Stone Town - Heart of Zanzibar

(From here on out, the entries may not be in chronological order since they are written by all of us at a similar time.. so dates represent when they occurred!)

20 September 2010

With much inertia, we finally let ourselves be brought away from the north east coast of Zanzibar. On the evening of 20 September 2010, we reached Stone Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The town is a labyrinth of alleyways and buildings with Arab, Persian, Indian, European and African influences.

We stayed at Kisiwa House, built in 1840 by a rich Omani merchant. The manager informed that much of the furniture in the house belonged to the original occupants and almost 170 years old.

That night, Rebec brought us to the Forodhani Gardens night market where we stuffed ourselves with kebabs and the yummiest Zanzibar pizzas. (Clockwise, starting from left: chef making our zanzibar pizza; chefs reloading the chips platter from a bucket; chef from whom we bought our sticks of kebabs, slathering on some ketchup on chips for another customer)

We also found sugarcane juice!!

(sugar cane man hard at work)

The call to prayer filled the air at about 5am the next morning and woke me up for my birthday!! :)

First meal was fruit platter with fruit juice. NICE.
(for those who don't get the irony of this, please read initial post introducing key members of the group)



I will leave TY to fill in the details on our morning expedition to Prison Island.

On our exploration of Stone Town, we were greeted by "Karibu" (Swahili for "Welcome"), "Japanese?", "Korean?", "China?" EVERY STEP of the way (no exaggeration here) and "Hakuna Matata" every time we had to turn down an offer to purchase some goods.


Here are some pics from the spice market. Clockwise from Top Left: W looking shocked (at the price??); Haggling; Haggling somemore; And Finally, everyone pleased with the completion of the purchase :)


(ok, this is me and a cat in one of the alleyways, photo collage courtesy of W and R)

That night, we went back to "da-bao" the kebabs and pizzas from the night market to enjoy it in the comforts of Kisiwa House. The girls told me that was my birthday dinner, with a pizza as my birthday cake, and that we would just go for drinks after the shower. How could I believe that the bunch of them would be satisfied with that little food!! After shower, i stepped out of our room and heard Rebec shouting to TY and me to go upstairs. I went up and was surprised with a huge chocolate cake (er, which we finished that same night anyway) and other very yummy dishes, namely, Piri Piri grilled chicken, Black Pepper Beef Fillet, Changu with Coconut Marinade and Crab Ravioli (list of food courtesy of Rebec's wonderful memory!) .

After a toast of Amarula (an African cram liqeur) and Adam's Ale for some, we retired ack to my and TY's room and found that they were very aptly screening The White Masai on one of the Channels!


(Clockwise from Top Left: Us back in my and TY's room enjoying the pizzas - see the thing in the aluminium foil? We had 4 - 2 Chicken 2 Vegetarian. Think the kebabs were gone by the time we stepped into the room; Me eating my birthday-pizza-cake; A Toast!; Us with the real cake :)

ASANTE SANA FOR THE LOVELY BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION :D

(From the perspective of the "girls" aka those who were prepping the celebration, Clockwise from top left:
Dinner for 6 on the rooftop balcony; Qihui waiting in the wings to surprise Su with the cake and candles; Close up of Qihui waiting in the wings.. TY quick bring Su! The candles are melting down...; Rebec and Li to act as decoys as well as alert Qihui and I that Su is coming up, but they multitask too! Rebec and Li are ordering dinner while acting as decoys; Things are good!; The Cake)