SHELA , once a thriving settlement, is now in limbo, midway between rural decline and upmarket tourist boom. Its people, who trace their ancestry back to Manda island and speak a dialect of Swahili quite distinct from Lamu town's, are gradually leaving the village, many of them going to Malindi. A number of fine old houses have been bought by foreigners and converted into ravishing holiday homes, decked in bougainvillea and empty most of the year (some can be rented). While it's an utterly hedonistic place to lounge away a few days, you won't have the thrill of staying among the mosques and streetlife of Lamu town itself.

 

Shela's only sight is the strange, much-photographed Friday Mosque , built in 1829, which stands out for its rocket-shaped minaret, unusual in East Africa. If you're suitably dressed and bare-footed, ask politely to go up to the top.

The gaggle of beach boys playing football at low tide, or loafing around the hotel terrace sizing up the latest speedboat tourist arrivals from Manda airstrip, are part of the limited gay scene . The atmosphere of an embryonic Key West is beginning to pervade Lamu, and Peponi ("Heaven"), its only international-class hotel, is the natural venue.

If you seriously want to spend all your time on the beach, staying in Shela seems the obvious solution, and there are several quite stylish possibilities, although, unlike Lamu town, there's almost nowhere in the really cheap price categories. Equally restrictive, there are virtually no restaurants aside from those in the hotels, though there are one or two samosa vendors on the beach.