Seychelles Trip [Part 4]: Mahé

Driving around Victoria, Beau Vallon, my birthday and farewell to the magical Seychelles!

If you haven’t read the previous parts yet, now would be a good time to check them out: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. 

---

Last and final part of the Seychelles series where I will be taking you around the largest island of Seychelles and our abode for four days: Mahé!

As you all must know by now that we were staying at Eden Island during our days in Mahé. Most of our time there was spent exploring Eden Island in our golf buggy or driving around the coastal roads of Mahe exploring the many beaches and scenic spots around the island.

A couple of places that are worth the mention, I am listing in this blog post:

Victoria

The famous but tinier than expected clock tower in Victoria, Seychelles

The capital city of Mahe and quite a busy area as compared to rest of the Seychelles, this was the only part of the country where I found traffic! It is located quite close to Eden Island, almost a 5 minute drive from there. If you plan on visiting Victoria, you will have to park your car in any of the paid parking areas. Yup, parking ain’t free in this part of town, my friend. Our rental company lady gave us a free token for SCR 5 (valid for one hour parking) so we utilized that. (So nice of her though!). Once you have parked your car, it’s better to go around on foot.

We explored mostly the market street and the market with it (wow). We were not that impressed with it ’cause hamare han bhi aisay hi bazaar hotay hen. There was fresh fish, fruits and vegetables being sold there. Also clothes and souvenirs as well. Anyway, we got done with that pretty fast because nobody wants to be in a fish market after exploring some of the best beaches in the world.

Sir Selwyn Selwyn Clarke Market, Victoria, Seychelles

Sir Selwyn Selwyn Clarke Market, Victoria, Seychelles

Beau Vallon

Beau Vallon Beach on a rainy day in Mahe, Seychelles

This is a nice area. It has got some really good hotels as well. We explored mostly the area around the beach. The beach itself is 2 KM long! So if you’re into long walks, what you can do is, head to the Berjaya Beau Vallon Hotel and park your car there (for free!). Then walk past the reception of the hotel straight onto the beach. This is a very good beach and also recommended for swimming and water sports. In fact, once you are there you will find many operators who will offer you boat trips, water sports like para sailing, jet skiing etc. We were not into adventures on this trip, so we skipped this and politely refused.

Another good place to park is if you head to this restaurant called “The Boat House“. There’s a little parking space there and there are a few restaurants there where you can chill such as: Baobab Pizzeria (we had a really affordable and delicious veg pizza here!), La Plage Restaurant (expensive), and The Boat House itself offers some creole buffet experience that could be interesting to check out. Other than these three, there are several take-away stalls on the street behind La Plage Restaurant from where one can buy a sufficient and affordable meal (we of course couldn’t check many things out ’cause halal food issues, bro). On the other hand, you could also get some juices and coconut water there so that’s the good part. Also I’ve been told that every Wednesday there’s a market sort of thing along Beau Vallon (same area behind La Plage Restaurant), where you can enjoy lots of street food, fresh produce, local art and handicrafts as well as live music.

San Soucis Pass / The Mission Lodge

View from The Mission Lodge, Mahe, Seychelles

We went here on recommendation of our host as well! And we really did not regret it. This is basically a road, however, quite scenic all the way! At the end of the road you reach a view point/sanctuary sort of place called “The Mission Lodge“.

Exploring different kind of trees at The Mission

We simply LOVED this place. It’s not a commercial type of place, nor is it a touristy kind (although tourists do come here). It was a heritage sanctuary that offers beautiful walking trails lined with several trees such as guava, mahogany and sandal. The whole place smelt like vanilla or cinnamon – HEAVENLY! There is a small sheltered view point as well that offers spectacular views of central Mahe and the west coast. It was a bit cloudy when we went and at one point, it started to rain and we found ourselves engulfed with clouds from all sides given the altitude of this place! It was a very mesmerising experience that I think we got really lucky to experience.

Some history about The Mission.

You can even go on a hike somewhere around here, there is a walking trail too.

Goodbye, Seychelles!

The Maharajas, Eden Island, Seychelles

Before our last and final day in Seychelles, it was my birthday! We tried The Maharajas restaurant at Eden Plaza for dinner that day and, you guys, it was I think the first proper desi-appetite meal we had in Seychelles! We ordered Aloo Achari, Palak Paneer, Sweet Lassi and it came with Papar and some salad as well 🙂 Loved every single bite!

Yummy food at The Maharajas, Eden Island, Seychelles

The next day we had to check out of Marilyn’s Eden island home early around 10 AM, and we had our flight at midnight that day so we had the entire day to kill in Mahe. As we are the smartest human beings on this planet, we had forgotten completely that it’s a Sunday and nothing will be open outside. (Please give a big round of applause to the smartest flight planning ever). I would like you to refer back to my earliest post on Seychelles where I mentioned that if you plan everything yourself, even when you screw up, it gives you something to laugh about later on, and I must tell you that we still talk of this day in amazement and give each other hi-fives for such awesome planning 😛

Take-out Daal Chawal and Fries from Spar (Eden Island, Seychelles)

Thankfully, we had our hired car for the day so we kept driving around Mahe looking for something to be open so that we could kill some time there to no avail. Eventually, we ended up sleeping on our beach mat at Beau Vallon beach for 2-3 hours, returned to Eden Island to have take-out daal chawal from Spar (the only supermarket open that day), and later slept in our car at another beach 😛 Felt like a rich gypsy.

A good place to park and take a nap in the car. Hmm.

Some coffee to recharge before heading to the airport

When it was time for our flight, we headed to the airport, left the car in the parking lot and waited for the check-in counter to open so we could head back to Pakistan. By the way, Seychelles airport is boring. I think ours was the last flight of the day after which we saw them turning off the lights and packing up 😛

Hope you enjoyed my Seychelles travelogues.

I will do another post in a few days which will be specifically for people who want to travel to Seychelles. A lot of you have already messaged me about it and I have responded to you as well, but I’d be equally grateful if you read it as well. It will have all the necessary information to help you plan your trip and enjoy your time there 🙂

Until next time.

🙂

++++++++++++++++++

Worth Mentioning….

I would like to thank Marilyn Joy for letting us stay in her gorgeous Eden Island apartment and to Bert and Danielle for letting us stay in Villa Belle Plage in Praslin. We had some of the best experiences in Seychelles and a lot of that was possible because we had stress-free, complaint-free lodgings! We really appreciate the efforts both our hosts took to ensure that we had the most comfortable stay in Seychelles. Also to give us recommendations for places to explore in Seychelles which made our trip really incredible!

---

Header Image: View from The Mission Lodge, Mahe, Seychelles – All photos are by me and my husband.