If you are going to Kendwa beach, my advice is don't stay at Kendwa Rocks - they seem to be unreliable liars.

At Zanzibar I had wanted to stay at Kendwa beach as I had heard it was beautiful, and less touristy than many other beaches in Zanzibar. A taxi there from the airport was $45, took about 90 min. The three best sounding independent places to stay at Kendwa were Kendwa Rocks, Sunset Bungalows and White Sands Hotel – all offer various level of hut/bungalow on the beach, all for roughly the same price. Only Kendwa Rocks seems to have functioning internet, and they seem to handle the booking for all three – very badly as it turns out.

I booked well in advance in May, as I wanted to be sure of a place. As we were there for only 3 days, just to relax and stay on the beach and snorkel, we decided to splash out on a luxury bungalow – about $70-80 per night in all three places. I first contacted Kendwa Rocks (Halima seems to handle all their bookings and email – very badly). After confirming my booking, they then wrote back after a few days saying that they thought I had said September, not August, and that they were totally full up. They said that I had a room at Sunset Bungalows instead. Then two weeks later, I was told that I had lost our place there, as they had kicked me out to take in a mass booking, but that I had a place at White Sands. I confirmed this before leaving for Tanzania, and again confirmed by email before our Safari, 4 days before arriving, and was told that all was fine.

However, upon arriving at Kendwa Rocks I was told that there was a problem – our booking had been cancelled. At first this was blamed on a mysterious phone call from someone called “Bob” cancelling my booking (I never believed this). When I went to complain at White Sands they said that Halima had phoned up to cancel all of her bookings there the day before I arrived, including mine, and by the time she had realised her mistake the room was taken. Conveniently, they had managed to fill my room immediately, and admitted to having a large group staying, so I suspect my room had been given away to ensure the large group stayed there. Back at Kendwa Rocks, Halima said that she never cancelled my booking, and that it was all their fault. She offered us room in the only empty bungalow they had, one of the coconut cabins, which cost $50 per night. Most of these are quite nice, with good verandas with a sea view, hammocks, thatched roofs, etc. However, the one we had was a squalid shed, made of plywood, behind all the others with no view and next to a concrete wall, a sad little veranda, no furniture inside and a strong smell of damp - but the bathroom was good. This would have been OK for $30 per night, but not $50! We took it as it was the only place with a bathroom we found free on the whole beach, but said that we would only pay $40 per night for it. This room is called “Karimba” – be sure to specifically ask NOT to stay in it, as it is by far the worst of the more expensive rooms.

Halima promised us that we would be able to move to a larger, better bungalow on the last night (I was doubtful of this from the start). Of course, after two days, when we wanted to move, this was not possible as she had “got the wrong day” – it wasn’t free after all. Apart from the fact that we had been lied to in a transparent attempt to get us to stay, what really annoyed us was that she said that she had “discovered” this mistake the night before, but never thought to come and tell us, but waited for us to pack our rucksacks up and move all of our stuff out of our shed, before telling us we had to go back there again. Then finally, they forgot to wash the clothes we had put in for laundry, but instead of admitting this they lied to us, saying that African washing machines were not as good, and tried to charge us for the still dirty, dusty safari clothes!

I accept, almost expect, that things will go wrong on a trip like this, and that mistakes are made, but what I will not accept is the constant lies we were fed at Kendwa Rocks. Some friends of mine also had their bookings cancelled the week before, and we met several people who have had there bookings cancelled upon arrival there – it seems that if someone just turns up they take their money, and forget about the person who made a previous booking, especially when large groups (big spenders at the bar) turn up – and it seems that White Sands and Sunset Bungalows are just as bad. All were lied to and never given an honest admission of a mistake being made.

It seems that at best Halima at Kendwa Rocks is incompetent and cannot read a calendar, and probably that Kendwa Rocks are untrustworthy and unreliable compulsive liars, who will cancel your booking without thinking twice. As this is a remote beach, this could be a real problem.

On the plus side, Kendwa Rocks has a good bar and the best beach facilities, and they obtained ferry tickets for us to Dar es Salaam OK for no extra cost. The food there is not very good – Sunset Bungalows has the best restaurant of the three. All of the places charge nearly western prices for food and drinks - £3-5 for a meal, £1 for a beer – and despite being a less touristy beach, it was still too touristy for us. The beach itself is beautiful, and the water is fantastic, but it is far from being an unspoiled beach with a backpacker vibe. Also, in August it seems that every day starts off wet, with heavy rain between midday and 3PM on the three days we stayed there.

Two final points: firstly, a good place for sunset is the Oriental Café, on a wooden structure jutting out over the water that is part of the upmarket La Gemma dell’Est resort at the North end of the beach. This is a beautifully decorated Arabic style café where you can enjoy a shisha and tea or beer while watching sunset over the sea – open to non-residents at the resort. Secondly, we left to get the 10AM ferry at 8AM on Saturday, and only made it with 10 minutes to spare, as the police put up a road block and stopped every tourist vehicle and taxi to shake then down for bribes on the only road out of Nungwi and Kendwa. We were stuck there for 20 min, and many others were still there when we left – I guess they do this every Saturday when a lot of tourists leave – best to leave earlier.