Mauritius – The Mirage

Fueled by the several magazine reports and exquisite photographs of Mauritius, the wife and I decided to take a vacation to Mauritius. Such was the anticipation of the sun kissed beaches and the blue waters that the coo chi-coo’s had started a week earlier. We were all set, the shades, the hats, the sunscreens and shorts and spaghetti strap tops all packed.

We embarked on our journey on a Wednesday morning. Hotels booked, itineraries fixed, we thought we were the only smart people. On reaching the airport we discovered that there were at least another 70 couples as smart. Probably every Indian married from Sunday to Tuesday that week seemed to be flying with us. We felt kind of old and our romance was more of a comfort level, missing the initial euphoria. But we ignored it, consoling that even after more than 2 years we had enough romance to go to Mauritius. Our eyes were already waiting to be sun burnt.

Our ordeal started soon enough. The flight supposed to take off at around 4 a.m. took off at 6 a.m. giving us first of our sleepless and uncomfortable nights of the entire journey. What was more demeaning is that the air hostesses treated us with the same disdain that they treated the other honeymooners. I wanted to scream, “I am their senior and demand some respect”, but alas, that was restricted to the second track of my head. My request for a brush and some paste was met with a look that made me wonder if she even knew of it. I was thus more convinced that Mauritius would still be untouched by the extreme commercialization of the western world. I was already happy…

We were to get down at Plaisance International Airport, wow... French, I thought. In general, I have found that Indians have a fetish for anything European or American (mind you not western… even Africa is to our west). Anyways you can imagine my disappointment when I got down at Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport. I realised that since they couldn’t pronounce Sri Shivasagar Ramgopalam, the name sounded a mix of French and Indian. Anyways we moved ahead and out of the terminal to be greeted by the warm air simmering at 31C. I was happy.

The bargaining started right at the airport, first with the currency exchange guy, who dished out Mauritian rupees against dollars, depending on how much you and your wife were comfortable in asking for. After 2 years of marriage, bargain is pretty much the only thing you are extremely good at. Then came the prepaid sim cards, still so much discrepancy, I shiver to tell. We marched to our van, headed to our hotel. The road reminded us of our honeymoon to Kerala, with similar fields and small row houses lined up on both sides. The hotel was a typical spa cum resort. The room was also nice. We threw our luggage, fired the AC and dropped dead on the beds… The heat had taken its toll for the first time, but after a good nap, I was happy.

The rest of the day was spent just loitering and deciding what to wear. The second day we went to Casela Bird Park. The taxi driver asked for 2000MUR (4000 INR). I was shell shocked to pay as much as a return flight ticket to Ahmedabad, for something that was just 1 hour away, but we went ahead. The only place I found written tariffs was this one. We enjoyed our interaction with Lions and Tigers, feeling happy that we had patted their backs, as if they were old school buddies. The day ended with severe headache from the heat. The AC stopped working in the middle of the night. The hotel repair-man, who was kind enough to pay a visit at 4 in the morning, told me very cheerfully, “Its Mauritius, its ok at 29C in an AC room”. I felt like bashing him up, but kept quite and asked the hotel for a fan. Imagine staying in a 4-star hotel with a table fan to keep you cool. But I was happy.

The next day we had the south island tour. It started with a tour to the ship building factory, which was just a workshop of 4 people making souvenir ships for gullible tourists like us and selling it for a fortune. We skipped buying anything. Then we saw the beautiful temples of the island and the huge statue of lord Shiva. Truly impressive!! Then we saw the seven coloured earth. We returned home, thoroughly exhausted. I was wondering when the Indian government will learn to market our beautiful tourist spots like this. Here we were roaming the whole day in extreme heat to visit a Shiva and Hanuman temple. Back home I don’t even realise how many of these I pass daily. But an eventful day. The AC stopped again at 4 a.m. The fan kept me company. I was happy??!!

The fourth day we did the acclaimed North tour, with a so called fort (smaller than my office premises) regaling us. Then we trudged to the only city in the island, Port Louis. Shopping was on our minds. But when we heard that the same “Original Lee jeans” was available at 3000 MUR and also 300 MUR (which we bargained to a 100 MUR), we had our doubts and escaped the flea market. With sugarcane fields meeting your eyes everywhere you would imagine that its juice would be dirt cheap. But behold, we got a glass of sugarcane juice for 100 MUR!! One fellow traveller told me, “I could have a bath in sugarcane juice of this amount in India.” All I could do was smile and wonder at the travails of international travel. The day ended. I kept on wondering, what did I do today? The smokescreen of those wonderful pictures was fading and I kept on wondering wasn’t Goa or Kerala better? After a fight with the manager, we were given another room for the night. Thank god for his kindness. Was I happy? ....ahem lets move on…

The fifth day was the most exciting, at least on paper. We were to do water sports. We anxiously got onto our speed boat which took us 30 meters into the sea and we did the undersea walk, which was more like a 3 minute sham of a walk in the underwater. The promises of seeing nemo and other coloured fishes, shown in the Disney movies were never fulfilled. The ride got over before we could realise we were breathing through our oxygen masks. Then a speed boat ride to the waterfalls, which I still don’t know why we did. The guy driving the boat was kind enough to give us some thrills while riding. The other “water sports”, like parasailing and bumper ride were a sorry joke as well. The excursion at Mandwa was more fun and actually, water sports. The room AC worked properly tonight...Wow...Miracle... Wasn’t I supposed to be happy?

The sixth day was spent in the pool, in the true blue beaches and just relaxing. This somehow was the best day of the six. I got to know from my hotel that the previous day sports had cost me 2500 MUR more. The AC gave up on us again. I was definitely not happy.

The seventh day, we couldn’t wait to leave the island. With four sleepless nights back to back and an angry sun taking his revenge on us, I couldn’t wait to go back to the air conditioned premises of my office and the sweaty evenings of Mumbai.

I kept questioning, how it was possible to be romantic in this sultry weather? The wife said, “Maybe it just made it easier for couples to be hot and sweaty, without even trying.” All my blue coloured dreams were whitewashed. I wish people spent all that money and time on the pristine beaches down south and did all the water sports, a mere 45 minutes from Mumbai. With a bottle of water costing me more than 300 INR, I wondered what drove more and more people to Mauritius. My mirage had already met reality and the sun had set on my international exotic holiday. We returned back with severely tanned skins and a question, what the hell did we exactly do?