Hotel Club Du Lac Tanganyika, Bujumbura, Burundi

I had the great pleasure of traveling to Bujumbura, Burundi for work last week.  I'm embarrassed to admit that when I was told I'd be traveling to Burundi, I had to look it up on a map.  Now I know that Burundi is a small East African country bordered to the east by Tanzania and to the west by the Democratic Republic of Congo.  It is most closely connected to its northern neighbor, Rwanda, with which it has a shared history of Belgian colonialism and a brutal civil war between Hutus and Tutsis.  In Burundi, I expected to find poverty and corruption, which indeed is very present, but what I did not expect to find was a stylish hotel sitting on the lovely coast of Lake Tanganyika. (Watch out for hippos!)   

Bujumbura has a very small community of foreigners and while there I met the owner of Hotel Club du Lac, Alfredo Frojo, at a reception at the home of the American Embassy's Charge D'Affairs.  (I may not get invited to important parties in Los Angeles, but I do in Burundi!)  Alfredo, a chic Napolitano, told me that he bought the hotel in 1993, a few months before the start of the civil war.  The hotel was shut down and did not open again for more than 10 years.  I don't know when the hotel was originally built, but there are such fantastic 1960's details that I'll assume it was during that decade.  I'm obsessed with the font/graphics and odd architectural elements and would love to know more if anyone can find it.  This hotel is a perfect example of my favorite design category, what I like to call Mid-Century Colonial Modern, which the French, Belgians, Spanish, Portuguese and British did a great deal of around the world when they weren't busy exploiting resources and fomenting ethnic conflict.

p.s. Have you seen the 2006 French movie OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies?  It's a French spy spoof made by the same cast and crew as The Artist. It takes place in 1960's Cairo and the set design optimizes Mid-Century Colonial Modern. (If you have a better name for this, I'm open to suggestions.)

Chumba Eco-Lodge, Zanzibar, Tanzania

Hello there!  I'm back, and as promised, I will be trying to update more frequently this month.  My wedding and honeymoon were a dream, and a proper Let's Stay Here honeymoon post is in the works.  In the meantime, let's talk about Zanzibar.  

Despite years of living on the African continent, I never made it south of the Sahara. (Did you know that intra-African flights are absurdly expensive?)  But now that I'm working on this project, there is a distinct possibility that I might actually get to go.  Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous island region of Tanzania, seems like a fascinating cultural distillation of the centuries of intermixing of African, Arab, Indian, Persian, Chinese, Dutch, Portuguese, and British traders.  Indian Ocean traders were really the O.G. multi-culties, am I right?

The Chumbe Island Coral Park is a privately-owned nature reserve and the Chumba Eco-lodge on the island aims to have zero impact on the environment.  I appreciate the simplicity of this lodge and the bold use of African fabrics.  I love staying in hotels like this.  As far as I'm concerned, it really isn't a vacation unless you have to throw your toilet paper in the trash.  

p.s. I'd love to check out this restaurant while there.

Photos from the Chumba Island Coral Park website.

Discovery Houseboat, Kerala, India

First post from Kerala!  For our last night in India we decided to splurge on a private houseboat.  While staying at the lovely Malabar House in Fort Cochin when we first arrived, we discovered that the hotel owners, Malabar Escapes, also had a houseboat that traveled the famous Kerala backwaters.

The houseboat, called Discovery, was more than I could have ever imagined.  It possessed the same exceptional service, fantastic food and commitment to local artists that we found at the Malabar House, but this time, it was all ours!   We had our own chef and service for three meals in our small living room.  The quiet sounds of intermittent rain and local birds made it a perfect place to nap and read and feel that after all the air/car/ferry traveling, rickshaw saree hunting and wedding celebrating that we were finally, really, on vacation.

The one-bedroom boat docked from another Malabar Escapes' property, Privacy, and as there were no other guests there, we had full access to the the pool in the early evening.  We spent the afternoon and next morning passing traditional boats, patches of water lilies, and small villages, and joking that Nora and I were on a romantic honeymoon together.   

In all seriousness though, I would highly recommend a visit to Discovery as a honeymoon destination.  I can only imagine what kind of peace this place could bring after months of maddening wedding planning.      

Kerala Houseboat

 

I am very pleased to say that in 3 weeks time I will be traveling to the south Indian city of Kochi for my old friend Harish's wedding.  My homie Nora and I will be there for about a week, so in addition to all the wedding festivities, we'll have a chance to see as much of the state of Kerala as possible.

It's strange for me to acknowledge that this will be the first time I'm traveling to India. After many classes on Indian history and politics in college, loads of desi friends, endless Bollywood movies and a long-held love of Indian Booker Prize-winning novels, I feel as if I've been there a hundred times. But then, when my passport arrived in the mail last week with a big new Indian visa, it finally became real.  Thus commenced the research for our adventure.

What I have learned so far is that the star of Kerala tourism is the kettuvallam, or houseboats, that cruise in the backwaters of the state.  They're traditional style boats made with ropes that have been updated with modern hotel amenities.  I've found loads of these online at places like Kerala Houseboats but these photos came from this picassa page and unfortunately I can't find any further details on the exact boat. I'm hoping that many of them look like this one.

Do you have any suggestions for hotels or adventures in Kerala?