Nicole schreibt...

Mauritius + Dubai 2016

Some years ago my mother first brought up the wish to see the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, one of those typical dream destinations for the well-heeled. While I admittedly wasn't too keen on the area (if anything I'd love to visit the Seychelles, famed for their natural beauty), I would never say no to a free ride to a sunny island. We had also both agreed that it would be nice to see Dubai again, a town that had fascinated us both rather unexpectedly during our first visit. So it made sense to book a flight to Mauritius on Emirates, giving us the chance for a stop-over in Dubai to finally visit the Burj Khalifa (which opened the very day we departed Dubai last time!). I also liked the idea of two flights of six hours each instead of one endless 12-hour-flight on Germany's holiday airline Condor which sometimes still uses ancient planes with no in-seat-entertainment and would fly from Frankfurt at ludicrous prices. So Emirates from Düsseldorf it was (again) and all went rather swimmingly initially. Except that my usual travel companions - a headache, followed by nausea - turned up during the flight to Dubai. It didn't help that immigration was a shambles with their new "smart gates" (where you simply scan your passport at a gate and enter the country) not working and only two counters being manned, so the queue shuffled forward very slowly as if trying to outdo JFK, my personal seventh circle of hell. Luckily we had decided on an airport hotel, the lovely Dubai Millenium Airport, so the taxi ride took only five minutes. I still had miserable night and a result couldn't get up in the morning, making us miss our pre-booked 9:30 slot to go to the top of the Burj Khalifa. I was finally able to leave bed (and the hotel) around noon and we took Dubai's shiny modern metro (which seemed identical to Singapore's metro) to the Downtown Dubai area, a cheap and fabulous way of transport which had not yet been open during our first visit.

We decided to go to the entrance to the Burj Khalifa and see if we could go up after all. Luckily they were really nice and exchanged our expired tickets for two to go up immediately to 125th floor. Which isn't -really- the top as there's an even higher viewing platform at correspondingly higher prices but this was fine enough really. When you're literally on top of the world in the highest building of the world, it's hard to really put the height in context anyway. Needless to say that the view was rather fabulous:

Note the beautiful high-rise on the left side: This is The Adress Downtown hotel where a rather spectacular fire broke out only two days later on New Year's Eve, ruining the facade completely. We were in Mauritius by then, but naturally we watched the news on television with some horrified fascination, having been in the area ourselves not long ago.

Once we were back at the bottom, we explored the huge Dubai Mall for a while, then chose one ouf the restaurants with outdoor seating to enjoy wonderful Arabian food and one of the water fountain shows that start up every half hour after dusk. While it was only a single day (and a short one at that), I really enjoyed being in Dubai again and I think that much like Singapore it's one of those places I could really stop-over and visit several times and always find exciting stuff to do.
Next morning we went back to the airport on the hotel's free airport shuttle and continued the journey to our final destination, the island of Mauritius. We arrived there in the late afternoon and were received by our pre-booked airport transfer. For some reason the island's only airport is situated near Mahébourg in the far south-east, around 50kms away from the capital Port Louis in the north-west and the main tourist hub around Grand Baie. Not that I minded the long drive, giving me a first idea of the island's marvellous volcanic mountains and endless fields of sugarcane.

Mauritius is full of crazily over-priced fancy beach resorts where you easily pay 400-500 Euro a night which has probably led to the image of a posh destination for the rich, but if you shop around, there are plenty cheaper options, too. We had settled for a lovely hotel in Mont Choisy, one of the many little places along the north-western coast, 15 minutes by bus from the tourist hub of Grand Baie. It came with a nice pool and direct access to the long public beach of Mont Choisy. Note, that the beach isn't built up at all and also gave locals plenty space to enjoy their own beaches (unlike other islands/tourist areas, where the locals have been completely shut out with the entire coast clogged by fancy resorts). Since our first full day on Mauritius was also New Year's Eve, we took the public bus for all of 30 cents to Grand Baie to take a look around and have a nice dinner with a cocktail to see in the new year (before returning to the hotel way before midnight and watch the Dubai drama unfold on BBC World).

Our hotel consisted of studios with little kitchenettes to prepare your own meals and we had additionally ordered breakfast which was delivered to the studio every morning to be enjoyed on our own little terrace. Where we found ourselves having company by colourful local birds. Here's the bright-red Fody, the Indian Mynah and below the spotted dove and the cheeky Bulbul, who'd usually wait until we had gone inside to land on the breakfast tray and gobble whatever breadcrumbs were left.

One bird that sadly didn't survive human contact was the famous Dodo. Little known fact: Unlike most places Mauritius was not settled by humans prior to discovery by Portuguese seafarers in 16th century. So the local animals had no enemies and didn't know to fear humans. The large flightless Dodo became a favorite victim of hungry sailors and was extinct within a hundred years. These days it's everywhere on Mauritius in the form of souvenirs, place names like Dodo Square in Grand Baie and it's even on the official state seal!
Following a quiet New Year's Day by the pool, we thought we could finally go exploring the island on the day after - little did we know that the "Day After New Year" is also a public holiday on Mauritius, so we found both the "Aventure du Sucre" in Pamplemousses (a large exhibition on sugar production in a former sugar mill) and the Château Labourdounnais (the largest and fanciest colonial mansion, now a museum and working destillery) closed. At least the famous Botanical Gardens in Pamplemousses were open - the first Botanical Gardens in the southern hemisphere, started 1777 by a Frenchman with the unlikely name of Pierre Poivre.

