Good Chillies Burn Twice

Food. One of the things we’ve been doing a lot of in Mauritius is eating a lot of fantastic food. Here’s my top 5 so far, in no particular order.

1. Dahl Purri, Dholl Puri, no matter how you spell it (and there are plenty of variations) and no matter whether you get it from Dewa in Port Louis or that guy in a van in Quatre Bornes market, this stuff is legendary. Thin and delicate, this flatbread is a treat best served in pairs – even more special as it is notoriously difficult to make at home. Whilst on flatbreads, I have to mention farata. Although I haven’t found one as good as my Grandfather’s, they’re still hot, flaky and delicious. Served with a curry or just a snack on its own: Does it get better than this?

2. It does. Fresh pineapples. On the beach. For $1. In fact the entire fresh fruit beach scene is booming, you can find all sorts of things – including fresh coconuts hacked open before your very eyes. But the pineapples are definitely the main attraction. You can buy a small one, peeled and eat it au natural or add some chilli and a pinch of salt for the real Mauritian experience. Yum.

3. You know what else is on the beach? Mine Frit from our favourite restaurant Ah Youn. Lashings of these fried noodles at lunch go down well with a cold Phoenix beer and are the perfect way to cap your morning in paradise and start that lazy afternoon. They come in any number of combinations from simple fried noodles with greens to noodles with The Lot: Chinese sausage, prawns, chicken and an egg. Eat with caution: addiction is guaranteed.
I have to mention octopus curry in here – sold everywhere good mine is found (and a few bad ones too). This stuff is equally delicious – but blink and it’s gone. Get in quick if you plan on sharing.

4. Gateau napolitan, my favourite sweet, deserves a mention. Two cookie sized shortbread biscuits on top of each other with jam in the middle and strawberry icing on top. These cakes are the best thing since cask rum.

5. Deep Fried Chilli. This is something new, I hadn’t heard of such a thing until Christmas Eve when we spent the evening with some extended family in Quatre Bornes. Big fat green chillies, battered and fried to perfection - hot and hot!

Phone Home

If the need to phone home from a foreign land ever arises then pay attention. This could happen to you. Armed with the trusty International Calling Card we headed down to the nearest public phone to make the call. For those of you lucky enough to not have to deal with those things, calling cards can be tricky and require a lot of barcode scratching, language selecting and pin code entering. Even after all that, we were disappointed to learn that the card could not be used. Trying again yielded the same result. We were stuck. Daylight was burning out on the east coast of Oz – we needed to make that call! Desperate, and out of sane ideas, I tried something crazy. I selected The French Language Prompts. Listening intently, I punched in the pin. Then the country code. The area code. Finally, the phone number… … … a dial tone. It worked! And on the first go too. France 1 – 0 England

Post-Christmas Post

With another successful family Christmas behind us it was time to get on with the year. So on Boxing Day Michael and I decided to stick to tradition, and go shopping. After waiting what felt like an eternity for the bus to Quatre Bornes (and politely refusing a lift from a stranger in dirty white van) we were on our way to the market!
Now the market in Quatre Bornes isn’t exactly Boxing Day Sales at Chadstone, but it was bustling. Upon arrival we immediately set about eating everything within sight – often a dangerous task where street vendors run wild, but we rose to the challenge. There was a Dholl Puri/Farata van swamped by a seemingly healthy clientele. I went to investigate while Michael inspected a nearby fireworks stall. After that I headed over to a similarly crowded Alouda stall, to grab myself a cup of this sweet milky goodness. I was a little surprised to note that my milk contained a small amount of noodles. This is apparently normal and didn’t bother anyone else, so I continued drinking while Michael decided between buying a one foot tall roman candle or a roll of 30 000 fire crackers.
After buying both we headed deeper into the market. The stalls were mostly clothes, t-shirts, shorts, caps, and a lot of Calvin Klein undies going cheap. Also fish. But the fish section, though fresh, was small, smelly and had precious few fish left by 2pm. There were some dogs there too. I mean city dogs just hanging around, not dogs for eating. This isn’t Vietnam.
I should explain – when we went to Vietnam last year we ate at a lot of restaurants, the price was right so we thought “why not?” We noticed that a lot of menus featured dishes containing what the English translation, and many waiters, assured us was pork. But we were suspicious, as the Vietnamese word for this “pork” was chien, which is the French word for dog. After the whole French Indochina affair there was a lot of French influence in Vietnam, (in some parts more than others); which, I fear, may include the language. Alas poor Fido, I knew him Medium-Well.

