Seychelles can be described using all parts of speech in the English language. It can be described using adjectives like Beautiful, magnificent and breathtaking or nouns like Heaven, Wonderland and bliss. I describe Seychelles as an "Exclusive Paradise" paradise because of its beautiful Flora and Fauna and Exclusive because of its extravagant cost of living which gives even the rich a jolt.
Anse Royale
My wife chose Seychelles as our honeymoon destination and I totally agreed to her plan because a quote next to a famous personality in a morphed internet picture once said "Always agree to your woman else every discussion will be an argument" ;). Apparently Prince Williams Grandson of Queen Elizabeth II celebrated his Honeymoon on this very island. So how could I say no to this plan ;) . So I decided to forget my salary for the next 4 months and splurge on my honeymoon :) .
When I shared this info with my friends I found out that not a single person knew about Seychelles.So here is a quick intro to this Exclusive paradise.
Seychelles is an island country situated far below the African coast. Seychelles constitutes of 115 small islands Mahe being the biggest island and most inhabited island in Seychelles. Mahe houses the world's smallest capital city, Victoria. The other famous tourist islands of Seychelles are Praslin and La Digue. Hence we decided to visit these three beautiful islands of Seychelles.
We took a flight from Mumbai to Mahe. We reached Mahe at 3PM and checked into our hotel.
Our hotel was situated bang opposite to the beach. We had booked a beach view room and as the name suggests we had a beautiful view of the beach from our bed room.The beaches in Seychelles are clear blue in colour with patches of corals covered with sea weeds.The water is crystal clear, the sea bed along with the beautiful fishes are clearly visible from the water surface.This makes beaches in seychelles an ideal destination for snorkelling.
We rented a car the next day to explore Mahe. We could just afford an i10 for 50 Euros ;) . Apparently it was a national holiday in Seychelles and all the shops in Seychelles were closed.But as the saying goes, only an Indian can help another Indian, an Indian supermarket "The Kumar stores" was open. The store was bustling with tourists.Indians(Kumar superstore) never miss an oppurtunity to capitalize on such occasions ;) . We packed our bags with chilled beer, potato chips and snacks for the drive and headed off to explore MAHE. I was amazed by the infrastructure in Mahe. The roads were wide, clean and well maintained. The scent emanating from the flora coupled with the fresh air of seychelles and wify's company ( Had to mention her somewhere in the blog ;) ) made an awesome drive.We literally stopped every kilometer to click photos of the breathtaking surroundings. The entire city of Mahe looks like it is picked straight out of Picasso's paintings. We drove along the coastline and visited few beaches like Anse Royale and Beau vallon.Beau Vallon being the most crowded as it is located in Victoria, capital of Seychelles. Behind the Beau Vallon beach there was a lane with small tents serving street food. We hogged like crazy as the food was cheap around 50SCRs i.e., 250 INR. We had spent a whooping 2350 SCRs (12k INR) :| the previous night for dinner. Now you know why I call it an exclusive destination. after a stomach full we visited the clock tower and other attractions in Victoria this ended day 2 in Mahe.
our i10 ;)
city straight of Picasso's Painting :)
New Day, New City, New Plans.... We booked a day long water excursion for 200 Euros thru Mason's the most popular travel agency in Seychelles.
We got into a weird looking speed boat which took us to the underwater national park. We sighted some blue, yellow green fishes. Excuse me I don't know the names of fishes except for Prawn, Pompret and Seer fish ;). We fed these fishes bread. The ship stopped around 300mts from the shore for snorkelling. We were the 1st people on this planet to Snorkel using life jackets ;)... Indians leave their mark everywhere you see ;). After Snorkelling the Boat took us to a beautiful island inhabited by giant turtles around 100 of them. We took photographs of these giant magnificent creatures. After the island visit we broke for lunch and after a quick swim in the beach we headed back to the hotel ending day 3 in Mahe.
Currency check - 500 Euros spent in 3 days ;)
The turtles
Day 4 - Praslin, A Scary ferry ride to one of Nature's best kept beaches...
We checked out of our hotel in Mahe and headed off to the port. We boarded a weird looking boat again however this was a bigger boat. With just 100 people on board I wondered why do they require such a big boat.... but as the saying goes surprise always comes in big packages to screw you ;)As we set out for our journey all the famous quotes in the English language like "my heart was in my mouth", "The wave scared the S**t out of me", "WTF" etc. were flashing in my head. The boat was literally bouncing on the waves.... The waves were huge and the boat was being thrown from one wave to another seemed like the waves were playing catch-catch ;) . After an hour of a roller coaster ride on the Indian ocean we reached the port of Praslin and were welcomed by some hot transport folks (Seychelles standards)who transferred us to the COCO de Mer hotel. It was like we had won a victory over the mighty Indian Ocean and welcomed by pretty ladies with garland ;). Coco de mer hotel like other hotels in Seychelles was located on a private beach with a beautiful view of the Indian Ocean. However unlike the other hotels the Coco de mer had a Jacuzzi in the hall :D and we Indians love such crazy things ;)... So I knew it was going to be a great evening and the details of which I am not gonna share ;)
We visited the private beach and enjoyed the hotel facilities and that culminated day 4.
Day 5 - La Digue Bicycles ox and turtles....
I almost cancelled the plan to visit La Digue as it meant taking the horrible ferry again. We took the 10AM ferry to La Digue... it was the same story but this time it was for just 15 minutes. The Island of La Digue is 7Kms long and 4kms wide and houses one of the world's most famous beach Anse Source D'Argent. What makes this island unique from the other islands of seychelles is its mode of transport. Bicycles and Ox carts are the only means of transport in La digue which makes this island pollution free. We rented two cycles and headed off to explore the island. We visited the Copra(coconut) factory. It is not the normal coconut. It is Coco de mer which is the national fruit of Seychelles and looks like the human Arse ;) I am not joking.. Google for the image :) . We visited the Vanilla plantation and fed the giant tortoises. After which we spent 2 hours at the Anse Source beach. After lunch we headed off to the port and were back in Praslin and that meant end of day 5 our last day to explore this beautiful country Seychelles.
turtlezilla :)
Day 6 - Abhi na jaao chod kar ke dil abhi bhara nahin ...
It was a sad day in our lives as we were about to leave this Paradise a gift to our planet, a paradise of beautiful flora and fauna, a place that will remain in our hearts forever....
"Seychelles" / "Seychellewa" - The exclusive paradise
