Lamu Mood Tranquil

Manda Beach

Lamu Island

Location:
Kenya

Timeless Island Kenya

By Kieron Devlin

Lamu-mood Tranquil: Lamu, Kenya

“Look out. It’s a thingamy!” I pointed, mouth gaping.

This near-miss with death snapped me out of a nap when a Hippopotamus - that most comical of creatures- waddles across the road in front of us. The driver slammed on the brakes, bouncing my head to the roof. Kenyan jungle dangers do not happen to include red triangle HIPPO CROSSING signs. The hippos in any case won’t ever be the road kill. We could have been crushed. The mud-happy hippo faded from memory two hours later once we finally took the motor boat from Mokowe village to the cluster of East African islands around Lamu.

There aren’t many places left where time has stood still. Bagan in Burma is one. Lamu is another; a car-free island haven timelessly lodged around about the 18th Century when the Sultan of Oman ruled his kingdom from Zanzibar, though its origins go back much further to pre-Islamic times. These islands include Pate, where Portuguese invaders once settled, and Manda, with its tiny airport, all lying close to the Somalian border. We landed at the harbour at the peak of late evening activity, all flickering lamps, wood-smoked voices and donkey brays.

What makes visiting Lamu different is that it is without modern conveniences. You are thrown back to how it really was to spend your daily life on foot, donkey or lateen dhow (wooden boat), to feel night follow day, and –cliché or not- that is the magic of it. No cars, no motorways, no mega-malls, no ATMs or internet cafes, and mostly budget travellers – bliss, for as long as you can stand it. Even the arrival of the Prince of Hanover, typical of the high-flyers who flock to Shela Beach, and surrounding luxury villas, hasn’t spoiled it.

Lamu once represented the zenith of Swahili culture, this meshing of African and Arab, both Omani, even Hadrahmautis, from nearby Yemen, trading across the Indian Ocean. This included slaves, though many were taken across Somalia to the north. In Lamu, there are dhows and donkeys – mostly overloaded- to ferry stuff around. It remains a proudly un-mechanized Islamic society, unlike Malindi and Mombassa further down the coast. It is an environmentally protected area, a local conservationist tells us, which helps control plans for rampant construction which should allow Lamu to remain just as it is.

The main stretch of Lamu is ridden with the calls of sailors, old souls in young bodies, brash and sure they can sell anything to you, even their bodies- Lamu has whisper of that sort of reputation, but all very low key. The hustlers’ aim to take a 30% cut for misleading you to a hotel where the deal is prearranged. Part of the charm of Lamu is that you go along with stuff you wouldn’t elsewhere. In the sixties it was labeled “Kenya’s Kathmandu.’ This was probably only believed true by those who have been to neither. If you walk along main street-the only street- Harambee ( Pull Together) Avenue, it runs into Shela beach, a long stretch, of pure white sand where the jet-setters flock and bare foot beach boy ‘services’ proliferate.

We stayed in a modest but incredibly spacious hotel, not the Petley’s Inn that was burned down, but similar in plan, an open villa designed around a central atrium, typical of traditional Swahili architecture. Mosquito nets drape around beds, and floral cushions fill large wooden lounging chairs. Guest house rooftops are perfect for whiling away an hour or so drinking tea, reading an entire book, dozing or imbibing the atmosphere as the sun sets. Prayer calls ricochet from the 30 minarets across the island adding to the air of timelessness. You could call it La-mood tranquil.

Coming back from a day on Manda, a nearby island, from lounging on swinging on beach beds the size of four posters, we took a rickety old dhow, creaking in the wind but also leaking from the bottom up. Lamu’s dhow sailors are young, hardy, muscled and veterans of international wit. Not content to know the basics of just about every world language, they are also great singers, doing a rousing version of Rod Stewart’s ‘Sailing’ to keep our hopes up of reaching a safe harbour, and our mind’s off the fact that they are frantically bailing out sea water in plastic buckets.

The only off note struck was when my Kenyan friend was accosted by the woman guard the impressive Lamu Museum. “Are you really Kenyan traveling with a European?” she spat.

I still went away a full fledged Lamu-phile, with the sense that it is unique, stuck in time maybe, but in no way missing those vital ingredients to make it less than fully alive.

Kieron Devlin

Further Information

Travel tips: Enjoy

Must see/do at this place: Relax

You should avoid here: Causing trouble