Infinite Water Crisis

Have I mentioned anything about the current water situation? I didn’t think so. Don’t worry, it’s interesting.*
Eons ago, in the late ‘60s when Mum was growing up on the island, there was a severe water problem. And severe water restrictions were called for. Town water was available only for two hours in the morning and for two hours in the evening. Back in the day you had to get organised to make full use of those precious 120 minute blocks, important things such as filling up buckets for the day, washing, boiling the kettle to make tea… (I should add at this point that this is Mum’s recount).
Of course, this water rationing makes no sense on a lush tropical island; there was plenty of rain around. That’s why some very important and very wealthy Europeans (you know who you are) decided it was time to construct a Super Dam, one large enough to end the water woes once and for all. It worked.
Until we booked our flights, apparently. There is now yet again a water problem. Fortunately, most people have their own water tanks and pumps and are able to continue life with minimal disruption (it’s worth mentioning that these are not rainwater tanks, they’re filled with town water). Even the complex our beach apartment is located in has a tank large enough to accommodate the twelve or so flats here. At least if there’s water in it. This has been an issue since day one.
The Complex Water™ is available for two five hour blocks – roughly from 5 til 10, morning and evening. But sometimes when the mature, more experienced guard is patrolling of an evening he *forgets* to put the water back on. There’s a routine now. We all complain about lack of water. He convinces himself there’s something wrong with the thing. Unsuccessfully tinkers with it (though percussive maintenance with a hammer is probably a more apt description). We wait for the other guards to come on in the morning to sort it out.
That’s when we’re usually informed that the tank is dry. The Complex Water™ has run out and the tanker truck won’t be in until the evening. Meanwhile we get to hang around, unshowered, in 35 degree heat with, apparently, 200% humidity.
Although the situation has been slowly improving, The Complex Water™ drought is serious – it actually forced a family out of their flat, in the middle of the night. This is why the owner of our flat installed a small tank and pump, so that we can still have running water in the downstairs bathroom.
Now, no matter what is happening with The Complex Water™, we can still enjoy a refreshing, cold shower. Oh, we don’t have hot water. Have I mentioned that?

*Interest levels indicative only.

Rum Fever

St Aubin 1819 Vanilla infused rum was next on my list. This time more of a premium rum at 450 Rupees for a 750 ml bottle compared to around Rs 200 for a Green Island of the same size (AUD $16 and AUD $7 respectively), I was expecting big things. Everything about the rum screamed good quality, the gold lettering on the label and the numerous references to being both ‘premium’ and ‘pure’. Did I mention an entire vanilla bean floating merrily inside the bottle? I was expecting big things and, boy, did that rum deliver!

I thought the Green Island rum was amazing, but this stuff just lift the bar that much higher. That first smell is enough to send lesser men weak at the knees. I didn’t want to just mix it with fruit juice – it seemed like such a waste. I decided to do something I’ve never done before, something crazy. I had a rum on the rocks (I guess I was feeling lucky). Fan-freaking-tastic. It was smooth. Like, really smooth. For comparison, I bought a bottle of Johnnie Walker Double Black Scotch duty-free that I haven’t been able to enjoy neat. This stuff is something else. There’s something magical in that combination of rum, vanilla and ice. All the flavours dance delicately across the palate…

Ok, maybe that’s getting a little bit carried away (remember my rum fever…) but this is seriously a great tasting rum, very smooth but, at 40% alcohol, still has that little kick to it at the end. We all certified it to be the best (the rum fever is catching). If they’d let me keep my extra fingers, I’d be giving the crew down at St Aubin a high-12.

My Green Card

I think Mark Twain said it best in Following the Equator, 1897; “you gather the idea that Mauritius was made first, and then heaven, and that heaven was copied after Mauritius.” I haven’t read it (or any Twain for that matter, though that’ll change if it’s all about Mauritius. Which it surely must be…), that is the blurb printed on the front of every Green Island rum bottle that you’ll find here in Mauritius. Green Island is The Rum here in Mauritius and although (by local standards) it is just your average table rum, it far exceeds ANYTHING I’ve had in Australia.

After taking a bottle home and treating myself to a whiff, I knew immediately that this was not rum that needed to be doused with Coke to render it even remotely palatable. I thought I’d try it first with some fruit juice – wow! Instant amazing party punch! I’d only bought a small 350ml bottle, and it disappeared very quickly, so quick I haven’t been able to try it with anything else, but we’re all in agreement: the rum is good. It’s refreshing to have a rum so smooth and delicious you can enjoy it with fruit juice and it’s not weird!

