So, this is the 4th day in the tour. We had a lunch-like breakfast in the hotel and we were waiting for the minivan. Surprisingly, today the vehicle was even much bigger. We happily jumped in. There were 3 new couples accompanying us this time. Yet we went to another resort to pick up the last couple. This was our first visit to another resort than ours, in Mauritius. That resort was too good, even though we saw it from Van that too from outside. But we envied its occupants and cursed our resorts. The tour guides, this time, there were two of them, were frantically calling the couple. Later they went to reception and inquired about the late comers. After 10 minutes, they got really angry when the receptionist told them that the couple just got out from Swimming Pool and will take another 10 mins. We left the resort leaving them behind. I realized the importance of Punctuality that day. Every now and then, we joke about IST (Indian Standard Time, 15-20 mins after actual committed time). That joke is no more funny. We really need to understand the importance of time. Later one of the guide told us that if we don't get out of the bay area before morning, we would be stuck in the traffic and schedule will collapse indefinitely.
After today's sightseeing, we had two free days and what should be done then was my source of worry for a really long time. I heard from here and there that there is a Cruise Ride which we can plan, and it was supposed to be the most awesome experience. We were quite unsure about how to book it though. Still we had told our hotel manager to book them for us. The uncertainty was very high. One of the co-couple started passionately describing how eager was he to attend the cruise ride. The guide told us that its not a single cruise ride, multiple cruises start from east-west and north shores and go to respective islands. Most of them were prebooked by Chinese tourists who have come to Mauritius in abundance for celebrating new year. Later on fort, I found excited couple giving advance money to the guide for lobbying their booking. I don't know why but I felt that the couple must be from Delhi. I am such a stereotyped ass. Anyways, on our way, the guide started telling us what are the spots that will be covered today, the fort, the botanical garden and the Mall. He also mentioned that later we will be dropped back to resort at around 4. 'Just 3 spots for the whole day...such a waste of time', as I was thinking that, he bombarded us with one more information. As I mentioned earlier, one day ago, there was Chinese New Year Holiday, apparently, today was Mauritian Independence Day and lot of shops in the mall would be closed post afternoon. The guide, thus gave us two options, either to skip Botanical Garden or to be ready to take a risk of visiting almost closed Mall. Murmur started among all the couples, about where to go. In the middle of it, some of us raised a valid concern that travel agency should not allow these dates for anybody at all. Like any public discussion, two groups were created. One voting for Botanical Garden and another voting for the Mall. 'What different trees could be found there?' 'We are here for sight-seeing and not shopping' 'In India, we have many better Botanical Gardens, It will be waste of time visiting it here' 'What different brands/shops will we find in Mauritius which we can find nowhere else?' Lot of such questions were thrown into the air without targeting any particular couple. Cold war strategies, I felt. Finally shoppers won over Botanists. The moment the decision was made, guide announced that we have reached the Fort.
The fort is located in the middle of Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius. The name of the fort was La Citadelle. It was the french activity headquarter before England took over it and made it as a jail for political prisoners. It gives the best view of the whole port activity. There were number of binocular tower viewer which tourist can use to check out the port activity. One more special thing about the fort is that, to the right side of it, all residential area of Port Louis was spread and to the left was the industrial/commercial areas. There was a race-course visible on one side of the port. It is considered to be the second oldest race course in the world. The views from the top of fort were breath-taking. Being from Maharashtra, the land of Shivaji Maharaj's Forts, this was too childish a construction for a fort, yet finding it on foreign lands was exciting enough. We clicked lot of photos here and there till guide shouted our names, to come back.
Our next destination was the Mall, Le Caudan Waterfront. It is built on the top of Water. When we reached there, guide informed us about a famous library there, which was shut down because of the holiday. There was a bridge on the artificial canal around the mall where a scene from Movie 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai', was shot. The whole mall was decorated with typical Chinese Lamps hanging around. They were mostly Red. It was a beautiful decoration.
Also there was some live music going on in the mall. They were singing Afro-western songs. Suddenly there was a commotion and they did a performance. We thoroughly enjoyed it. Later, we lingered through all the mall floors and took many photos here and there. A couple friend of mine was quite an expert in Couple Posing. I know even though it sounds ridiculous, this is a science. Not everybody is expert in adding variety to the poses to pics when clicked with your spouse. We had a live training where we imitated their poses and managed some cool photos for house wall frames. Suddenly, all of us felt hungry and decided to eat somewhere. These are the places where you learn the importance of global brands like KFC, McDonalds. We spotted a KFC and had some food there. Later we went to local mauritian market for some signatory mauritian mementos for the people back home. In that foreign land, we found a gujju shop who offered us lot of items at discounted prize and also provided us MRU on cheaper conversion rate
In the night, we were again surprised to see the live band at the dinner hall. This time, they were accomplished by Two Mauritian Dancers, wearing typical tropical Frocks, yellow and green with flowers on them. They were dancing merrily. Lot of people joined the dance and tried imitating their steps. Humming the mauritian tunes, we went to Reception and heard the good news. Our Cruise Booking was confirmed. So, next day morning we were going to Cruise Finally.
