We're home! *with photos!*

sarahp

TCS Member
Thread starter
Veteran
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
15,841
Purraise
28
Location
Australia
Oh it's lovely to be home! We got home late Friday night from our 2 week holiday - 10 days in the Seychelles and 3 nights in Dubai (2 full days).

Both countries were so fascinating and so different from each other. My aunt, her husband and their 2 kids are living there so we stayed with them, which is the main reason we went. It was so good to see them, my cousins are 10 and 12 and such nice kids. They're both boys and play well together, are polite, intelligent, and just enough rascal in them to make them fun.


***** This next few paragraphs is about the history, and about the country itself, so if you don't care, skip to the next lot of asterisks!

The Seychelles was interesting. The government is incredibly corrupt, and their economy makes the US economy look awesome. There's only 85,000 or so people there, and natives don't leave the country, so everyone knows everyone, and the Police don't like to arrest anyone because they're probably related to them. The Seychellois are black, and there's a lot of white Australian, New Zealand, British and South African ex-pats there. It's the sort of place where the black work for the white, but they are treated well, and the private maids/gardeners etc get paid better than most other jobs on the island. Generally the women work, and the men sit around all day drinking and playing dominoes.

It all stems from a badly run government, who give pensions to pretty much anyone who wants one, and never bothers putting money into industry, or other important facilities, although they are finally getting better schools, and most Seychellois under 25 have a reasonable education, but I think it will take a couple more generations before they start questioning how things are being run, wanting better jobs and more opportunities.

As well as that, there have been a few attempted coups in the 70s and 80s - one of which overthrew the government, so I get the impression the government is trying to make sure it doesn't happen to them by suppressing the people. Apparently people are not allowed to wear camoflauge gear (army type shirts, shorts etc) as fashion because they see that as a threat. Seychelles has a high GDP but also is the worlds most indebted nation. The government can't mange their finances, so they borrow from all over the world and can't pay it back. When they get short of money, they just print more (but they can only use that within the country since it's not listed on the world exchange, so it just devalues the currency even more).

So it was very interesting being in a country that is considered an island paradise, but so badly run. They don't really care about tourists, and don't seem to realise how much money tourism brings in - people steal from the tourists at every opportunity, and we couldn't get cash out from any of the banks, so it was lucky that we had relatives who could change USD for us.

*****

Apart from that though, the beaches were gorgeous, the water the most amazing blue, very clear, so great snorkelling, and a perfect temperature. We had a fabulous time, and went out one day swimming with the whale sharks. We did it with the Marine Conservation Society of Seychelles who are researching primarily whale sharks. Whale sharks are a shark, but they are filter feeders like whales, and the largest of the fish species. Nobody knows a lot about them, so it was fascinating being part of a research group - they were telling us what they're doing and what they know, and the guy running it has done National Geographic shows on whale sharks, so he was pretty knowledgeable. Apparently they only really get juvenile males at the Seychelles, and most other countries that get whale sharks are the same, so they have no idea where the females hang out, and what the older males do. They've fitted tracking devices to 4 sharks in the area, including 2 sharks that were feeding in the same area at the same time - one device fell off almost immediately, one shark went north, one went east and one went south, so they seem to have no pattern.

So with the whale sharks, with the research group, they have 2 guys go up in an ultralight spotting the whale sharks from the sky, so we hang out in the boat until they find one - they called down saying they couldn't see any, and we got quite disappointed, so they started doing their other research stuff (testing the water temperature and krill levels at difference depths), then the ultralight radioed down saying they spotted one, so they guided us to the area, and we were all searching the water looking for it, and finally found it, so jumped in with our snorkelling gear and followed it. It was amazing. It was about 6m (20ft) long, and just moving slowly and gracefully. DH and I were the first to it, and they'd told us to stay behind it's dorsal fin so as not to scare it, so we moved back a bit, and it started turning and following us! They like swimming in the bubbles of fins apparently, so it turned about 90 degrees while it followed us. It was absolutely wild. He dove down again for a bit, and we lost him, but he came back up a bit later, and we swam with him again - this time he stayed up for longer, and we got to follow him for a while.

Anyway, enough blabbing
Here's the whale shark we swam with:





And some fish from our favourite snorkelling spot

A batfish - this guy was about 20cm (8 inches) from top to bottom



If you look closely you can see what I think is a pufferfish



The fish really weren't bothered by us!



And above water:

This is one of my favourite photos, shows the beauty of the place. This is on a hike we did to a beach called Anse Major.







Anse Major beach



View form the deck at my aunts friends place



This is their private swimming area - we could see fish swimming from the deck!



Random beaches





A random person at a roadside stall



The moon coming up over the tuna boats that had come to port in protest over all the pirate attacks off Somalia



An oil rig turned up as well!



