Mahébourg to Flic-en-Flac, Mauritius

You know how in Canada, we have bilingual packaging? For us anglophones, we call it “cereal box French” or “shampoo French” – that’s basically our only exposure to the language on a day to day basis, and probably the extent of our knowledge for those of us long gone from high school. We really could do better.

Now look at Mauritius — or in French, Maurice. The official language is English and most can get by, but far more people speak French and tend to lead interactions with it, though everyone speaks Creole amongst themselves. Signs are in one to three languages, sometimes but often not translated, even in museums. Restaurant menus are haphazardly written in a mix. Towns often have names in both English and French. People comfortably switch between languages mid-sentence with no acknowledgement. There’s no identity crisis, no linguistic politics. The national currency even has amounts written in Tamil and Hindi, neither of which have official status. Students learn English, French, Hindi, and Mandarin in school!

There are other, far more obvious reasons that people come to Mauritius. But for me, as a language enthusiast, it’s jealousy that brought me here.

Similar to La Réunion, with no indigenous population or First Peoples to speak of, trading ports led to the first settlement, followed by the unfortunate onset of slavery and indentured labour imported from Madagascar, China, but most prominently southern India. A former French colony (and Portuguese and Dutch before that) before a takeover by the British who abolished slavery, the sibling islands’ histories diverged when the 1814 Treaty of Paris, ending Napoleon’s empire, brought Mauritius (formerly Île du France) under the UK’s fold with the caveat that Franco-Mauritians could continue to keep their language and culture, while Réunion returned to the French. Mauritius was later granted independence in 1968, and here we are: a country where the baguette continues to reign supreme as breakfast bread of choice.

Pretty much as far away from Vancouver as you could possibly fly commercially, and far away from everyone in general, tiny Mauritius gets plenty of visitors from across the world. They’re at the many beaches and resorts that ring the island, with perfect white sand and an extensive shallow lagoon with turquoise waters, backdropped by some dramatic mountains rising and falling out of nowhere. (One of those is Le Morne Peninsula, a UNESCO world heritage site where escaped slaves jumped off the cliff, mistakenly thinking that the government authorities who went there to announce their liberation were actually out to get them. There’s a beautiful memorial at the base in their honour, right across from the beach.) The vibe is as chilled as you want it to be, whether you stay at a resort or not, and I particularly enjoyed stopping all along the west coast on the one day I rented a scooter…as long as I remembered to drive on the correct (left) side of the road!

There’s less chilled ways to enjoy it too — plenty of activities all about the water! I’ve indulged in a few of them, like beach swims to scuba dives. But exceptional to Mauritius are the rare sperm whales that congregate in large number offshore, and I took an excursion to see them. (Your opinion may vary on the ethics of these tours. Every single tour boat I saw, including mine, got a little too close and let people swim, which is illegal but unenforced, and likely an annoyance for the whales. It seems a small step above the level of pestering encountered while snorkeling or diving, but it’s hard to deny the wonder of seeing a whale in its entirety underwater and not just a fin or a tail.)

There’s also Mauritius’s famed “underwater waterfall”: in actuality a large silt flow from the lagoon, when seen from above at a certain angle, it forms an optical illusion of a steep drop. Reality isn’t the same as Photoshop, and both waves from the wind and blinding sunlight meant that there wasn’t any perfect angle to see it from, but the helicopter ride to see it (my biggest splurge of the entire trip) was beyond worth the no-less-awe-inspiring sight. Yet even then, as memorable as this experience was and will be, it’s still just the cherry on top.

Mauritius has long interested me as a curious example of diversity. And my host in Flic-en-Flac put it best – there’s some 20 countries present in his DNA. While much of the population tends to be of Indian origin and Hinduism is the largest religion (next to Islam and Christianity), most people are just a whole mix of ethnicities. Whether they’re mixed or not though, they all hang out!

The capital of Port Louis has a prominent Chinatown and population of Chinese descent. While Chinese snack foods make up an integral part of Réunion’s cuisine with adaptations of chop suey including bol renversé (a fried egg, chop suey, and a mound of rice in a bowl, flipped over when served), it goes a step further in Mauritius: see the lines at the popular shops for boulettes (siu mai, meatballs, fish balls, etc.) and mine bouille (lo mein, with boiled noodles and usually pork). To my surprise, cooks at these shops aren’t Chinese, though you might spot a Chinese chef in the corner or upstairs. The clientele? Literally everyone. During my visit, there was also a celebration for the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival.

It’s not Mandarin I hear most of them speak amongst themselves, it’s Creole or French, perhaps with a smattering of Hakka amongst the older generation. It’s a similar situation with the population of Indian descent, particularly in Mahébourg. Dholl puri, farata (known elsewhere as paratha, the flaky kind of roti), curries, and other snack foods are also signatures of Mauritian cuisine. They’re all incredibly cheap, widely accessible, and delicious.

Sure, you can get the deep cuts too from strictly Chinese or Indian menus, or from chains that have moved in from their parent countries, but it’s so cool to see what local people as a whole have collectively adopted as a piece of national identity.

I don’t think there’s a better encapsulation of Mauritius than the weekend picnic where everyone flocks to the beaches: the hordes of mostly-European tourists in various states of undress lying in the sun; Muslim families, with women often in hijab or niqab, right next to them enjoying themselves just as much in the shade; groups of women having a dance party on the other side, other groups ducking in and out, with their kids playing soccer on the sand or taking a dip in the water while the rest eat heartily in the shade. No one has a problem with anyone. All the while, snack kiosks line the edge, offering foods of myriad origin. All of this overlooks the gorgeous lagoon on the Indian Ocean.

Some of this exists in Réunion too. There’s a lot in common thanks to their shared history. But somehow, the pace of life feels a little slower (and that’s not even including the isolated Mauritian island of Rodrigues, which I didn’t have time to visit). Perhaps it’s the geography too: where Réunion has the focus on mountains and cirques and hiking and adventure sports, Mauritius has everyone by the water — at least when they relax. Most people live in the rainy urban sprawl in the highlands, coming down to the coast on the weekends. It’s got a little of everything else too — mountains and jungle of its own, waterfalls, colonial architecture, gardens, ever-flowing rhum… They’re all pretty darn nice. (With the major exception of the overhyped and underwhelming seven-coloured earth geopark.) It’s the mix of everything that makes it special.

Mauritius feels like it’s got a foothold in multiple continents. It’s geographically a part of Africa and proud to be so, having welcomed presidents across the spectrum from Nelson Mandela to Robert Mugabe. But its heavy ties to India and China also make it feel Asian, somehow, with multiple state visits from officials of those countries and beyond, including the surprisingly-similar Singapore. It’s also still very friendly with France and the UK, and plenty of locals study there and return. The Mauritian diaspora’s spread out to Canada, US, and Australia too. For an independent tiny dot in the Indian Ocean, and for an African country, it punches above its weight.

In that sense, it’s like a friend that tries to be everything to everyone — but not only is it easygoing about it, it seems to be succeeding.