My Tummy's diary: Mauritius Road Trip Part 1 - Northern Mauritius (Grand Baie, Mon Choisy, Trou aux biche)

We arrived at Mauritius around noon.
Everything was a lot more organized than I expected.
Going through custom was quick and smooth.

After you have collected your suitcase, just as you leave, you will find a bunch of foreign exchange counters. The rate is pretty much the same for all of them.
We booked both car hire and transfer via Maki.
http://www.maki-transfers.com/en/mauritius.html
They are just an agent.. they will contact local car hire /taxi company depending on your selection/ the availability.
I found it slightly cheaper than booking via hotel.
We had no problem at all - car was delivered and picked up from our hotel.
The car comes with GPS but we used google map most of the time.
You can download the whole map onto your phone in advance.
Altho we really wanted to visit Port Louis, but we have decided to avoid the main cities as we've heard the traffic there is horrendous...
We did go to curepipe briefly to vist the ship model workshop.. and it was properly scary :S
We also did a wrong turn and got into narrow residential road..

Occasionally, you will see something rather amusing.. like this

I do like the beach but I would get bored if we just stay in the resort for the whole week.
Therefore we've decided to stay in diff part of the island and hire a car.
We stayed near Mon choisy beach for the first part of the holiday.
Stayed in little guesthouse called Esprit Libre.

We just took it easy on the first day - went to the beach and explored the local area.
The beach itself was ok.. lots of parking space..
There were lots of locals there. some food trucks along the beach (but nothing really attracted me.. )

We had dinner at the guesthouse that night.

Mauritian Tapas as starter.
That was the highlight of the dish - it includes samosa, chickpea ball, aubergine fritters.
All deepfried.

The mains were OK. Keith had duck and I had fish

Our Mauritian friend said we have to try the local chinese food
so we thought we would give it a go
Found this snack bar from tripadvisor
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g804550-d6153585-Reviews-Kwan_Peng_Snack_Bar-Pamplemousses.html
It's nothing overly exciting.. but it was good to experience Mauritian Chinese food :p
We went there for breakfast on our second day.

We actually missed it a few times when as the sign was tinyyyy
There is a little car park right opposite.

Everything was ready made - you just point and let him know what you want

I wanted to try everything so asked for one each

There was fishballs, meatballs, vegetable steamed dumpling ..

The fishballs were good

but the other dumplings were so-so .

Keith went for fried noodles.

There was a bench by the beach... so we can enjoy the view while having our breakfast.

Next we went to the botanical garden.
We didn't join the guarded tour.. we just walked around ourselves.
In terms of the flower/landscape of the park - it was rather average...