More to come...
 

junior_j

TCS Member
Super Cat
Joined
Jul 13, 2008
Messages
839
Purraise
1
Location
Portmouth
WOW a tropical paradise , my mum LOVES tropical/marine fish and is soon to get a nice indoor set up for them!( we had them before but nature took its toll
)

Thanks for sharing! those beaches look great!
Jess x
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #4

sarahp

TCS Member
Thread starter
Veteran
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
15,841
Purraise
28
Location
Australia
Typical driving - cars stop randomly to talk to each other, usually on blind corners, and there is often also people walking along the roads because there is no footpaths, so you need to dodge them as well.



The markets



Fresh fish



And spices



Sunrise





The local beer - SeyBrew - quite tasty!



The view from my aunts balcony



Granite cliff faces



Conclusion: Would I recommend going? No - but just because of the time taken to get there, the cost, and the fact that it's hard to get around - the roads are bad, and we saw numerous tourists in hire cars in accidents. If we didn't have free accommodation, the cost would have been exorbitant, and if we didn't have someone to drive us around, we probably wouldn't have gone anywhere. The snorkelling was awesome, and swimming with the whale sharks was very cool, but I'd recommend somewhere closer with a more stable economy and currency!


Dubai photos and update to come tomorrow!
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #5

sarahp

TCS Member
Thread starter
Veteran
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
15,841
Purraise
28
Location
Australia
Oh oh oh! I almost forgot - sitting out on my aunts deck watching the stars at night was AMAZING. I forgot how beautiful the night sky was, we barely even see stars where we are, and we saw a heap of satellites, shooting stars, and cool constellations. I miss the night sky
 

mrblanche

TCS Member
Veteran
Joined
Jan 28, 2008
Messages
12,578
Purraise
119
Location
Texas
Oh, man, beautiful. I would love to see a whale shark like that!

I'm working on booking a cruise in January. I have a choice of two itineraries. One goes to Roatan, which makes the Seychelles look like a modern city. The other goes to Jamaica, whose government largely stays in power by telling its citizens they are poor because the whites are rich. Sound familiar?
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #10

sarahp

TCS Member
Thread starter
Veteran
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
15,841
Purraise
28
Location
Australia
Go to the Great Barrier Reef - absolutely gorgeous, and no dodgy governments to deal with!
 

calico2222

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Dec 9, 2004
Messages
7,731
Purraise
41
Location
Over the river and through the woods...
OMG!!!! I can't believe you actually got to swim with whale sharks!! That is too cool! I lived in Guam and dove almost every weekend for 4 years and never saw one. I know they were around there because people did get pics but they apparently didn't like me. Whale sharks and hammerheads are about the only things I wanted to see but didn't get to.

The island is beautiful! I love little markets like that and getting to know people from other cultures. I hate to sound completely stupid, but where is the island located? (Yeah, I know I can google it but that takes too much effort!
)
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #12

sarahp

TCS Member
Thread starter
Veteran
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
15,841
Purraise
28
Location
Australia
It was very cool indeed


I had never heard of the Seychelles until my aunt and uncle moved there, and most people we speak to have never heard of it either - it's a very small island!

It's off the east coast of Africa, above Madagascar. Here's a Google maps link - http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...,46.538086&z=5
 

meowers

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
May 18, 2008
Messages
1,274
Purraise
12
Location
California, East Bay Area
I dont know where Seychilles (?) is but OMG its amazing!

you take such great pics too


Those beaches are amazing. Since you dont really recommend going there, may I recommend Kauai, Hawaii. it is very stable (duh) and the beaches are kinda like those. Not quite that impressive, but kinda close


Cant wait for more pics!!!!
 

russian blue

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Aug 30, 2002
Messages
5,017
Purraise
4
Location
Where emerald eyes are smiling
Love the water pics, Sarah. I so miss those colours!


Originally Posted by sarahp

Oh oh oh! I almost forgot - sitting out on my aunts deck watching the stars at night was AMAZING. I forgot how beautiful the night sky was, we barely even see stars where we are, and we saw a heap of satellites, shooting stars, and cool constellations. I miss the night sky
Isn't it amazing? You get so used to the view when you're home. Then, you go travelling and realize a totally different sky (usually without all the light pollution from home).
 

clixpix

TCS Member
Veteran
Joined
Dec 9, 2004
Messages
14,540
Purraise
2
Beautiful pictures!
It's interesting to learn about different places like that.
 

calico2222

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Dec 9, 2004
Messages
7,731
Purraise
41
Location
Over the river and through the woods...
Originally Posted by sarahp

It was very cool indeed


I had never heard of the Seychelles until my aunt and uncle moved there, and most people we speak to have never heard of it either - it's a very small island!

It's off the east coast of Africa, above Madagascar. Here's a Google maps link - http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...,46.538086&z=5
I never would have guessed it was there! And I did google it
, and it sounds like a fascinating place. How did your Aunt and Uncle end up there, if I'm not being to nosy?
 

starryeyedtiger

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Apr 5, 2005
Messages
22,317
Purraise
20
Location
USA
Wonderful pictures and descriptions Sarah
I hope you had a good time on your holiday!
 
Top