Again I decided to clean up the memory card. It was late in night and the french guy was not sitting outside. I shared my dilemma with couple friends and one of them declared that he had bought the Memory Card Reader with him. I was like, 'Where were you till now my good old friend?' He bought us the Reader and we connected it to my laptop. I clicked My Computer, waited for a long time for Card Icon to come up and when I double clicked on it. Woosh! there were no jpeg files inside. 'How slow is this card reader!', I thought to myself. But the files never appeared inside the folder. Finally, we concluded that the card reader is bad and have corrupted all my photos, all the memorable moments were lost within a second. I lost all the hopes suddenly but my wife was very optimistic. We decided to recover it by downloading a recovery software from Internet. In the Wi-fi enabled resort, we were at the secluded corner, so for getting browsable speed, we took all the laptop and other belongings and settled our self in reception area, closest to W-fi router. Our friends accompanied us, dipped in the feeling of Guilt. My wife downloaded a recovery software from Internet with lousy speed, it took almost half an hour. It started recovering the photos, we became really optimistic and happy. Suddenly it pointed out that for recovering them in drive, we need the license. Bamn! Back to step 1. Another Software was downloaded thinking that it will allow recovery in the trial period. One more hour passed. Same failure again. I started loosing my patience. One more, my wife consoled me. Third attempt was unsuccessful as well. I asked our accompanying couple friend to go and sleep while we work on it. They returned reluctantly. My eyelashes started dropping voluntarily. I asked my wife to leave the memory card as it is. I made up my mind to go on Cruise without a camera. I was completely defeated, tired and sleepy. But she was persistent in her attempts. Finally, she informed me that we may need to buy the license worth $25. I was ready for that as well. All the piracy we ever involve ourself into need to be repaid, just like Karma. I went to room to get my card, when I returned back, she had somehow cracked the puzzle and our photos were getting recovered successfully. I gave a relaxing sigh. That day, we slept finally at 2 o'clock. All the photos we had later on the trip and also the previous days' photos were saved and could be shown to the world, only and only because of my wife. She deserves the salute for that.
Next morning we wake up and got ready really fast. A friend of Hotel manager picked us up from hotel and using local commute, we reached Grand Bay, the Ship-stand for the cruise.
Generally, when we hear cruise, an image of Titanic or mini version of Titanic comes up in our mind. But this was actually a nano version of it. The cruise had a capacity of around 50 people. We had two options, either to seat in the deck or on the top of it. We chose the later. As the cruise started leaving the bay area, we hooted and took photos. Slowly and steadily, just like vehicles move from Town and joins highways, our Cruise came in the Ocean. First the bumps were very less but as we went deep, the waves started coming heavily. We could see the waves getting as high as our height on the cruise, and then would go down our cruise and lift it up frantically. The vastness of the ocean was clearly visible. How tiny we human being are, I thought for a moment. Long into the sea, we saw a huge mountain emerging from the sea. Our Cruise moved around the mountain and far near the horizon, we could see our destination, Ilot Gabriel Island. It took us around 2 and half hours to reach there. With heavy bumps and violent sea around, I started feeling the Sea-sickness. With each wave-ride, water was splashing all on to us. Somehow we managed to keep our DSLR dry but we could not capture that angry look of the Indian Ocean on our journey. As we reached island, we were served a lunch and some drinks. I wandered here and there, watered some plants, if you understand what I mean. I tried to imagine the Island shown in 'Lost' similar to this one. We played in water for some little time. The main reason behind less water activity was the Cruise Guide pointed us to one of the rocks in water on the beach and said, 'If you go beyond that rock, you win the free trip to Madagascar'. On our return journey, I feared the sea sickness would come up again but contrary to that, we had a really smooth ride on way back. Some of us pointed a theory that both the cruise and waves are travelling now in the same direction, hence the comfort. I slept on the cruise top for some time. The scorching heat of the Sun burnt our screen profusely. There were some Mauritian people on our cruise. They asked us whether we are from India and told us that their ancestors were from Bihar. They knew lot of Bollywood Retro Songs. We sang with them and enjoyed the time. Remembering the awesome experience of the Cruise and carrying our burnt skin we returned back to our shelter.
TO BE CONTINUED....
