Lamu
Ever since we arrived on the syrupy, sweltering Swahili coast – where else would your Best Life columnist be in the dead of winter? – I’ve been writing this in my head, and this was going to be the running order.
This succulent island paradise has long been re-colonised by celebrities, princes and make-up moguls
First, colour. The cream scoops of the dhows racing the channel between Shela and Manda islands, teak masts tipped at a rakish slant; sundowners at Peponi after a long swim in the mangroves; the Lamu dawn chorus, an ear-splitting stereo of the 5 a.m. call to prayer and the frantic hee-hawing of donkeys; the crocodiles of little children in white or blue wrappers scampering barefoot to school…
I planned to make maybe a couple of serious points, based on the following.
One, before our January departure, Sir Hugo Lord Swire (I presume this is how we refer to the distinguished public servant who scored first a knighthood from one Tory PM and then a peerage from another) kindly WhatsApped me and my husband screenshots of the polite notices scattered like confetti in the narrow streets of the old town. ‘DEAR MUSLIM BROTERS AVOID CROWD PLACES,’ they said. ‘WE WILL ATTACK HOTELS AND FOREINERS EVENTS FREE PALASTINE.’
This didn’t deter the whole of Notting Hill arriving here for new year. In fact, the place is more Al Cohol and Al Yentob than Al Shabab, as this succulent island paradise, patrolled by Kenyan navy gunboats, has long been safely re-colonised by celebrities, princes and make-up moguls who work, rest and play here.
Two, multiculturalism. The village of Shela, like the rest of Lamu, is fervently observant, humble and modest and we tourists… aren’t. Even the cash machines at Sahl Bank on the corniche where I withdraw tens of thousands of shillings every day or so to maintain my ‘forein’ lifestyle advertises itself as ‘sharia compliant’.
So that was my plan for this column, anyway, till we were invited to lunch at a monochrome private spread on the shore. ‘Every article about Lamu is the same,’ my British host complained. ‘It’s Old Pals at Peponi [that’s the pink proprietorial cocktail at the beach hotel that is the hub of all Lamu happenings]. Dhows. The seven-and-a-half miles of pristine beach. And then there’s always the awful name dropping… Charlotte Tilbury! Prince Ernst of Hanover!’
He gave me a hard stare. Then he said he’d asked ChatGPT to write a travel piece about Lamu and it was basically a listicle of everything I was intending to mention. I think that is what generative AI is supposed to do, but my host had a point.
I then mentally had to delete my opening anecdote, which was all about getting a Jambojet from Nairobi to Lamu, a boat to Shela, alighting at the stone jetty, walking up to our house halfway to the dunes and then climbing four flights of stairs to the rooftop terrace and leaning, panting over the balustrade.
It was then that I heard an unmistakable voice. I squinted down into the dusty narrow footpath below to see first the unmistakable form of my actual old pal Jeremy Clarkson, then foodie Tom Parker Bowles and designer Willie Nickerson, in flapping printed cotton shirts, winding their way to Peponi for some Tusker and ‘bitings’ (as we call nibbles here).
I’d also have to lose this, overheard during some rooftop drinks: that another high-profile holiday-maker apparently gave a mega bung to an Islamic girls’ school in return for the elders of the village silencing the muezzin loudspeaker near his house.
As I can’t regale you with all the colour and juicy goss, it leaves me with only this: multiculturalism. So here goes.
All over the island, there are pass-agg signs headed ‘A Message to Visitors’ setting out how different their culture is to ours. Swimwear in public places is haram, as are short shorts, loud parties, drinking. All show ‘a complete disregard for our values’ (i.e. a plea for westerners not to carry on like the Inbetweeners in Magaluf) which would ‘destroy this rare and remarkable town’.
I happen to agree. But I do wonder how it would go down if we tried this back in Blighty, putting signs up at ports and in Midlands market towns and some London suburbs insisting that sharia courts, rape gangs, forced marriage, cousin marriage, the burka and hijab, FGM and so on are offensive and un-British and would ‘destroy’ our way of life. Am I missing something, or does it strike you too that tolerance is not, after all, a two-way street?
But still, it does work here at least. The many signs imploring visitors to ‘tread carefully, as our children are watching you’ are effective – as you would expect.
After all, we rich white tourists – muzungus – come in peace. We don’t want to leave in pieces.
Nor do I want to spoil the moment. The lunchtime muezzin is blaring, and it’s time to head to Peponi for some light bitings and maybe an Old Pal.
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