Bonjour, Mauritius. Discovering the best beaches in our neighbourhood

We had booked a scooter for today to discover the best beaches on the north coast and see what else is worth to see up here. Different tourism sites claimed that we should go to the botanical garden and visit a marmelade mansion and by no means we should skip the Van Anne Chocolate Factory.

Since our resort only has instant  coffee on their menu, my first request was to go to Grand Baie and have in the best German Cafe, precicely in Cafe Müller (because what else would you call your german style cafe, right?) a real coffee. And maybe a slice of apple strudel, because how else would we be able to keep the morning flag high throughout the day? So, we drove to Grand Baie, had a quick swim, noted that our beach is still better and started to look for the Cafe Müller. We found a hindu temple. Stepped in, saw that the entrance is free, but donations would mean so much to them. We looked at the beautiful six-armed goddesses and slowly started to make our way out, when one of the servants of God approached us and even though being on the phone with someone, he managed to let us know that the donation is definitely expected and a proper amount would be one-zero-zero. So that even the dumbest tourstis would understand, what numbers should be on the bill. We didn't interrupt his call to tell him, what we think of it and walked out.

In Cafe Müller it seemed a good idea to have a little snack with coffee too. Scott chose a sandwiches, me a croque. I imagined a nice tuna and tomato filled fried croquet, but what arrived on the table was a grilled sandwich. At least it was good, right.

Next there was a hidden beach on the map, so remote and secret that almost nobody knows about it. Except of the beach faced resort customers and all the locals, who also had discovered it. We took a look and continued to the Pereypere Beach. Also one of the most picturesque ones. Wasn't too bad. Our next stop was supposed to be a great viewpoint with breathtaking views over the Indian Ocean. Turned out that the mentioned point is now a private property and we had to go to the church yard which also has very nice views. The beach had a lot of separated areas and some of them felt like private beaches. We even went for a swim. Or rather just lied down in the water. I drank a coconut and we decided to make our way to that famous chocolaterie.

I had the map in hand, we took off and ... nothing. There, where the best Belgian chocolate in country was supposed to be made, were only a residence and few random houses. We drove on and asked the locals. They escorted us back to the same complex of buildings and indeed - on the other side of the house there was barely readable Van Anne Chocolate re. All window covers closed like there hadn't been anyone around for at least 20 years.

We had already in the morning decided to skip the marmelate masin, because the entrance price was 10EUR per person and walking under mangotrees wasn't exactly what I imagined when I read about the lush area full of fruit trees and flowers, amazing aroma everywhere in the air. Obviously after reading this I didn't expect to see candy lines and pots full of boiling marmelade.

So we started back to Grand Baie to stock up some food, get us hats as per wish of Scott and make it to our favourite beach to see the sunset.

The sunset on the beach was followed by a picnic on the balcony with cheese, wine, salami, prosciutto and crackers.

Bonjour, Mauritius. On the neighbouring beach.

Scott decided not to join me for breakfast today and stayed in the room to shave. The locals had hard time to believe that madam is just so eating all alone and set the table for two. Which turned out to be a great idea, because I could mix and match and choose the best form both plates. Borrowed banana and crepe form Scott's plate and replaced those with onion omelet and onion pie. Win-win. Did bring Scott's plate in the room for him. Or rather on the balcony.

When we started to look for accommodation here, I of course consulted Google first and chose the best beaches. Our first choice was Troix Aux Bich. After consulting with Booking.com however it seemed that all the accommodation on that beach was more than the educational budget of the town and based on the Google Maps it looked rather like curvy beach with many rocky areas instead of white sandy beach so long that the end just disappears in the horizon. So, we chose Mont Choisy, which is exactly, what we expected - unendless white sand and blue water. The only thing is that instead of palms we have pinetrees. Anyway we noted that the desirable Troix Aux beach is just a short walk away and that was our plan for today afternoon. We waited patiently in our airconned hotel room until the hottest part of the day will be over and made our way to that beach of the bold and beautiful. The beach was packed with sunsets, umbrellas, boats and yachts and the sea with water skiers. We had a quick swim and walked back to our beach with unendless sand and no people.

For the dinner we had planned Selfish, that had high praisals in Tripadvisor. We had just gotten our drinks, when a loud party started on the street. We ran out to take a look and it turned out that celebrating an upcoming hindu festival, a bunch of people was carrying a huge bird cage on their shoulders with someone sitting in it. All that was accompanied with loud music. While we were all standing there at the gate, the 3-year old dude from next table tried to sneak his hand under mu skirt. We ordered crispy fried calamari, octopus salad, giant tiger prawns and dorado in buttery sauce. I won't stop on starters, but Scott's giant tiger prawns were more the size of lobster and my fish in the creamy butter sauce was delicious.

Bonjour, Mauritius. In the grocery store.

