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Ile Maurice - Mauritius Island
By Linda Thalman October 2008
Flying Corse Air with Nouvelle Frontieres, we left Orly Sud
for Lyon and then on to south of the Equator... to Ile Maurice,
which is east of Madagascar and La Reunion.
Our hotel: Le Victoria was absolutely stunningly beautiful.
Our room: large, modern, with a balcony and a beautiful sea view. Room 227 was perfect.
We had excellent service and a friendly, multi-lingual staff.
Everyone spoke English and French as well as Creole and
perhaps Hindi, Tamul too. Some staff spoke Spanish, German, Italian
and probably Inuit...
So monolingual speakers, be humble when in Ile Maurice as folks switch without a bat of the eye from one
language to another. Impressive.
The beach: Snorkely or swimming from the beach is a slight challenge as you really
do need plastic shoes to avoid the corals and urchins... but
hey what a great experience.
The India Ocean was at 25C to 27C. Warm! It is not
the Maldives or the Red Sea for marine life but it's fun
and thrilling to see fish you'd usually only find in an
aquarium just 2 steps from the shore.
The hotel pool is delightful... one degree warmer than the sea.
It has a blue tiled bottom, perfectly clear and clean, and large enough for
all the guests.
I would, however, have liked a children's pool somewhere out in the boondocks so as not to
have screaming two year olds splashing while one floats about staring at palm trees
and forgetting the cares and woes of non-vacation days.
Bikes were rented for 100 rupees per hour from the hotel. A tad pricey,
in my opinion, but we had several great biking trips.
Get this: the fellow in charge of the bikes was at lunch when we wanted to go biking one day.
So, we just signed the book with our room number and biked into the sunset...
no ID needed and no red tape. Now that's a plus.
The island is layed-back, friendly, and I must stress again,
multi-lingual. Ok, if you don't speak French or Creole or Hindi,
just ask another local. English is the official language
on the island and most everyone can communicate with you in English.
Monday we took a catamaran day trip on the east of the island.
It was like in the postcards and posters. The blue of the sea and the sky. Ahhhh.
Time for snorkeling and swimming, a BBQ chicken and fish lunch grilled on the boat.
Super friendly staff and that blue, blue sea. The skies over land were cloudy, but sailing
we had sun and enough wind to have the sails take us from Trou d'Eau Douce around the Ile aux Cerfs and
back.
The craft market in 'touristo' Grande Baie was sadly disappointing. Boring.
The town center is full of so-called upscale shops and at night plenty of discos for funseekers.
Read that as probably of more interest for the 'younger set'... though I love to dance!
Our best shopping was in a town east of the hotel, 5 kilometers by bike in Triolet.
We found an 'Indian' store run by Ms 'Baby' who is from Ile Maurice.
Her shop is jammed packed with clothes and goods for women, men and children.
The lights came on when we started looking around and I was able to try on every
item of clothing to make sure it would fit.
We laughed and kept asking for this and that. Pierre bought some sandals and when
he saw the left foot was size 40 and the right foot 44, well, 'Baby', looked and
found the matching pair. She admitted she might not be able to sell the mis-matched pair
later. We all laughed again.
The Indian buffet on our first night at the hotel was very nice. The
international buffet on Thursday night was just fine. And the dinner in the hotel's Horizon fish restaurant
was exceptionally good. Don't miss the fish restaurant at le Victoria.
Negatives: no Kleenex in the room. That's a pretty strong 'complaint'
isn't it?
Seriously, however, the wine is outrageously expensive in hotels.
There was not even a house wine at Le Victoria. 40 Euros - 1,600 rupies - for a bottle of South African wine? Excuse me?
Our local restaurant at home, le Chalet, in St Remy has a delightful Côte du Rhone for 7.50 euros for 50
centiliters... now why can't hotels in Ile Maurice offer a house wine from South Africa, Australia or France for a similar price?
You guessed it, you're a captive audience at the hotel!
We really wanted to see the southwest part of the Island. So I checked out the local taxi services
for a day trip and we agreed on a day rate.
We set off with Dave at 9 in the morning and stopped briefly at the Trou aux Cerfs and
then spent a lot more time in a shop with handcrafted model ships.
Voiliers de l'Océan is an Ali Baba shop of the most beautiful boats.
You can visit the workshop where dozens of women and men are crafting the pieces shown in the shop.
And that we did and we took home two beautiful ships.
Then off to the Black River Gorges National Park - stopping at the Alexander and Chamarel waterfalls and
the Colored Earths, known as Terres de Couleurs in French.
Lunch was at a pleasant restaurant along the west coast in La Gaullette. Our driver had suggested
Sirokan Garden and we'd seen another place in one of our guides. It looked a bit boring so back to
the nicest Creole eatery in this small fishing town on the southwest coast of the island.
We changed the itinerary and wanted to see
the south all the way to Souillac and Gris Gris beach.
The southwest and south coast is quite pretty and Gris Gris is a wind swept point with
crashing waves and a bowl-shaped beach. Every so pretty it was.
For the trip home Dave took us through the countryside in the center of the island rather than
poking along on the main road through Port Louis with evening rush hour. He knew every town and
building and it was a lovely way to see more of the country.
Thank you, Dave, for a most enjoyable day trip.
On our next to last day we had a most lovely lunch at La Cravache d'Or in Toux aux Biches.
We biked from the hotel -- a short 12-minute jaunt. We'd rolled up our trousers to avoid
getting them greasy from the bike and looked lovely with pant cuffs rolled down.
Nice restaurants may not be fussy with tourists, but it's a good idea to be dressed for lunch or
dinner without those baggy shorts and white tennis shoes!
We had picked out our table four days earlier on a bike ride that took us past the restaurant
and we picked out the perfect sea-view table for our Tuesday lunch.
The South African wine on the list was not available... no delivery until Thursday.
We were not keen on having French wine as that's
what we drink at home. But the waiter found a lovely South African wine in the cellar that was not on the list and
we savored it with our seafood lunch.
The owner, Linda, offered us after-lunch drinks as we chatted. Thank you Linda!
Do book at La Cravache d'Or for a most delightful lunch or dinner.
The food, fruit and vegetable market was so colorful and full of the smell of fresh pineapples and
spices and the noise of a lively, living market. It reminded me of Arusha in Tanzania on a slightly
smaller scale.
A taxi ride back to the hotel, a dip in the pool, a complementary changing room at the hotel and off
we went by bus to the airport for the long slog home.
It's not all that much fun to spend 18 hours
door to door, but we had had a very, very enjoyable stay in Mauritius.
For a relaxing, friendly, multilingual country with beautiful beaches, a warm climate and welcoming people,
don't hesitate to visit Ile Maurice.
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What a long flight... to get to a beach.
We did an all-day expedition by bike through Trou aux Biches
and on to la Grande Baie north of the hotel.
We found lovely wine in restaurants between 350 and 600 rupies every where we ate outside of the hotel.
In the end Dave's suggestion was
spot on and we had a most enjoyable fresh seafood lunch. We also enjoyed different homemade flavored
rums... coffee, vanilla, spices... tasty stuff!
On our last day in Ile Maurice and we decided to take the bus to Port Louis, see the one UNESCO
Heritage Site, have lunch at a nice Indian restaurant on the port and do the market.
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Linda Thalman
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Email – Linda@wfi.fr
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