Getting away from it all in a war zone

Some hotels want a credit card number. Sophie Sarin asks: "Could you bring a bottle of whisky?" The call comes as we start our eight-hour drive from the capital, Bamako, to Djenne in central Mali. It's our first taste of a very down-to-earth weekend.

Swedish-born Sarin makes her living from mud: mud-dyeing textiles and running a hotel built entirely out of dried river sediment. Since revolt in northern Mali in 2012 and even as armed groups and hostage-takers wreak havoc across the Niger river, she is one of the few expats to remain in Djenne.

The 14-room Hotel Djenne-Djenno resembles a fortress for Ewoks. The central area – with chairs covered with Sarin's fabrics – is like the inside of a snail's shell. The architect?¬

"I'm a designer. I don't need an architect," she snaps. "Keita, my third husband, helped me." Laboratory technician Oumar Keita phones regularly but is never seen. He is away on his monthly two-week stint with his other wife. The set-up is, of course, entirely normal in polygamous Muslim Mali.

Sarin found the spot after a holiday in Mali in 2005. She remortgaged her London flat and built the hotel. "At the time, there were lots of tourists in Mali." Many still read Sarin's blog (djennedjenno.blogspot.com), in which she raises money for eye operations and those who come to her door in distress.

As a destination, the Djenne peninsula has three draws: its mosque, which is the largest mud structure in the world, a library of ancient manuscripts and Djenne-Djenno, the site of 2,250-year-old human settlement. But these days tourists are down to a trickle.

In 1972, aged 17, Sarin left Sweden to go to Israel with a friend, was an extra in the film of Jesus Christ Superstar, and met a British engineer. They went to Papua New Guinea and Burundi before she left him at 24, became a model in London and got into the Royal College of Art. She says her MaliMali designs, just on show at London's Clerkenwell Design Week, are "bold, a little pared down".

The bogolan process involves mixing mud with plants to produce colours. This is pasted in patterns on to cotton cloth. The make-or-break stage happens in the river. Sarin rolls up her combat trousers and wades in. "The rinse has to be very quick, or the colour might run," she says. She is assisted by Dembele, her accountant.

"I have trained everyone at the hotel to work on the fabrics. When we have no guests, the textiles save us. I have never failed to pay my seven staff at the hotel. No other employer in town can say the same."

This is the key to why Sarin is still, safely, in Djenne while the Malian conflict rumbles on. She may be no earth mother to her guests but her candour and constancy have earned her the loyalty of an entire Malian town.

Field Guide

What is going on: In 2012 Tuaregs wanting an independent state in northern Mali launched a rebellion. France intervened militarily in 2013 and the UN sent in a 10,000-strong force.

Security: Mali is discouraged by most countries' travel advisories but Djenne has not seen violence.

Where to get the fabrics: They can be ordered via malimali.org.

How to get there: Flights to Bamako from Paris (Air France, Aigle Azur) and Lisbon (TAP).

Hotel: hoteldjennedjenno.com (+223 79331526). Rooms from 26,000CFAF (€46)#