Mauritius Photo Essay – The journey in

I was invited by the Government of Mauritius to participate in a conference. It was just a 4 day trip and in hindsight, I would have refused this honour, because the journey itself was too long. Still, anyway, its done.

The immigration landing card shows a dodo, heh. Nice one. Although I am not so sure what it signifies, that I will be extinct if I land? heh.

 

The forward looking camera on the plan shows the runway on the in-flight entertainment screen.

 

It was evening when I landed and the view outside was brilliant. Scudding clouds, with misty green mountains in the distance with crystal clear air in the middle with that lovely tropical green.  

As the sign says, Welcome to Paradise :)



While waiting for my car to turn up, I snapped these pictures. Lovely little airport.

The car turns up.

Sugarcane fields all over the place

the vista was very nice, very peaceful and calm. Had to drive almost across the island to get to the hotel from the airport. Took almost an hour and this was in the middle of the rush hour.

Rush out in paradise :) very nice infrastructure.

Apparently quite a lot of Indians were sent to this island as exiles, either for political or criminal reasons. Almost 60-70% of the populace is Hindu Indian, rest being Muslim and Christian. 

The last 2 digits of the car’s number plate signifies the year it was registered. Given that everything is imported in this country, cars and everything else is bloody expensive!

The sunset. The red glow reminded me of the sunsets in Hawaii which i saw many moons ago, but at that time, it was because of lava flows, lol. Thankfully this time it was just the sun.

The final glimmer of the sun.

I really had problems here. Damn Marmite and Cuisine does NOT go together and I definitely dont want Marmite anywhere near my pastries. Damn French.

And Zorro is no longer in Mexico, he is in Mauritius running a shop with his sons :)

By the time I checked into the hotel, it was already dark.



Very dark and I was bushed, I wanted to hit the bed, but that’s for the next post.

Prohibited items in Hong Kong

Pretty graphic evidence on what you can and cannot import in Hong Kong.

Dried Crocodile Meat

Wild American Ginseng Root

 

Seahorses

Why would caviar be banned? And if its banned, then how come this caviar store is opening up not 100 meters away from this display?

Tiger Bone Chinese Medicine. Here’s evidence about where the tigers of the world are vanishing off to,into the stomach’s of Chinese men wanting to perk up their peckers.

Bile powder,frequently from bears livers

Margave Skin

Orchids

Stony Coral Skeleton, Indian Roofed Turtle Plastron.

Monitor Lizard Skin

Ivory

Some kind of skin.

Turtles. He looks so sad? Well, so would you be if you were stuffed and mounted on a shelf, with your skin and bones being used for boxes and purses.

Prohibited and controlled items… Felt quite queasy reading this. This is what we humans are doing to our planet and its animals……

Protests at Standard Chartered Bank

While walking back from one office to another via the elevated pathways, heard some very disciplined shouting.

people wearing masks (not to hide themselves, but protect themselves from swine flu)

more people on the right,under one of the grand poo bah’s who founded Standard Chartered Bank.

And you had some people who were helping raise the protests. I could only take these 3 pictures before two policemen came up to me and politely shooed me off.

Thundering Typhoons in Hong Kong

Last week, I was in HK and we caught the tail end of a small typhoon.

it had started spitting early in the morning.

And the weather from the office wasn't that great either. You can see the weather closing in. And the apartment blocks looking like strange urban flowers..

The first sign (literally) when we had to go across the street to another building along the elevated walkways in central.

When we got back to the hotel, the hotel had put up a sign showing that the signal had been upgraded to #3. It was quite windy, walking back from the office, it was very difficult to walk, very fresh breeze. But I am afraid that’s it, nothing much to it, bit disappointing, eh? but really dont want to repeat what we experience few years back in Disneyland where there was a serious typhoon in Florida, got stuck there for couple of days..

Spy Shoes

This was bloody strange. But first things first, Diya has got her new school shoes.

Pretty standard shoes, no? black school shoes.

with flowers and stuff on the uppers and on the soles, but hark…

Peek inside and see what it says.. a bright pink tag to pull on the inner sleeve.

and we have a doggie!

a doll in the other one.

Can you see the 2 dolls in the transparent window in the sole? How bizarre. Apparently you can take your tolls with you to school. Totally blew my mind. Whatever next?

Full slide show here.

Virgin Loo’s

Well, I know, you guys will think I am absolutely bonkers. So I am. Anyway, I was flying back from India on Virgin and i noticed something very interesting in their loo, but more about that later. The loo itself was very nice so decided to take some pics.

So I enter the loo and what do I find?

Nicely arranged hand cream and stuff

And then my eyes fell on what it said, COW SHED is the brand name I guess and its called as COW PAT and the other one is called as DIRTY COW. Somebody has an interesting sense of humour. Want to get moisturised by a cowpat? heh.  

the lighting is good, very nightcluby…

yeah, you there, lady, with the perfume, give it a rest, will you?

  
 

the door with pretty much standard warnings.

 


There was a damn toothpick in the ashtray. What on earth goes on in the damn loo’s, eh?

Its highlighted!, and interestingly enough, for the first time, the lid was actually surrounded by a rubber gasket so it smothered the rather whooshing sound that you can hear. First time I heard it, I was quite surprised, figured somebody has got sucked out or something.

 

Even though smoking has been banned for a long period of time, I guess people still try to smoke in the loo’s. And what all to throw in the other bin.

Very polite.


And what’s with the direct translation? What does little tipple mean in Hindi, you twerps? And while I was writing this, I came across this news item about a related subject. I quote:

A Biman Bangladesh airlines flight from Dhaka to London was delayed by nearly 10 hours - because all five of the plane's toilets were blocked. Wing Commander Asaduzzaman, director of engineering at Biman, said most of the passengers on the flight had been Bangladeshis returning to London. "The flight was delayed because of the toilet jam," he told the BBC. "Passengers threw bottles, cups, tissue papers and female sanitary napkins into all five toilets of the Biman aircraft.

But go on:

The news came a day after reports that the United Nations had advised staff not to fly Biman because of concerns over safety and flight delays. The cash-strapped airline has been heavily criticised for its performance in recent years.

Well, shitty service then?

Here is the slideshow.