15 June - Zanzibar & Tears

Well, He was right, I was wrong. Low season means most hotels are still closed or drying out the damp smelling furniture and rugs they put in storage at the end of last year tourist onslaught. Whilst under a scorching sun Stone Town may appear a delightfully languid, slow, crumbling old town, on a rainy Sunday it’s a depressing proposition. I once arrived in Hanoi in the rain and I rained thereon but somehow I knew from looking at it from the rain lashed windows of my taxi into the centre, that I loved it and I did. Undoubtedly my obsession with all things Apocalypse Now had something to do with it. And yes, I know the movie wasn’t filmed in Vietnam. But, Stone Town did not elicit such an instant positive feel. The few locals around on a Sunday seemed a sorry little diaspora. Maybe it’s because they’re muslin? Ooh err.. controversial, but think about it, people who don’t know the value of a drink sometimes, have got to be a sour bunch. But the instant depression generated by lashings of cold rain, was also possibly to do with the fact that when you travel alone you’re responsible only to yourself and not remotely worried about the level of happiness or comfort of your companions. Here, as we climbed the wet stairs to the wind bufteted terrace where our first morning breakfast was served, we were doubly depressed. The reason why we were the only guests up there, was not that the others had had breakfast earlier than us and gone off to some exciting tour. No, it was because we were most likely the only guests staying there. Two guests, two waiters. Poor sods. We check the highly rated Emerson & Green hotel and yes, it’s fantastic but gloomy in this weather. We shall return. Am missing the hustle and bustle of India where there’s no such thing as a slow Sunday. We find some action later at the nightly food market. We love food from stalls.

Now, I thrive on random encounters, but they are impossible if there’s no one there. After an afternoon of exploration blessed alternatively with warm sunshine and drenching outpours, Toph outlined his survival plan. If the weather is going to be bad (we’d checked the forecasts by now and the invaluable input of the locals who couldn’t really lie despite wanting to make us happy and deliver the blue skies news we were hoping for) then the only way to ride this is to go to a top hotel and be in the lap of luxury. This we duly did by decamping to the only five star on the island, recently opened and gleaming with paint and possibilities. The sky was brightening up as we arrived, then it rained. But the pier was stupendous and our room a little oasis of modern design. Yes, it was a boutique hotel, yes it was good. But we soon came to realise that the instability of the weather meant we would never truly enjoy it. Perfect holidays in places with nothing to do (I knew that, it had worried me) but diving, catamaring, sailing, kayaking etc rely on the certainty that tomorrow will be as gorgeous as today. Take that away and you are scared to wake up and look outside for fear of a cloudy sky. Or worse, wake up at 7am and it’s sunny, get up at 8 and it’s sunny, make it to the terrace for breakfast at 9am and it’s beginning to rain and after that it doesn’t lift till late afternoon and the rain is cold rain so you don’t fancy the infinity pool and reading doesn’t offer the usual sanctuary. Reading is what you’re meant to do as you brown not as you huddle into your pashmina. Pashminas come into their own in these circumstances. You take one with for the plane and because they take up less space than a packet of cigarettes and now look! It’s your Linus blanket. In fact my satoosh is the best ever and as for my bad track record with fur, the answer is the same ‘don’t care how many rare specimen of this little Himalayan mountain goat have given up their hair for it’ . Shame it’s not in one of my colours, it’s midnight blue, but it was a present… So reading is fraught with distractions such as having to run for cover… There is sex of course but again, you’ll find out that when the sun’s not shining your libido lowers slightly.