Made in Mauritius

We made it, the Green Island. Why the name? One of the largest industries here in Mauritius is sugar, so naturally a large portion of the island is reserved for sugar cane. When viewed from above Mauritius looks like one, big, Green Island. Which is why I was so surprised to find an Orange welcome getting off the flight from Reunion. Immigration at the airport has not only changed in the seven years since we last set foot here, but is apparently now sponsored by Coca Cola and Orange (a local Telco). The walls were shamelessly plastered with Orange and Coke ads (we were officially welcomed into the country by an Orange billboard, before we got to immigration), even the rope dividers keeping the lines separate seemed to be put there by Orange. It was like walking into a pop-up ad.

Getting through immigration was no easy task either, among all the other official bits of info they asked, they demanded an incredibly accurate address of where we were staying and a contact phone number (no doubt wanting to send us the latest catalogues or give us a deal on the Ab Master Pro). We knew where we were staying, our accommodation had been organised by a relative who had also generously offered to give us a lift there from the airport, but we didn’t have an exact address. Needless to say, this roundabout explanation was not enough. One frantic phone call later and we were on our way again - on with the holiday! And I had some serious rum fever.

Thick, black and aromatic molasses is the waste product of the sugar refining process, but its sugar content makes it a perfect candidate for fermentation, distillation and hey! Rum is made! This little Green Island boasts some of the best and fairest rums around and over the coming weeks it’s going to be my extreme pleasure to try. Of course this is not an easy task, every day I find a new shop with a dozen different rums to try, but I’ll do my best! That will probably mean a lot of posts containing rum-based plots, but I will get to the other stuff! Just as soon as I get my rum fever under control…

AA - Alcoholics Allowed: A Class Act

Ever worried one bottle of rum wouldn’t be enough? Tired of continuously screwing and unscrewing that lid on the bottle? Your worries are at an end! Introducing the latest innovation from Le Rhum Charrette – The Rum Cask! Featuring 4.5 litres of the finest Reunionnais rum at a healthy 49% alcohol this cask sports an easy-to-carry handle and is sure to make a bold statement at your next party, function, work-do or even by impressing your friends in your home. Yours for this special, one time only price of 34.90 euros.

AA - Alcoholics Allowed: A Beer Called Bourbon

The local brew here in Reunion is called Bourbon and it features a dodo on its stylish VB-esque brown stubbie. There were a lot of similarities to VB infact, the ads were everywhere and seemed to encourage drinking simply because it’s there; and the beer itself could be found all over the place – it is in all the shops, bakeries and petrol stations (we’ve all seen that Simpsons episode; one for you…) but that’s where the similarities end. La Dodo, as it is affectionately referred to here, tastes a hell of a lot better than old Veeb. A full strength beer that’s not too full of flavour. Light, crisp and goes down like a treat on those hot days sitting in café opposite the water. Looks can be deceiving: 4 stars.

The horse we rode in on

The first thing that struck me upon arrival here on Reunion Island was the epic traffic jam. It was huge. HUGE. A single lane of traffic held up for (quite literally) kilometres. We’d barely finished stretching our legs after the gruelling 12 hour flight before being thrust back into that waiting saddle.

Apparently the rue Littoral, the main road from the capital St Denis to St Leu, our destination, was partly closed due to the day’s heavy rain. The road is sandwiched between a pristine ocean scene and a shear, rocky cliff which comes unstuck in the wet – think Great Ocean Road on STEROIDS. That means the usually fast paced multilane highway was reduced to a single lane crawl.

Of course we did have CHERIE FM to keep us company in back of the taxi; and, I’m happy to report, CHERIE hasn’t changed its jingle since I last tuned in to it in France. And how French everything is here! Not that I should be surprised, Reunion is a Departement D’autre Mer – a little outpost of mother France. Everything was exactly as I remembered it, the street signs, the traffic lights, even the advertisements (which, unlike CHERIE have been updated) There was something deeply comforting knowing that I’m back on familiar turf, I’d forgotten just how much I missed the old country, and this island seems to be a tropical reminder of it. Traffic and all.

Out of the Office

Hello and welcome to another Simon Kyme Blog™! I’m coming to you live* from the sunny shores of the finest islands the Indian Ocean has to offer – Reunion Island and Mauritius. Look, I realise it’s a bit of a cheat not starting a whole new blog for this, but it’s not like I’ve gone to live in France for the year… no, I’m going to be sharing select thoughts and experiences from this holiday over these next few weeks; it’s going to be a lot of fun! (especially for me) Why not live vicariously through me? :P



*about as live as any written blog updated from half a world away from any internet source I can scavenge can be...