Honeymoon in Mauritius!

Time: Jul 15-22 2008

Place: Mauritius

Company: Wife

Highlights:

Day 0: Left at 8.30 pm in Volvo bus to the new Bengaluru International Airport. Just me and my wife all the 40 odd kilometers in the bus. Like a big limo. Someone surely has to rethink about the timings, route, etc of the bus to reduce such gross fuel wastage. Reached the airport by about 10.30 pm. Waited for check in.

Day 1: Check in. Immigration. Security Check. Boarding. 3 am. Sleepy. Air Mauritius flight via Chennai. Chennai at about 5 am. Disembarked to allow them to clean the flight. Kind of mismanaged ambience in Chennai airport. Security check again. Boarding again. 6.30 am. Some issue about baggage being unloaded by mistake in Chennai. Uneventful and safe journey. Wonderful clouds at 37000 feet, as usual. It’s a different world out there. But when we came below the clouds at about 10.30 am local time Mauritius (12 noon IST), it was all bleak and cloudy and raining, thus damping the spirits. After days of research into weather and choice of honeymoon destinations, one wouldn’t want to land in a rainy place. Anyways. Immigration and visa. (Visa on arrival in Mauritius). Baggage claim. Currency conversion. No direct conversion from INR to Mauritian Rupees (MRU). INR to USD (1:40 approx) and USD to MRU (1:26 approx). A long journey (2 hours) to our resort (Casuarina) in a coach along with others. Welcome drink and briefing at the resort about do's and dont's. Our room. Seemed fine. Lunch. Miserable. Hard for Indian Vegetarians. Beach in the bleak weather. Another briefing by an agent of Seaside holidays, the partner of Make My Trip, with whom the whole package had been signed with in the first place. Briefing on do's and dont's of the next 3 days, and the optional water sport activities. Hard time deciding within a short span of time although we were well prepared and knowledgeable about things to expect. Finally decided on the best few. Table tennis. Champagne in the room, although wine was promised. Dinner, like break fast, complimentary. Better than lunch.

Day 2: Wonderful continental breakfast. Bread, omelet, fruit salad, juice, yogurt. 8.50 SIC (seat-in-coach) to a destination where a jetty transferred us to kind of middle of the ocean where we were put oxygen masks to go 10 ft below the ocean water to the sea bed where we walked for about 15 mins amidst the fish and other ocean fauna. An amazing experience. Then, super high speed boat transfer to an island (Ile aux Cerfs). On the way, visited waterfalls, sitting in the boat itself. Also went for parasailing, kind of in the middle of the Indian Ocean with a distant view of Mauritius. Lunch in the island. Yuck! But nice island with shallow water (2-3 ft) for miles together. Hence the beautiful view. Sometimes emerald green and sometimes sky blue. Back at resort by 5. Table tennis again. Nice refreshing dinner.

Day 3: Easy day. Toured the northern sections of Mauritius. A supermarket for shopping, some nice viewpoints of Port Louis such as Fort Citadel and a church, and finally Caudon waterfront where many Bollywood films are shot. Nice 3 hours spent on the waterfront with nothing to do but laze around.

Day 4: Toured the southern sections. Took about 1.5 hours to get to south. Chameral waterfalls. An artificial waterfall – river diverted to create the view. But considering that the river water is made to flow to ocean, someone has to rethink this. Enough water is going to the ocean as it is!

Next destination: Seven colored earth. It wasn’t all that sunny for us to appreciate it but good enough. Apparently a volcano didn’t have the sufficient push in it to burst out and instead it burnt the surface of the earth. The oxides within changed the color of the earth and hence the name. A unique place in the world.

Next destination: Ganga Talab. (Ganga Lake). A lake in front of a Hindu Temple which was purified by tumblers of River Ganges from India (poured by Indira Gandhi and some saints) has completely transformed its entire properties into similar properties that are akin to the actual Ganga river in India. Hence the name. No bathing allowed nor any ashes-depositing.

The temple in itself is a Shiva temple. Apparently this is the 13th Jyotirlinga in the world. There are 13 Jyotirlingas in the world. 11.5 in India, 0.5 in Nepal and 1 in Mauritius. Details of the 12 Jyotirlingas can be found here. (Kedarnath [tail] and Pashupathinath [head] in Nepal are considered as one Jyotirlinga. Hence the decimals!)

Apparently, here in Mauritius Jyotirlinga temple, during the 2004 Mahashivratri celebrations, a lady saw the 3 eyes of Shiva on the idol which has been photographed. Also, the white milk that was poured on the Shiva idol turned into blue. This too has been photographed.

No business transactions are held inside the temple except offerings by devotees. Many idols placed within to cater to all sects of Hindus. Also a gigantic Shiva idol (about 108 ft) is placed nearby. It is the 2nd tallest Shiva idol, next only to the tallest in Gurgaon, Delhi, India. This however is not the angry Shiva idol but the softer one, without the third eye and no damrot (the sound-making toy). Also this Shiva avatar is the one with normal clothes and wishes well for all.

Next: Lunch in an Indian restaurant on a green leaf, the traditional style. Expensive, but nice. Next destination: Biggest Crater on Mauritius. Formed by the Volcano that created Mauritius. Nice view of the horizon/ocean from there. Next: Clothes shopping + Diamond shopping + Ship models shopping. Back to room. Welcome cocktail drink in the resort.

Day 5: Went in submarine! 30 mins in the sub again in the middle of the ocean. This time to view the aqua life, a ship wreck and coral reef of the ocean. Nice experience, although I felt a little queasy. Spent a relaxing time at the beach. Just got tanned, read novel and heard the little waves. Also, for the first time, enjoyed the sea water on beach. Also went to an hour tour on glass bottomed boat to see more of the aqua life.

Day 6: Went to gym in the morning. Walked the full length and breadth of the resort to explore everything! Went to swimming pool and lazed around. Again, a nice novel under the sun, after an hour in the pool. Went pedaling on Indian ocean. Went to Spa and steam bath after lunch for a nice 30 min massage. Realized that spa is nothing but the Indian age-old tradition of mom giving child the nice oil bath on Sunday mornings!

Day 7: Checked out by 11 but kept the luggages till our pick up scheduled at 3. Went on local bus to Grand Bay beach and spent about 3 hours there. Just walking on the beach, doing art on beach sand, going to a nearby temple and eating roadside chapathis! Pick up to airport by Seaside Holidays at 3 pm. Reached airport by 4.30. Check in. Immigration. Security Check. Boarding at 7 pm.

Day 8: Reached Bangalore at 2.30 am. Home at 4 am. Again, the 3 am Volvo bus occupied only by me and my wife!

Overall expenditure of roughly about INR 80000 per person. An enriching experience, and a good destination for honeymooners.