Arie Leaves Zanzibar

This is from the end of my trip to Zanzibar. You might want to start at the beginning.

A few days before I had to leave, I walked to the docks to find out how to get a ferry to the mainland. The walk to the docks involves braving a gauntlet of touts who are very eager to sell boat tickets, but I ignored them and made it to the Sea Star offices. There are only two ferries, a 7am and a 4pm ferry, so I bought a 7am ticket (Lonely Planet is lying, there is no 10am). Most of the touts are selling tickets for a slow overnight ferry -- leaves at 6pm or so, arrives at 8am the next day. Pass. On the way back from the docks I stopped at Mercury's, named for Freddie Mercury (who was born here for some reason) and had a pretty decent pizza, which is all they serve at 4pm.

My last day in Zanzibar, I went to the Palace Museum, which was mildly interesting -- lots of history of Zanzibar and bits and pieces from the sultans' collections. One bit I thought was interesting was the Sultanas' sitting room -- Sultan Seyyid Khalifa had two wives (I think sequentially), a traditionalist and a modernist, and the traditionalist's half of the sitting room was furnished with the intricately carved wooden furniture that was common here (shown in this picture), while the modernist's was furnished with western furniture (in the next picture). The museum also had a big exhibit on Princess Salme, a princess who married a visiting German guy and moved to Germany and then wrote books about her life. It wasn't interesting to me, but they're apparently really into her here.

After that I visited Beit el-Ajaib (House of Wonders), which is now a national museum. At the center was a large dhow, the first built in modern times. Around it were various exhibits about the history and culture of Zanzibar, including big sections on Islam and topics such as food, clothing, etc. It was fairly well done. To my dismay, though, an entire floor of the House of Wonders was occupied by an exhibit on the life of Princess Salme -- clothing she wore, a copy of her Quran, etc. But I wasn't really there for the museum -- I had heard that the balcony at the top of the building was a good place to observe the city and I figured it'd be nice to watch the sun set from there. A lot of the photos in the other Zanzibar entries were taken from the balcony.

I ate a fish for dinner, stopped at a bookstore (The Total Package: a history of packaging), then walked around taking a few night photographs (and got yelled at for taking a photograph of the Ministry of the Economy (if they don't want it photographed, they shouldn't cover it with funny neon lights)). I changed some shillings into dollars so I could pay for my hotel, went to bed, and got up very early to get the ferry.

The ferry ride wasn't bad. It was a speedboat, and I had paid for first class ($40 instead of $35 -- Lonely Planet said it wasn't worth it, so I knew it was). If you take it, sit on the right -- I was on the ocean side, not much of a view. We had comfy airline-style seats and movies -- first Rush Hour, then the beginning of Rush Hour Two. The ride took just over two hours, and then I was in Dar es Salaam.

You could read about my brief visit to Dar es Salaam.