reproduced from the mail online 12th Feb 2012
By Rory Bremner
I’ve been very bad at arranging swanky holidays recently. That is, proper breaks, without the children. In fact, over the past 18 months, the sum total of Mr and Mrs Bremner’s trips away have amounted to just four nights in the South of France and two nights in Harrogate. I’d highly recommend both, by the way, but they’re hardly in the Hello! category.
When the chance did finally come for us to enjoy something more exotic, I faced an immediate problem – where, exactly, do you go for sunshine at this time of year? Political unrest in Egypt and the Maghreb, the bursting of Dubai’s bubble and the likelihood of bumping into Michael Winner in the Caribbean have all conspired to narrow the choice.
Spice to be here: Rory soaks up the ambience at Fundu Lagoon
Our criteria for a week’s holiday were simple: less than ten hours’ flying, preferably overnight; and a manageable time difference to somewhere offering both adventure and relaxation.
The beaches of India, the Maldives, Indonesia and the Far East were deemed too far, even though Burma looks tempting now that Aung San Suu Kyi’s 15-year staycation has come to a welcome end.
Eschewing old favourites Cape Town and Morocco, we plumped for Zanzibar off the East African coast. Great call.
Zanzibar – the original Spice Island. The very name conjures up exotic images in the mind’s eye: tropical beaches, spice markets, dhow sails in the sunset. Well, what your mind sees is what you get.
In just under ten hours, good old British Airways had got us, comfortably and right on schedule, to Dar es Salaam, capital of Tanzania, where the tourists divide – some heading for the safari reserves of Ruaha, Selous or the Serengeti to see the animals (and the minibuses) in the Ngorongoro crater or climb Kilimanjaro.
Others, ourselves included, were transported to await our local onward flight in the VIP terminal.
This is in fact a basic concrete waiting room with open sides where birds hop in and out, a handful of Africans doze and a couple of locals sit chatting at a cafe called The Art of Coffee – the ‘art’ apparently being to dispense coffee with as much nonchalance and lack of interest as it’s possible to muster. Welcome to Africa.
After a longish wait, our pilot arrived to tell us (reassuringly) that rather than wait another hour for fuel, we’d pick up some in Zanzibar before flying to our final destination: Pemba Island.
African jewel: Zanzibar lives up to its image, with dhows a common sight on its waves
The Arabs who settled here from the 7th Century called it ‘Al Khundra’ – the green island – and Pemba, 50 miles north-east of Zanzibar, is just that. More hilly than its southerly sister, its coastline is fringed with mangroves, date palms and clove trees – three million of them, it’s said – making Pemba the world’s leading exporter of cloves.
But just about everything grows here: bananas, papaya, mangos, coconuts, black pepper, grapefruit, and, of course, the spices that give this group of islands their name and guaranteed them such a key role in the centuries of trade that plied its way up and down the coast.
Such was the attraction of the islands that in the 1830s the Sultan of Oman moved his court here and ruled Oman from Zanzibar. The Arab heritage survives today, with the island’s population almost totally Muslim.
From Pemba airport, a 40-minute taxi journey takes us south, past villages, schools, acres of lush tropical jungle and roadside displays of cloves drying on mats. From the harbour, the hotel’s boat takes us across the water to Fundu Lagoon resort.
Like the Bounty hunters in those adverts, we came in search of paradise, and we found it.
The grey, palm-thatched roofs of the hotel’s 18 tents are just visible among the trees, stretching along the lagoon’s shoreline and up the hillside behind.
Fundu may have been established by the fashion designer Ellis Flyte, but its charm is entirely natural. This is a barefoot, close-to-nature kind of place. The tents are the luxury safari type, varying in size but each having a bedroom (simple four-poster bed with mosquito net), bathroom with shower, sinks and loo. One night a playful vervet monkey kept my wife awake by rolling nuts down the roof.
A little piece of paradise: Fundu Lagoon resort is an elegant option on Pemba
Each tent has a deck area; the superior ones have verandas and plunge-pools. Meals are delicious – from the fruit platters, pastries or cooked breakfasts in the morning to three-course lunches and dinners – and all are served with the gentleness and friendliness that characterises Fundu.
