Zanzibar’s Stone Town, an exotic, chaotic multicultural melting pot

Your senses begin to fizz the moment you arrive in Stone Town: the shrill cry of the muezzin calling the faith­ful to prayer competes with the roar of Vespas upon which female passengers ride side-saddle, helmets squashed atop veiled heads. The occasional solemn chiming of church bells serves a reminder of Zanzibar’s religious mix. Indian crows – the scavenging birds were imported eons ago by the then British governor in a bid to tackle the island’s litter problem – caw, cats caterwaul. Salt and sun pinch your skin. You can smell the sea, taste the exotic on the tip of your tongue: chilli and cloves, pineapples that ooze softly in the sun.

Zanzibar’s flamboyant capital is imbued with cultural piquancy; the passing treads of myriad cultures are evident – Chinese, Omani, Arabs, Portuguese, British, they all came through here to trade and conquer, explore and exploit, before an easier sea passage was gouged through the Suez.

The Chinese were among the first – earlier than Vasco da Gama, who is usually given the credit – trading between East Africa, India, Persia and Arabia as far back as AD1000. Tall tales abound of their impressive boats, 150 metres long and propelled by 50 sails. They traded silk, brocade and porcelain for ivory, sandalwood and rhino horn. Between 1405 and 1433, seven Chinese fleets set sail for the East African coast via India, led by admiral Zheng He, with the express purpose of establishing commercial relationships with wealthy Swahili traders.

Shards of Chinese porcelain have been unearthed during archaeological digs on Zanzibar. This seems to have given the textiles a talismanic quality for the Swahili islanders; bowls were pressed into the plaster around the mihrabs of mosques and into tombs of prominent men.