R/R part 1

So here was the plan, I had an R/R coming up and we decided for my wife and me to spend a week in the Seychelles and spend a week in Thailand. 

The trip to the Seychelles was pretty long and uneventful.   We traveled on Qatar Airways and had to spend MANY HOURS in the Doha airport.  If you know of Qatar Airways, they have nice commercials in which they boost their reputation, but honestly (and sadly) the flight and the treatment in the airport was far from what they boast.  With our incredibly long layover in Doha we couldn’t use the lounge.  Regardless, I should write about Seychelles and not Qatar.

Honestly, I can tell you that Seychelles has a lot going for it: a multi-cultural history, nice service (nothing wonderful), the people are friendly with gangs of vendors ever trying to make a Euro off your naivety, but the real attraction is the wildlife, coco de mer nuts (which we only saw once actually), vanilla and pristine nature.  In fact, the beaches of La Digue are considered to be some of the best in the world – a valid claim.  

Boat to the islands

When we arrived on the main island of Mahé, we were in enough time to go straight to the ferry port.  There we would take a one boat to the second largest island Praslin, to take another boat to La Digue.  Great plan, good timing and poor currents.  We sailed off across waves that threw the boat up and down, up and down the entire way.  As a result of this, my wife became “unpleasantly” seasick.  Having never been seasick, I tried to be a good husband and talked reassuringly to her and took her hand in mine which I believe was more of an annoyance as she began to squeeze my hand until the bones started to crack and I lost feeling in the fingers.  Mental note to self – next time, it is wiser to be an “intelligent” rather than a “good” husband and simply leave wife alone.  

Obviously off to good start, we eventually arrived to La Digue where we were promptly accosted by a horde bicycle vendors who desperately wanted to lease you a bicycle during your time on the island.  Oddly enough, it appeared that none of these vendors had actually encountered a seasick tourist and repeated their sales pitch as my wife stood there pale and stone-faced.  One particular vendor relentlessly repeated (and I quote) “But Madame! Everything on the island is too far away.”  You know how they say animals can sense an earthquake before it happens, well I’ve developed that same keen sense of feeling impending danger with my wife’s temper.  Fearing a force of violent anger that would rival Mount Vesuvius, I thought it best to move quickly on this before there would be bloodshed at the ferry port on our first day on the island.  Flagging down a ox-drawn taxi, we fortuitously we declined the outrageous offer and soon learned that “too far away” really meant a 15-25 minute walk along winding, well paved paths through colonial era coconut groves.  To this day, that vendor has no idea how I saved his life.

a friendly gecko

At the guest house, we were welcomed by a delightful family, wonderful garden and an abundance of….geckos.  The geckos themselves are really interesting creatures that come in a lovely assortment of shapes, sizes and colors.  More importantly, the appeared to have no sense of fear and a natural tendency to make themselves at home…in your home…and readily become your little housemates eager to share every event of your life with you.  Aside from the beaches, La Digue is famous for their giant tortoises!  (which we accidentally stumbled upon by walking through the coconut groves in the evening.)  Highly neat and very quaint. 

Giant Tortoises

walking through the jungles

But wait, that’s not all.  Within all that pristine nature, there exists a greater variety of fauna aside from the geckos and tortoises.  In fact, there are an abundance of large - VERY large - fruit bats.  Now the only time that I remember actually seeing a live bat was as a child in Belgium where they are known as “vleermuis” or “flying mouse” because of their cute little size.  The bats of Seychelles could easily be described as “vleerhonden” or “flying dogs” as we watched them spread their wings out and envisioned them going straight for the jugular and carrying off small children.  Needless to say, our intrepid evening stroll to and from the restaurants were accompanied by a chorus of bat clicks and chatter as well as a bombardment of nuts, fruit…and guano from the trees as you walk below. 

