Africa & India 2006: 11 - Mauritius to Delhi, India

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

It would seem our timing in avoiding natural disasters is about right once again - when we were leaving the hotel we were told that a giant cyclone is expected to hit Mauritius later this week. We had our last morning swim this morning, so the voracious local mosquitoes got their last good meal off of me. This is the first place we encountered a serious mosquito problem.

As planned we took the coast road southbound. Traffic was light, and the scenery beautiful where the road ran alongside the sea. A high tide pushed even higher by a stiff wind splashed waves over the highway and flooding fields adjoining the beach.

As we approached Mahebourg my churning insides let me know I'd better find a toilet somewhere fast, so we started looking for a restaurant. The town itself appears run down, nothing looked hopeful, but on the outskirts there was a sign for Le Jardin de Beau Vallon, a plantation house turned into a gourmet restaurant with accommodations.

The place was great - we regretted not knowing about it when we had to spend the night on Mauritius en route to Rodrigues, as it proved to be less than ten minutes from the airport. The first room I checked out was the spotless bathroom, which was upscale to the point of having individual cloth hand towels. The food at lunch was excellent, we were very sorry not to have the opportunity to try the selections on the dinner menu. If anyone needs a great place for an overnight near the airport, this would be highly recommended. The telephone is 230-631-2850, fax is 230-631-2850 and email is beauvallon.fvl@internet.mu.

The Mauritius airport is well done, clean and air-conditioned. Check in and immigration were quick and the Air Mauritius "Premium Class" lounge was very well done. As I'm now doing a tour of bathroom facilities I'm pleased to report they were excellent, and included two large private shower rooms with sinks, good showers, all bathroom accessories such as body lotion, after shave, and individual cloth towels. Free internet was available, plus a wide selection of food and drink. Instead I took an Imodium and water! Marilynn got a windfall when I realized I had not converted surplus Mauritius rupees to dollars, something which must be done before clearing immigration, so she was forced to spend it in the duty free shops.

The flight to Mumbai (Bombay) on the Airbus 340-300 was comfortable - the gods of flying once again upgrading us to first class from business for the 5-½ hour flight. The plane had automated seats, but for some reason they would recline only 45 degrees in spite of acres of space surrounding each pair. I declined food and drink, instead taking half a sleeping pill, which rewarded me with a four-hour snooze.

We had a prepaid ticket advice for our next flight to Delhi, so it was necessary to be ticketed at the sales office before checking in. Again, no problem with airport formalities and we were soon in the comfortable lounge Air India shares with a couple of other airlines. This is the only lounge I've been in with waiters who bring free food and drink as ordered. I tried a cup of tea and half Marilynn's cheese sandwich, which sat OK.

The lounge also had free wireless or computers connected to internet, a reading room with a small library and a music room with easy chairs and headsets to listen to an individual selection of music. We were surprised at the huge volume of people coming and going all through the wee hours of the morning - we were there from 1 - 4:30 AM.

The flight was on the top deck of a Boeing 747-400, and this time the seats did go back to horizontal. A cup of tea, fruit and a sandwich sat reasonably well, so hopefully whatever attacked my digestive system has worked its way through. We were both surprised at how quickly this flight passed, and we were soon outside the airport in 13 degree C coolness. The representative from Travelmasti, who put together the India and Sri Lanka portion of the trip for us, was waiting to take us to the Westend Hotel for a few hours of rest.

While the hotel is near the airport, if it shows up on your travel itinerary I'd recommend rejecting it. To overcome an odour problem in the bathroom there are mothballs in the bathtub, sink and floor drains, putting out a smell strong enough to cause eyes to water. We got to bed around 7 AM, and at 8:30 a construction crew arrived to build furniture in the lower lobby, which adjoins our room. A trip to reception put a stop to the hammering, but all in all there wasn't much sleep.