1 The rainy season in Seychelles is truly
rainy.
As there is not a direct flight from Japan
to the Seychelles we had to take a seven-hour
flight to Singapore first. There is only one flight
to the Seychelles from Singapore a week.
To my surprise, flight crew brought in a
large amount of duty-free goods for themselves
when they got on the plane. Since this is
their only chance in a week to visit an industrialized
place, they would go on an extensive shopping
spree and stock up souvenirs. It also takes
about 7 hours from Singapore to the Seychelles. As the flight of the small jet plane across
the Indian Ocean was bumpy the gfasten seat
belth light was turned on almost all the
time.
It was quarter past three in the morning
when we arrived in the Seychelles in the
pitch-dark. I noticed it was pouring down
when coming down the ramp. The islands were
in the middle of the rainy season. Some Japanese
tourists were on board however everyone but
my husband and I went to some resort hotels.
The inn we stayed at was over a mountain
pass 4km away from the central part of Mahe
Island, Victoria, where the airport is located.
Around here there are some resort hotels
standing solitary from each other but our
inn was a cheap motel that was not popular
for Japanese tourists.
After breakfast when we were about to rent
a car we realized we were in a difficult
position. In this resort island there were
many Mokes available which are open sided
cars with canvas tops but there were no sedans
left. We asked travel agents for help, and
the staff of the inn also helped us but in
vain. So we had no choice but to rent a Moke
but that day big drops of rain blew against
the doorless car and sometimes we had to
put up umbrellas in the car.
On top of that, as this car didnft have
a trunk we couldnft leave the car even for
a minute or two with the camera and other
equipment in it. It was inconvenient for
us and limited our activities.
Imagine driving in a golf cart in torrential
rain! We found the rainy season in Seychelles
is truly rainy.
It stopped raining at about 9:30 in the morning.
Many beautiful vivid red Madagascar Fody
came to the garden, full of tropical flowers.
They pecked at the flowers and hunted for
spiders that stretched webs between power
lines above the garden. The Seychell Sunbird
which is plain indigo with yellow parts on
the flank and the non-native Common Mynah
and Zebra Dove came to the the garden. The
latter two are very common anywhere in the
Pacific and the Indian sea area.
Well, then we went to the capital, Victoria,
and bought some guidebooks and picture books
of birds in the Seychelles. The shopping
district was not large but at the centre
of it there were many small streets crossing
each other and the streets were crowded with
people. There were few restaurants and people
would rather take lunch away with styrene
foam packages in plastic bags. We bought
grilled fish and fried rice beef at 40 rupees.
Officially one rupee is about 20 yen. Grilled
fish was served on a large quantity of long
grain rice so that the package was full to
bursting. Rice is the staple food in this
island although the island does not seem
to produce any rice of its own. By the way
the rice was cooked well.
We also saw the Madagascar Turtle Dove and
the Seychelles Cave Swiftlet downtown.
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