Return of the Beer Hunter

by Alistair Blackett

The genesis of my trip to Réunion and Mauritius was in the early 90s in the city of Lille in Northern France. Having travelled through the Benelux countries, I arrived at Lille Flanders station. In the square by the station is a bar called Les Trois Brasseurs. Over the next dozen years, Les Trois Brasseurs became the jumping off point for my (at least) annual trip to Oostende having alighted from the Eurostar at Lille Europe and taking the short walk down to Lille Flanders.

Les Trois Brasseurs is, however, not alone; it is part of a chain of brew pubs across France and also now in Canada, Belgium and in a number of French overseas départments including New Caledonia, Tahiti, Martinique and the Indian Ocean Island of Reunion (where there are 2 Trois Brasseurs). So an idea arose over a beer as they often do.

Like many ideas nothing happened for years but, in late 2005, whilst chatting to one of my pals (Martin) the subject of Réunion came up. We had never actually been there. We agreed to go for it.

Over the next few months we started to read up on the island and made our travel plans including purchasing tickets and booking hotels. However we also decided to "do Mauritius", as it was close by.

Our enquiries revealed that it was actually cheaper (by some way) to fly to Réunion from Paris Orly rather than flying to Mauritius from Heathrow even allowing for the Eurostar ticket. Besides it would give us the opportunity to visit the Trois Brasseurs pub in Paris (it is actually called O'Neills, but is part of the same chain).

So in June, we met at Waterloo and off we set to the Indian Ocean by Eurostar (taking time for a couple of beers in Paris en route).

A pretty and cheerful student returning home to the island for her summer holidays brightened the rather tedious and cramped flight to Réunion. She provided us with lots of useful information to supplement our research. Early in the morning in temperatures approaching 30 degrees we found ourselves at the main Réunion air terminal looking for the bus that we knew would take us to St Denis, the capital.

We found the bus and were soon in the capital, St Denis, where we soon found our hotel, which was well appointed with friendly staff many of whom came from Mauritius. One of the members of staff had actually lived in Milton Keynes where Martin and I have a mutual friend.

The first evening we stumbled across the St Denis Trois Brasseurs bar and planned our itinerary for the next few days. The first day we explored St Denis, a city of rather more than 100,000 people. It boasted a mixed community of Europeans, Asians, and Creoles (people of African extraction). Religiously the city was mixed between Christians, Moslems and Hindus. The city has a well-appointed shopping area and some comfortable hotels as well as poorer areas and comfortable suburbs. It also has a significant traffic problem both along the main coastal road and in the "grid iron" streets of the city centre.

The next day we took the coastal bus service to the city of St Pierre on the south coast. The journey took about an hour and a half and followed the coastal strip around the island. St Pierre is a resort city with a yachting marina and a pleasant foreshore. It also boasted the second Trois Brasseurs bar which, alas, we failed to find. We did however find other places to satisfy our thirst.

Perhaps our most interesting excursion took us into the mountainous interior of the island. Réunion is about the size of the old county of Warwickshire but being volcanic (it has an active volcano) it has mountains rising to over 9000 feet high. We took a bus ride into the interior to the small town of Cilaos. This involved a somewhat hair-raising bus ride which took upwards of 3 hours involving many hairpin bends and two tunnels. Cilaos itself is a pleasant town with some agreeable restaurants and bars and hotels catering for walkers and other visitors. The views around the town, which sits in a cirque, are breathtaking. To me the scenery was not unlike the Rockies in Colarado although the peaks were somewhat more rounded. 

We saw quite a lot of the island over the week that we were there. It was very rare to hear English (or any language other than French or Creole) spoken. The island was green and very hot (temperatures were regularly above 30 degrees). It did boast some nice beaches although much of the coast is rocky with cliffs being quite common. The people were friendly and very welcoming particularly when they discovered that we were British.

It is certainly an island that I would hope to visit again sometime, particularly if they can solve their traffic problems.

It was soon time to take the short flight to Mauritius which took about half an hour and was incident free. A car met us at the airport and took us to our hotel in Port Louis the capital. It was a pleasant drive, most of the way by a motorway and it was interesting to see some of the island's extensive sugar cane fields where most of the national revenue comes from. 

Mauritius is an independent member of the British Commonwealth. Independence was achieved in 1968. The island maintains many British traditions including driving on the left. The law and local government are based very much on British models as is the education system. Unlike in Réunion English is widely understood but is not the language of choice which is either French or Mauritius's own version of Creole. The population is predominantly of Indian extraction, mostly Hindu but with a Moslem minority. Around a third of the population are Creoles of African extraction. There are also around 30,000 people of Chinese origin on the island and a similar number of Europeans, mostly of French rather than British origin. The island is also increasingly a tourist destination, rather more so than Réunion, where over 90% of visitors come from metropolitan France.

Port Louis itself is not a major tourist destination and the hotel where we stayed, opposite the French Embassy, was rather more aimed at business visitors. It was however friendly and well-appointed with a lovely pool though perhaps showing some signs of wear and tear and a welcoming bar.

 The centre of Port Louis has several distinct districts, Financial district, China Town, the Moslem quarter and a rather swanky area with restaurants and bars by the waterfront (the Caudan waterfront) aimed at those tourists that do visit the city, business travelers and Mauritians with money to spend. The streets are laid out in a grid iron fashion and it is quite easy to navigate your way around the city centre.

We did visit one or two restaurants and bars away from the waterfront area, although they all seemed to close as early as 18.00. Accordingly, much of our money was spent in the Caudan Waterfront area. This was not necessarily a bad thing as the waterfront was well lit, patrolled by private security guards and kept very clean. In addition, it did boast a broad range of restaurants and bars as well as cinemas and other places of entertainment. During the World Cup, special screens were also erected for the football.

Away from Port Louis, Mauritius is a green island. Sugar is the principal crop though there are forested and hilly areas that are not under cultivation. We visited a number of places away from the capital. Grand Baie in the north is very much geared up to the tourist with fashionable bars and boutiques, and, it has to be said, some lovely beaches and coastline. The town of Mahebourg in the south was much poorer; however, we managed to eat and drink very cheaply there.

We also visited an old sugar plantation at Domaine Les Pailles where we were able to see how sugar was harvested and milled by oxen. We enjoyed a tour of the estate by train and visited one of 4 restaurants on the estate. For those that like gaming there is also a casino. However, we chose to hang on to our money!

One problem that we did notice in Mauritius and Port Louis in particular, was that, being white, we stuck out more than in Réunion and consequently were often the target of hawkers and, more particularly, taxi touts which became annoying after a while. Apart from the touts I found Mauritians to be friendly and helpful. A willingness to speak French, even if rather badly, probably helped.

 All too soon it was time to return home. We did so via Réunion, where we stayed another night and again Paris where we stayed an additional night.

All in all, it was quite an expensive holiday but a good one. It was nice to go somewhere a little bit unusual and I would happily go again, as I know there is much more to see and do.

First published in VISA issue 69A (Oct 2006)