Zanzibar 2024

Hello Blogland. Here I am in Zanzibar, Tanzania.  You will need a cuppa and spare time as this is a long post!  The journey here took about 15 hours,   travelling via Dubai then  a 1 hour road trip to arrive at this beautiful, Sun soaked paradise with white sandy beach, tropical climate and relaxing surroundings!

We live close to the airport, and our son (who works there) knows the flight timetable so well, he sent us the  pic above of our flight taking off, view  from our garden! 

We are staying all inclusive on Pwani beach, with a beautiful room, with wonderful staff, great food... and a fabulous beach!  I have never swum in a sea that is literally as hot as a very hot bath!  Its weird.

This is the new me. I had my hair low lighted back to my natural dark brown and left the  grey that has crept in at the sides, no point in fighting it.  I'm also testing out dark eyebrows before taking the plunge shortly to have them tattooed.

The necklace I'm wearing is Indian gold. Hubby bought it for me in Dubai about 43 years ago!  I don't wear it often as it's so special.

The hotel is in an undeveloped area. There is no transport infrastructure outside.  But everything we need is here.

We spend most of our time on the beach..there's a coral reef about a mile out, sandbanks to explore at low tide and swimming in a gentle. Hot sea when the tide is in.  We also have a lovely pool.

As we are staying all.inclusive we are enjoying a huge variety of food including local dishes and quite a few very nice vegetarian curries at breakfast, lunch and dinner!

When the tide goes out you can walk with a hotel guide to find starfish and coloured fish.  They also told us the local women plant and harvest seaweed, a government initiative to create employment, the seaweed makes soap and beauty products sold to tourists.... I stayed by the pool but hubby bravely waded through the shallows to take pics.

There are Masai people here who have done their best to sell us trinkets on the beach, the hotels create work for them as entertainment (authentic dancing, acrobatics).

Lady harvesting seaweed to make soap

We have visited Stonetown, the biggest town and market on the island.  We went to see the house where Freddie Mercury lived.  We also explored the narrow streets and the market.

Above: a great way to recycle plastic bottles!

Freddie Mercury's family home

Doors here are interesting, some of the houses in Stonetown are over 100 years old.  The carving of flowers at top of doors indicates how many families shared the house; doors carved with chains down each side indicate the house/premises of a slave trader.

We visited a spice garden and learned the medicinal uses for some of the plants growing on Zanzibar. In particular, iodine and aloe Vera.

Mangoes

ginger

mace

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red dye for lipstick

We're still here!.... if you read this far, congratulations,  it was a long post.

At the beach: (it is illegal to take shells from here, but I wouldn't anyway, they are far prettier where they belong and are much needed homes for fish and crabs).

waikkal, Sri Lanka

 Flights: Emirates via Dubai

Hotel, Club Dolphin, Waikkal, all inclusive

We were given a beautiful bungalow within 50 paces of the main restaurant, bar and pool.

We were quickly moved to an identical bungalow 2 doors down after a wasps nest was found in the room.

We last visited the country in 1993.  When chatting to locals we learned that tourism is not yet recovered from the impact of covid.  We  were told the government covid vaccination program for the general public is not continuing.  The economy is fragile.

Outside the hotel the villagers were friendly, there is a bun man who sells bread from his tuktuk, video below.

We stayed all inclusive and ate mainly curry for all meals although there were European choices  too, this is  aubergine brinjal, corn and carrot rice, poppadoms

Below  lentil dahl, vegetable rice, poppadoms

Below, breakfast egg hopper

Our bed was given daily towel animals or flowers and  special birthday one for hubby! and the flower displays around the hotel changed daily too.

Lassi and salad lunch

The hotel hosted a classic car club annual event so we got to see some beautiful cars, my favourites were the morris minors, in the 70s they were top sellers in Sri Lanka, some Russian holidaymakers I befriended admired the fabulous green vw campervan in broken English (and also fed and shared their sun bed with one of many stray dogs). 

Aubergine curry, steamed veg, spicy rice

The hotel grounds were beautiful with tropical flowers and coconut trees right to the beach,  the sea had strong currents with no swimming/red flag which is not unusual at this time of year. 2 holidaymakers who ignored the red flag had to be pulled in on ropes as the current took them too far out.

There were giant bees with cartoon eyes 

We had some rain but plenty of sunbathing, and spectacular sunsets.

My kaftan was a last minute sale purchase from Monsoon UK.  Orange is my favourite colour.

 

Below are pics around and about Ngombo, which had a large fish market.

We visited the Ngombo fish market, by tuk tuk and then train.  We returned on the river in a small boat.

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Evenings in the hotel are relaxing and quiet... 

Above : My shawl was bought on a previous trip to Darjeeling night market, wrap skirt is from Naked Generation  and top from Anokhi Delhi 2019.

There were stray dogs around the grounds. one slept on our doorstep every night and followed me everywhere  sleeping under my sunbed during  the day, i fed him but there are plenty more and they need vaccines and care.  We suggested the hotel have a donations box do tourists can contribute for their care.

Christmas decorations went up in the hotel on 1st December

It was a lovely holiday for total relaxation but now it's back to reality!

Dubai

Update:  apologies, I don't often check this blog as since Covid arrived, travel has been on hold of course - so was surprised to find so many nice comments - thank you so much for leaving comments :)

On the way home from India, we stopped in Dubai for two nights, staying at the Sheraton on The Creek.   we had a good view of boats on the river and the City beyond.

Buying perfume oil in the Mall, on the recommendation of local ladies who were keen to give suggestion. I chose something floral.

In the shopping Mall, there is an aquarium, you can see lots from the outside, we didn't have time to go inside - we should have planned better!  Wearing my comfy Anokhi loose trousers purchased in Delhi.

 Water feature in the Mall, this has synchronised water jet display at certain times of the day, the water makes lovely fountain patterns in time with opera music, it's beautiful and attracts a huge crowd.

 Birds, display in the Dubai Mall shopping centre.

Lunch (vegetarian curry with bread and rice) at the Dubai Mall shopping Centre fast food floor.

There are lots of displays around The Mall like this lovely camel,it's really luxuriously designed.










We went to the gold souk at night, it's a large area of streets and alleys fully of gold jewellery shops like this one. If you go on to browse some of them will offer mint tea.  There is no pressure to buy, and it's the best place to buy as the gold is sold by weight, there is room for a little discount if you bargain.

We used the Dubai metro to get around, it's very modern, efficient and easy to use.

We ate at a café close to our hotel in the evening, this was falafel in a bread roll with salad.

This was a nice break on the long journey home, the hotel had a small pool with sun deck so we spent time either exploring the shopping or resting around the pool until it was time to go home.