Today morning we found out that for breakfast you will eat here what they bring you. So, today we had sunny side up that they called omelet, each half a loaf of baguette, margarine, jam, chocolate bread, triangle cheese and fried hot dog.

Sinec last night was a total failure finding pleaces to eat, we decided right after our morning beach time to pack the bags and take a trip to the closest village that was supposed have the best grocery stores on the island. We also had our hopes high for some good restaurants. We took the bus to Triolet. Checked out the hindu temple and thought of having some beach time on the famous Troix Aux Biches before hitting the stores. After about 20 minute it was clear that it's not such a great idea to walk there in the midday heat, turned around and started walking direction food mecca. After arriving on the main street that in every other country and city would be lined with cafes, restaurants and souvenir shops, it turned out to have mainly car parts shop, cream cake shops and dress shops. After half an hour of walking, we still hadn't come across one single open restaurant. Or a grocery store that would offer something more than just fresh fruits and veggies. At the same time it started to famish from hunger and getting a stroke from the heat. I smelled pancakes suddenly and dragged Scott to the most popular whole in the wall in the village - the line was impressive. They only had one specialty - potato curry wrapped in pancake. Scott looked at it slightly hesitantly and we came to the compromise that I eat potato wrapped in pancakes, while he has some chicken curry in the next joint. After lunch we went to the supermarket, got a lot of joghurt, wine and beer and took the chicken bus home.

We had a quick nap. That means I had a nap and Scott spent the time by the pool until it was time to go see the sunset. Since it was Tuesday and the bar next to us opened, we went there to have dinner. It went as usual when we decide to have some snacks to share - we ordered way too much. We had some octopus salad, fish and chips and chicken and veggie samosas.

Bonjour, Mauritius. When you book a holiday under the palm, but find only pine trees on arrival.

Being responsible travellers, we arrives in the airport with enough time to spare on Sunday. Only to find out that our flight was delayed by an hour. Late departure from Tallinn also meant a light sprint to our gate in Frankfurt. We had barely time to sit down there, when boarding started. This flight was on time and already 11,5 unslept hours, out of which a kid not far from us was screeming his lungs out for 8 full hours, we were there. Right after take off, by the way, Lufthansa offered us bretzels and drinks. Additional drinks, including beer and wine and I think, also bränd, were offered during dinner. During the all flight, non-alcoholic drinks, bretzels and New York Cheesecake KitKats were available. And yet Scott asked during dinner that we seem to be flying economy, there were not even snacks before the dinner. I offered that he might want to fly SAS once, where all the alcohol is to purchase only and non-alcolohil drinks are limited to one drink only diring the all flight. And where between dinner and breakfast you can only help yourself to some water.

In the immigration lane, the Estonian dude behind us pointed out some fancier fans in the terminal to his girlfriend and voiced his surprise, what powerful cameras they have here. Indeed, you can be filmed with the "Gone with the wind" hairstyle :)

The frugal Estonian told that we will not pay 55 EUR to take a cab to our hotel, when there is a bus  that would take us to the capital for 80 cents. We started to wait in airport for the bus that never came and made our way to the nearest town, where we were able to catch a but to Port Louis. After that more than an hour long ride where you and a hindu sitting on your left lap and had your own right leg on the lap of the local, Scott said that the experiment was interesting, but will not be repeated. So, from the capital we took a cab to the hotel.

We went to the beach and after consulting the map that told us that there are several places to eat in the neighbourhood, we made ourselves on the way. Turned out that all the fancy named restaurants on the map were mainly little food trucks or food cats, where you could buy fresh juices or chicken curry or something similar. We walked round the peninsula, tried to sneak into one of the resort restaurants from the seansside, but didn't get lucky. They only served guests. Considering their language sillas, we would have not been able to explain them that we are guests too, since we are not living there.

We sat down on the beach, watched the incredible sunset, had dinner in the resort next to us that wasn't as uptight and fell into bed.

Here in London Town. Mess.

I did it again. Chose an early flight that meant alarm at 3:30am to make it to the airport by 5am and being able to take off at 6am. In Helsinki it turned out that they have meanwhile extended the terminal so much that from my arrival gate number 2 to departure gate 54 it was the same distance as from here to main square in old town. Which is appr. 20 minutes.

I also made it smoothly to the Paddington station, where I got the feeling that I've never been to any underground or train station or bought any tickets. Looking however at the rest of the crowd, it seemed that they have never walked down the streets. Around 40% of pedestrians used the left side traffic logic, around 40% right side traffic logic and the rest of them just slalomed their way through crowds. Same situation was also on the stairs, in the tube and by different entrances. Also there's a huge construction boom in the city. I don't think I managed to walk even 100 meters without having any kind of construction related obstacle on my way.

