jammed with taxis, fins, throwing myself off the boat, of this African arms flailing, legs kicking. It turned archipelago and out the snorkelling gear was broken the spirit of its Zanzibar carries a and I had to keep surfacing, coughing complex, mixed-up up salt water, hearing the noisy crew between splashes yelling instructions: heartbeat but they stayed close, past that makes it more “Left, look down, no right, now left, weaving around me. I didn’t reach look down.” I pressed the leaking mask out at first, obeying the rule of not than just a holiday isle to my face. There they were beneath touching wild animals. But I confess me: four, five, six dolphins, including a I did eventually stretch forward the retro Piaggios, barrows and bicycles. baby shadowing its mother’s belly. tips of my fingers. The dolphins I wander around the bustling market Hoping to keep up, I went into front arched away of course, tantalisingly where vendors hustle past carrying crawl, occasionally free-diving to be close, smiling as they do. long poles of sugar cane, clumps of closer to them. These marine Later that day, back in Stone spinach and bundles of firewood; mammals could have fled in a Town, I ate dinner on the waterfront they are wearing hand-knitted where cooks in foot-high chef ’s hats bobble-hats, in spite of the heat, work their stalls, lit by single naked paired with English football shirts, bulbs dangling above their coal-fired telling me proudly how they have stoves. Dodging the swirling smoke switched support from Man United and spitting fat, I chose samosas to Man City and now Liverpool. wrapped in newspaper, and spicy Among the competing music, the fried octopus in a plastic cup, before loudest track is the overplayed sitting down on rickety benches for Jambo, Jambo Bwana, and I can’t fenugreek soup with naan. help but join in as I pass by trestle Then I raced off to catch sunset on tables laden with pyramids of the terrace of Africa House, the loofahs, bottles of sesame seed oil, former English Club, where I sticky bricks of dates, boxes of ordered a Tusker beer and bicycle bells and towers of ensconced myself among cushions unleavened bread. But I am against a backdrop of chillout tunes searching for spices: star anise, and bubbling sheeshas. The room nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom, buzzed with travellers’ tales. A pet vanilla and the tiny torch-shaped monkey ran about. In one direction clove for which Zanzibar is famous. there was a skyline of silhouetted Away from Stone Town, driving minarets, church spires, laundry past the spice farms and plantations lines, satellite dishes and palm of banana and papaya, Zanzibar fronds. In the other, the sepia-tinted exudes tropical island life with its lateen sail of a giant dhow. Then coconut palms and coral reefs. One another, and another, redolent of of my favourite places is Kizimkazi a time before motor engines, GPS in the south, where locals tout and the rush to return. I blinked dolphin-watching tours, but I swear back history, thinking how Zanzibar it is so much more than that. One ALINE COQUELLE/ASSOULINE still lives up to its name. FIVE HEAVENLY ISLAND HIDEAWAYS Escape into a world of dazzling beaches and dreamy sunsets at these chic Zanzibar hotels

THIS IS N OV ZURI E E H R ZANZIBAR, W KENDWA This high-design resort feeds into a dreamy, sunset- facing beach – one of the best sandy stretches on the archipelago. Follow lantern-lit jungle paths to one of 55 thatched-roof villas gathered in clusters reflecting a traditional African village. It has a cool appeal, from the arty library to the open-air Peponi Bar ornamented in rainbow-hued hanging lamps upcycled from old bottles. You can’t pass the The pool at Zuri Zanzibar, above; a bedroom at Matemwe Lodge, below; and Xanadu, bottom flocks of gardeners in wide-brim sun hats and play in the palm trees that work their way through other staff members line the water. Parked the grounds – even they without hearing Swahili outside each property is a seem pretty chilled out. greetings of “jambo” or pink bicycle to match the Each villa has a private “hakuna matata”. creeping bougainvillea. In plunge pool, steps away A favourite spot is the chic the evening, take one down from the Indian Ocean and ice-blue infinity pool. to the jetty and watch the Bwejuu beach’s soft, white  Double rooms from sun set over the sea in a sand. Down at the beach, $390 (£315); telegraph.co. hundred shades of blue. there are more than uk/tt-zurizanzibar  Villas from US $839 enough loungers and (£678); telegraph.co.uk/ two-person swinging THE RESIDENCE tt-theresidencezanzibar hammocks, plus kayaks, paddleboards and other ZANZIBAR, MATEMWE LODGE ways to get active. KIZIMKAZI  One-bedroom villas Zanzibar’s original from £550; telegraph.co. The Residence is deep in eco-chic beach lodge has 12 electricity is supplied by uk/tt-xanadu the heart of what was once vibrantly furnished villas solar power. On site you’ll just bush and mangroves, and two pools perched on a also find a PADI dive centre MNEMBA ISLAND 15 minutes from Kizimkazi, coral rag cliff. Just opposite offering trips to Mnemba a small fishing village with is the Mnemba Island Island as well as LODGE a few ramshackle bars and Marine Conservation area, snorkelling, sea kayaking A 15-minute speedboat ride dive schools. Each villa has home to nesting green and kite-surfing. from Zanzibar brings you a private pool, although it’s turtles and more than 600  Villas from $720 (£582) to this coastal retreat, one worth spending time at the species of coral reef fish. in low season; telegraph. of the most glamorous in infinity pool which pours When you arrive you’ll be co.uk/tt-matemwelodge East Africa. Interiors, into the Indian Ocean, struck by two things: the created with wood, rattan, where complimentary ice flowering tropical gardens XANADU VILLAS reed and glass, are simple cream cones are brought to and the vibrant African and modern. Every item is your lounger and monkeys prints that match the & RETREAT, carefully considered, from dazzling flowers and the BWEJUU the polished clamshells at impossibly blue sea. Rather each doorway, filled with than trying to compete Zanzibar was previously a fresh water to wash your with the beauty of the Sultanate of Oman, and the feet, to elegant crockery. setting, the lodge works striking domed roofs and Each of the pretty, open- hard to complement it with circular rooms here sided, thatched wooden open-sided thatched reference this Arab history suites, cooled with structures, secluded and influence. Alongside whirring fans, has its own seating areas, and a bar and ornate copper lamps and private shaded veranda spa set within the riotous trays, there are African and a beach sala on the foliage. Environmental artworks. Villas, each with creamy powder sand. principles are taken 24-hour butler service, are  Double rooms from $790 seriously, so much of the set around a makuti- (£638); telegraph.co.uk/ furniture is made from thatched central pool and tt-mnembaisland recovered driftwood and bar/restaurant area. Vervet the hot water and monkeys occasionally Jade Conroy