On the premises were not only tons of (for us) exotic plants, including many plants endemic to Mauritius, but also other interesting sights like the former colonial mansion Mon Plaisir (not open to public), a replica old sugar mill and the memorial for Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, who led Mauritius into independence in 1968 and is considered "the father of the nation". Everything from the airport to the botanical garden is named for him now and you can't help wishing the man's name had been Tom Smith.

Since so much was closed, the taxi driver we had hired for this excursion suggested to drive up to Cap Malheureux at the northern tip of the island instead to enjoy the beautiful scenery there. The cape, not surprisingly, bears the name because many ships came to grief there during the centuries, but these days it is indeed pretty as a picture with the little church of Notre Dame Auxiliatrice and the dramatic rise of Coin de Mire, an outlying rock. Then we decided to call it a day and had the driver drop us off at Grand Baie for a stroll and lunch before returning to Mont Choisy by bus.

For Sunday we had booked a tour to the mountainous southern part of Mauritius, where the Black River Gorges National Park is now the last part of the island that looks as wild as everything did before the Europeans came. Our first stop was the "Trou aux Cerfs", the round crater of an extinct volcano, which is now pretty much in the middle of the residential town of Curepipe, followed by Grand Bassin, the largest Hindu pilgrimage site on Mauritius. According to legend Shiva flew around the skies with the Ganges on his head and a few drops fell onto Mauritius and formed the lake. So now Hindus from all over the island come here to bathe in the holy waters of the Ganges. Next stop was a viewpoint to look into the actual Black River Gorge, but sadly just then one of the frequent rain showers drifted along the mountains, so the pictures came out rather misty.

It cleared up soon enough and by the time we reached Chamarel, the sun was back. Here we got two sights for the price of one: The impressive Chamarel Falls, higher than the Statue of Liberty (as a sign pointed out) and the "seven-coloured Earth" that was created by volcanic activity, iron and aluminium. Sorry, they had a long explanation board, but it completely went over my head. They also had some rather cute giant tortoises, these ones having been "imported" from the Aldabra atoll that belongs to the Seychelles - the native Mauritian tortoises having gone the way of the dodo alas.

Our last stop after another scenic drive along sugarcane fields and tea plantations was a view point on the southwestern corner of the island. To the far left is Le Morne Brabant, "the mournful one", site of one of Mauritius' saddest legends. A group of slaves had escaped to its safe top in early 19th century and missed the abolition of slavery. Seeing troops approach the rock, they panicked and supposedly flung themselves into the sea rather than being recaptured. While there's no proof that these events actually happened, the story earned Le Morne the status of World Heritage Site in 2008.

Monday - the final full day - we finally took the public bus to the capital Port Louis, a short 45 min ride away. Lonely Planet had warned me that it wasn't much to write home about, but it was still good enough for a stroll around the Caudan Waterfront, a prettified area for shopping and eating out, that is also home to the Blue Penny Museum, showcasing Mauritius' greatest treasures, the most expensive stamps in history, the misprinted orange one penny and blue two penny stamps from 1847. To protect them, they are lit up for only ten minutes per hour, so to make sure we'd get into the museum at the right time, we first had a break and tried sugarcane juice, which is freshly squeezed on the spot - and not half as sweet as I had feared, but rather yummy.

Naturally it was not allowed to take photos of the legendary stamps, but there was plenty else to see as the museum also covers the history of Mauritius and has a whole room dedicated to "Paul et Virginie", the local Romeo and Juliet, that inspired paintings, operas, a French musical and a song by Celine Dion. Written by Jacques-Henri Bernadin de Saint-Pierre in 1788, it tells the tale of Paul and Virginie who grow up on Mauritius together, before Virginie is sent to become a young lady in France. She returns to her island and Paul, only for her ship to founder on the rocks during a storm. Here's the kicker: She "modestly" refuses to remove her clothes to swim to safety on shore and rather dies. Prompting Paul to die of a broken heart and generations of feminists to cringe in anguish. Even worse, the story was inspired by real life events, the wreck of the Saint-Géran in 1744, where two women died ... of the same overblown modesty. Mauritius commissioned this statue by Prosper d'Epinay in 19th century, but they couldn't pay for it, so it vanished into the house of a private collector for hundred years until modern Mauritian companies pooled their money in the 90s to finally bring Paul and Virginie home.

A stroll along the nicest colonial street of Port Louis to Government House and lunch at the waterfront brought our trip to the capital to an end and we returned to Mont Choisy, where we'd have another full day by the poolside before heading to the airport in the late evening to return home via Dubai. Mauritius is definitely worth seeing for its gorgeous nature and rich colonial history and it was nice to see that - much like Ko Samui or even Tahiti for that matter - it can most certainly be done on the (somewhat) cheap if you don't let yourself be fooled by the insanely priced resorts and package tours.