Got a room on 7th floor and based on the bathroom the hotel had made a step closer to the rest of Europe and installed only one tap, so that one can actually regulate the water temperature. And not wash left hand with cold and right hand with boiling water.

I walked to TK Maxx, then to another TK Maxx and then home through Marks & Spencer food hall. Among other things I also got a box of sapphire raspberries, straight from Portugal, just because they looked so delicious. Spoiler: they also tasted delicious.

Took my jeans from the shelf I had put them yesterday and couldn't see the blue color under all the dust that the part that was on the bottom was covered with. I could have left messages on all the other shelves as well, like "Jane was here" or "Sam is stupid". I mentioned the dust in the reception and they promised to give the information to the cleaning crew to take care of it. Maybe the cleaning team didn't take the information, because in the evening I could still see the line I draw there in the morning in the dust.

Since the shopping was unsuccessful last night, I went to another TK Maxx today. To the one far enough to use the underground. Total success and for 20 GBP I got myself a sweater and two Jamie Oliver bowls. That's however where the success ended, because I started to make my way back in the rush hour, when the tubes are so packed that most of the people were left on the platform to wait for the next ship to come in. Having squeezed myself into the next one, it turned out that there are traffic jams also underground, where we made a longer stop in the dark tunnel before each station and waited until the train in front of us had left the station. The air was counted and limited as well. Got another box of raspberries from Marks & Spencer.

Our London office is getting dog friendly and a new colleague had two chihuahuas with him. One was clearly a guard dog, by the way. Barked furiously, but once you tried to pet her, she just in case backed a bit and kept barking from afar. Reminded me of the battery powered dog I had when I was a child. That one used to bark with high voice as well and kept shivering all the time.

Walked through Marks & Spencer again. Didn't buy any raspberries. Got a lot of cheese.

Still remembering the tube experience from last night, I called Uber to go to my recruiting event. Turned out that it took longer with Uber than it would have taken with tube, but at least Ahmed didn't make stops in dark tunnels and there was also enough air. From the event I scored the contacts of three developers and a thermo water bottle.

I had the return flight booked for 10:20am on Friday and planned to arrive in Tallinn at 5pm. Same day. Learned from the Paddington experience on Tuesday, I now walked straight to Heathrow Express, sat down in Business Class, because that was the closest to the entrance and the train almost leaving and was in airport in no time. There was exactly enough belt in security for one person at the time to put their stuff on the tray. Through the security and found out that the flight has been delayed by 40 minutes. Started to work and the flight was delayed by additional 50 minutes. And then the departure time was changed to 25 minutes earlier. Anyway, finally the plane arrived, gate number was given and there was exactly enough time to go to gate. Boarding started almost immediately, everyone on board we still waited half an hour in the gate and then another 25 minutes in the traffic jam to finally reach the runway and take off. Rescheduling in Helsinki was smooth, I had time to eat a Karjala pie and some raw oatmeal with berries, reply few emails and it was time to board the plane. 10,5 hours after leaving the hotel and already home. At least my husband was already home :)

Local chicken

Some more attentive readers might have noticed that after seven years I've started to eat some meat again. At some point my food was reduced to cheese, quark, berries, fruits and veggies and frequently a little fish. It became so monotonous that I couldn't face eating another carrot or bell pepper and cheese. So I added some chicken and a little beef to my menu. In US the chicken was all good - we bought some chicken breasts fattened up for the supermarket shelves lovingly by Amish community and the chicken left the pan as expected - juicy and crispy. Knowing, what our media writes about US origin chicken in Estonia, I was sure that the chicken from Estonian farm is even better. Prisma had Rannamõisa chicken in their assortment and so I brought two breasts home. Should someone ever need to slice some tires with kitchen knife, feel free to call me - I have gone through all the needed trainings and would be able to cut the tires in my sleep. I threw the slices on the pan as usual, but after that everything was very much non-usual. First the whole kitchen smelled worse than the train when passing the paper manufacturer few years back and then the pieces of chicken started to disappear in the gray fluid that was on the pan. I chewed my way through some of the rubber pieces and discarded the rest.

Next day I went to the market to see, if they carry some chicken, raised by local Amish. Turned out that all the stalls in the meat aisle only offer the poultry from Tallegg, but I considered those too close of relatives to the Rannamõisa ones and didn't dare to buy. Then I found a meat-shop-restaurant on the market and they had 4 chicken breasts on the display they claimed to be from a small farm in Saaremaa. I got two. When I cut them, the knife did slide through and when I fried them, they got nice and crispy without creating a wastewater depot on the pan first. And they even tasted like a pan-fried chicken should taste. Despite all that after all the chickenadventures I'm pretty much fed up with the chicken. So, yesterday I got a piece of beef from the same store that carries Saaremaa chicken. Considering the fact that my new food plan only allowed me to eat 2,6oz of it, I can feed myself with that piece of beef for at least 9 more dinners :)