2. Trees were fruiting bats in the botanical garden

We ate the lunch boxes on a bench near the entrance of a botanical garden just minutes outside of downtown. We could see the Seychelles Blue Pigeon and the Thick-billed Bulbul.

After lunch we went to the inner part of the botanical garden. A paved road went straight to the heart of the garden over which a Striated Heron crossed. The end of the botanical garden was a slope covered with tropical rain forest which led to the mountains behind and about 500 Seychelles flying foxes were roosting there. They had yellowish orange faces and backs, and dark brown ears and muzzles, which are the typical features of Genus Pteropus but these were a size larger than Japanese flying foxes.
At 3:30 in the afternoon, the sky suddenly became dark and the flying foxes started to soar skyward briskly. While I was wondering what would happen, it started to rain heavily. We took shelter under a bower nearby with a group of people that were chatting on the closest bench, and some other people who had been in the bower.

The official languages of the Seychelles are English, French and Creole. As local people usually speak in Creole I couldn�ft understand what they were talking about. But everyone whom we met understood English. Probably most people in this country speak two or three languages.

At 4:15 the rain became a drizzle and flying foxes and the White Tern began to fly in the sky above us. A team of white and black. The common mynahs soaked to the skin joined them.

At 4:40 it poured down again. As the rain did not seem like stopping and it would soon get dark, we gave up and went back to the car under our umbrellas. The doorless car was wet through, even the seats were dripping wet.
From the parking lot we could see flying foxing gathering on a mango tree across the botanical garden. They held mangoes as large as themselves while they were eating. The White-tailed Tropic Bird and the White Terns were flying above the government offices district in front of us.

The back of the botanical garden was the slope of a mountain and at 6:35 just before the sunset the flying foxes started to fly. At 6:50 full darkness fell and we left for our inn.

Something was wrong with the light in our room and the light would not come on although I had switched it on. I went to bed leaving the switch on. In the dead of night I woke up and saw the light was on. I also noticed it was raining torrents outside.
Through our window we could see some laundry laying out in the backyard and being exposed to the rain. We saw the same situation many times in this island. It seemed to be the common way for people in here to wash their clothes. It was a sort of a natural washing machine. Colorful T-shirts and underpants were being spread on the grassland just under our window.

The owner of the inn had gone somewhere until the end of the new year�fs holiday. A young housekeeper came to the inn everyday and made our breakfast and did the washing. As she spoke very fast and had a thick accent, her English was very hard for me to understand.

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