Now another little fun fact about La Digue is that there are no street lights on the island, which may not seem like much...until it gets dark.  This and the fact that it does have plenty of freakin’ bicycles without lights zipping around at night is problem.  To explain, when it became dark on the island…it became DARK – as in you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face (not that I am a fan of staring at my hand, but you understand the reference).  Second, as many of you may know when I talk I move/wave my hands and I damn near knocked at least seven bikers off their bikes by accident because we couldn’t see them flying by us.  I still wonder how they hell they ever could see the road and avoid killing themselves or hapless pedestrian.  The only think I could think of was if you live with the bats long enough you develop sort of internal radar system like they have.  

Of course, the trip was to see and be on the beach and that is where we spent most of our time.  Lounging on these fantastic beaches like Anse Source d'Argent and swimming in warm, crystal clear water.  This is truly where La Digue gains its’ well-deserved reputation.  

Nothing and Nobody - the way a vacation should be

While the time on La Digue was nice and we would have liked to stay longer to explore the island and discover more of the wildlife (aside from the abundance of banana spiders and stealth insects that bit your legs making you think that you had been shot), but we would have needed to take out a loan and sell the children to do so.  So, it was time to get back to the main island and catch the plane to Thailand. 

The day we left was a beautiful, breezy, sunny morning and I just paid 120USD for two to get back to the main island.  Yeah, it wasn’t this expensive getting TO La Digue, but once you’re actually on the island, they seem to have the upper hand on your return.  Although feeling rather pissy and feeling cheated we boarded a high-speed catamaran to return to Mahé, we decided to take the top, open air deck for this trip so we could take some photos – which would have been a great idea if the vortex of hell hadn’t opened up and try to swallow our boat.  From the onset of our journey, the pleasant morning weather turned into a tropical storm and we went crashing through waves as tall as the boat; up and down, up and down.  Within minutes we were hit with waves that that completely doused us and our thrill for adventure.  Tossed from one of end of the deck to the other with moments of weightlessness, I quickly got over being pissy about the price of the tickets and then took my turn at becoming incredibly sea sick.  Crawling our way down to the lower inside deck, my wife looks over and says 

“You look ill”

“Good, because that is exactly how I feel”

“Is there anything I can get you?”

“Yeah, I’d like to have a new lining for my stomach”

Of course, that was only the first leg of the trip back and we still had to take the ferry from Praslin, which wasn’t much better.  By the time we reached Mahé, I staggered off the boat and made a beeline for the nearest bench.  Then the taxi drivers descended upon us like jackals feeding on a carcass.

“Where are you going?” said one “Where can I take you?” pipes up another “What hotel do have? I’ll take you there for a good price” clamors one in the back.

Ready to accept the first taxi without question, my wife’s natural instinct for bargaining kicked in and she begins to negotiate the prices…for twenty, maybe forty minutes.  Hell hath no greater fury than a woman who wants a deal.  Personally, at that moment, I probably would have forked over another 120 USD just for peace and quiet and a ride, but she held ground and deliberated a price without knowing a location to go to.  Actually, it was rather impressive to see her in action.  Of course, I would have been more impressed if I didn’t want to throw up at the time.

Sitting in the passenger seat holding my head out the window, the driver wants to know where to go

“Do you have a place to stay?”

 “No, but we were hoping that we could find a cheap hotel close to the airport so we wouldn’t be late for our flight tomorrow” I managed

“Well, I don’t know of any “cheap” hotels here” he said “you see, that is the problem with the Seychelles – it is beautiful, but very expensive” And he was correct.  

Seychelles is incredibly beautiful and expensive.  What he forgot to mentioned that the Seychelles were all booked up as well and we went from hotel to hotel.

After looking asking the fifth hotel, he turned around and says “Well…I have another option for you.  I can let you stay in my house for a fee and I will include breakfast” My heart leaped!  This sounded interesting! “The only problem is that I live up on the mountain and about 3 hours from the airport”  DOH! My heart fell.  Normally, we would have taken him up on the offer, but we had a 7am flight, meaning that we would have to be at the airport around 5am and I didn’t feel like getting up before 2am to do this.  So we passed on his offer much to my chagrin. 

View near Chateau Bleu

Instead, we did end up staying our last night in the nice, but overpriced "Chateau Bleu" hotel for the evening and then eventually departed the Seychelles to Doha...to begin the second part of our trip.