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Lamu is a town, an island and an archipelago. If you visit, you should try to visit all three. The archipelago is a chain of seven islands and a multitude of islets, separated from the mainland at its narrowest part by a channel just a few meters wide. Dense mangrove forests fringe the mainland and the inland sides of the islands, while the seaward sides are protected by reefs and lined with dunes. Throughout the archipelago, there are numerous historical sites; visible and tangible evidence of ten centuries of a colorful, and often rich cultural past. Most of these settlements are Arab in origin and started as small trading stations. As these small colonies grew, they absorbed much from the local people and a distinct Afro-Arab culture emerged. This culture, which came to be known as Swahili, today dominates not only Lamu but also the urban centers of Mombasa and Malindi, and its language has become the principal Lingua Franca of East and Central Africa.
The beach on Lamu Island is 12 kilometers of empty sands backing on to an ocean unprotected by a reef, and therefore livelier and more powerful than you find elsewhere in Kenya. But no one comes to Lamu only for the beach. The town is now well known, a delightful anachronism carrying on its daily life as it has done for centuries so that the visitor has a science fiction experience of being transported back through time. Settlement dates back to the 14th century and by the 19th century Lamu was a flourishing trading community. But labor emigration and a fall in the value of its exports brought, in the early days of the 20th century, an end to its heyday.
There are still many manifestations of the elegant, refined life led by the richer folk in past eras. If you can be shown the interiors of some of the grander mansions, from the outside appearing both formidable and similar, you will find enormously intricate plasterwork unknown in the rest of Islam.
The architecture is admirably suited to the climate - a series of open plan galleries almost always without doors, and interior courtyards open to the sky, which ensure shade and calm against the tropical sun. The town is crowded with houses and people, the streets so narrow that you can shake hands with your neighbor in the house opposite. The main street, Ndia Kuu, is lined on either side with shops and workshops, each no more than a room stretching from the street to the living areas behind. Here you will find carpenters and herbalists, jewelers and grocers, coffee houses and cooks preparing the local equivalent of Turkish Delight called halva - stirred in huge copper cauldrons, and even a factory, using Dickesian machines, which makes local spaghetti, known as tambi, and coconut oil used for cooking by the townsfolk and for sun tanning by visitors.
In the center of town stands the fort. Built for Omani invaders around 1812 it later became a prison, and is now a cultural center operated through the museum. The Lamu museum itself is on the waterfront, occupying a house once the home and office of colonial district commissioners. Before that, it had housed Queen Victoria's consul - one Captain Jack Haggard, brother of the more celebrated author of King Solomon's Mines. This museum is a small gem, housing a collection of Swahili artifacts, jewelry and crafts unequalled anywhere else. The two most important items in its collection are the Siwa - ceremonial horns; one, made of ivory, belonged to a former sultan of Pate (an island in the archipelago) the other is from Lamu itself. As befits a maritime community the museum houses a collection of sea going vessels and marine tackle and there is a wonderful model of the rope sewn vessel known as mtepe.
A 45-minute walk from the town (or 15 minutes by motor boat) brings you to the sleepy village of Shela. This is where the beach begins and the complexities of life end. Even the beach is simple, just a 12 kilometers swathe of shining sand lapped by a balmy sea. To sail the archipelago is to discover. Beautiful beaches, glorious seascapes, ancient ruins, fishing and scuba refuges.
For desert island lovers there are remote hideaways at Kiwayu Island and on Manda Island which are the ultimate in getting away 'from it all. From these havens it is possible to visit the wildlife sanctuary at Dodori or the beautiful Kiunga Marine National Reserve.
UNESCO has honored Lamu as a "World Heritage Site"
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