The place is magical – unpretentious and relaxing – with the only sounds the lapping of the waves, the call of swifts and curlews and the gentle clinking of little shells as the water washes and caresses them back and forth along the shore.
The lagoon is barely 30 yards from the beachside tents, and an evening swim in the beautifully warm water followed by a walk along the beach for a sundowner on the jetty and candle-lit dinner in the dining room made for a perfect end to each day.
On our last night, we took a sunset dhow trip with our fellow guests before being served our own private dinner on the beach – an unforgettable treat.
If you’re easily bored, you can take a kayak out on the lagoon, have an excellent massage with either of the sweet Balinese therapists in the pool spa, visit the local village or explore ruins in the mangrove creek. The diving, too, is excellent and suitable for beginners or the advanced, with great visibility and a muchpraised variety of fish and coral.
A handful of villagers pass along the beach (reminding us that people live here), and to its credit Fundu is actively involved in local village and community projects.
Four nights there was only just enough – we wished it could have been more.
January and February are the hottest months and some may find the tents uncomfortably warm and airless at night, despite the ceiling fans.
That apart, we absolutely loved it, in common with a huge majority of TripAdvisor reviewers. Complaints about millipedes and ‘People Staring At My Wife’ are far outweighed by praise for Fundu’s peace, atmosphere and welcome. You can access the internet from the hotel computer, and the mobile-phone signal is better than back home. What’s not to love? For most, it will be the experience of a lifetime.
Hot stuff: Rory checks out the Spice Market in the Zanzibar capital Stonetown
Back on Zanzibar itself, we spent a delightful few hours exploring the capital, Stone Town. It is heavily influenced by its colonial past, which involved Europeans, Arabs and even Americans. They built the island’s now-defunct railway in 1904, putting up overhead electric cables as they went, with the result that Stone Town actually had electric light before London.
The town boasts a Catholic church, 40 mosques, a colourful Hindu temple and a maze of narrow alleyways reminiscent of an Arab souk. It also boasts the childhood home of Farrokh Bulsara, better known as Freddie Mercury, who left for England with his family during the 1964 revolution, but the eponymous Mercury’s bar is a reminder that they will not let him go (Bismillah, No! They will not let him go!).
On the open-air rooftop terrace at 236 Hurumzi – once the famously luxurious Emerson and Green hotel – we enjoyed a perfect prawn curry and chicken fajita lunch, with a fantastic view over corrugated-iron rooftops, towers and domes to the harbour beyond.
An hour’s drive through the interior from Stone Town, and down a long gravel track, The Residence makes for an incongruous sight: a gated compound of villas reminiscent of an American condominium or golf resort. Uniformed and pith-helmeted staff at the entrance reinforce the impression.
Hmmm. Golf-buggies and guests on bicycles move along pathways like figures on an architect’s model. As its name, and its prices, suggest, this is a modern, international luxury resort hotel, part of the Residence chain (they have others in Tunis and Mauritius) but it’s undeniably impressive.
There are 66 spacious villas of varying categories, from luxury and prestige to presidential, arranged around landscaped and manicured gardens. All have pools, wi-fi and air-conditioning. It’s the kind of oasis that welcomes parched, exhausted travellers with a choice of still or sparkling water, a place for those who think Africa – like Mark Twain’s Canada – is a great country, but not for the whole weekend.
To be honest, you could be anywhere – Portugal, Dubai or Mauritius, say – but that’s not the point. It’s new (it opened last April), the food and service are excellent (to the point of overattentive) and, with a mile of pristine beach, a gym, spa, tennis court and fine-dining restaurant, it propels Zanzibar to the forefront of destinations for those wanting a luxury beach holiday within ten hours of Europe.
It’s not Africa – you should do yourself (and Zanzibar) a favour and spend time in the real world outside the compound – but nevertheless, The Residence is right up there with the best in the world, no question.
And let’s face it: Zanzibar – the original Spice Island – has had Freddie Mercury, so what’s wrong with a bit of Posh Spice?
