First World

I was not able to buy a guide book on Mauritius while I was in India. I don't know how much _you_ know about Mauritius, but it's probably about as much as I do, so I was a little frazzled about not having a guide book. Oh well, I decided to buy one at the airport when I arrived and just hang out there while I read it. Except that when I got off the plane, they would not let me through immigration to get to the bookshop until I specified where I was staying.

So, while they held my passport hostage I was allowed through, to find a place to stay. Except once I got through I found out that there was no bookshop here, it was in the departure area and I'd have to entirely leave the airport and reenter to get to that, and they wouldn't let me in, and the bookshop was closed anyway. Good stuff. So I asked someone for the name of a bungalow and with this in hand, went back to immigration. When I showed it to her, she asked me for the phone number which I didn't have. She wanted me to book a hotel through the airport prepaid counter, which I didn't want to do, because those places are all de luxe. Since the crowd had thinned out and she wasn't busy, she came with me to go get the phone number from that guy. When we found him she insisted that we call ahead and make an actual reservation. The place was full . So I gave up and made a reservation at the cheapest place possible at the reservation counter, which was Rs 650. She took my passport back to immigration while I paid. Except that I needed to change money, and they needed my passport. I was too tired to walk all the way back to immigration to get my passport just to come back to change money to pay for the hotel and then have to go back, so I changed money at this lame place that gave me a crappy rate. Oh well.

Anyway, so after two hours I was finally sitting at the bus stop waiting for a bus to some place I couldn't pronounce. I found out that though English is the official language of Mauritius, everyone speaks French. It's one thing to be in a country like Thailand where you don't speak the language, it's another to be in a country like Mauritius where you don't speak the language but people think you do.

So I arrived on Friday and slept all day once I finally got to my hotel. Saturday was a public holiday and nothing was open. Sunday nothing was open. The only guidebooks I have found are in French. I decided that whenever I found an english one, I would scoop it up.

At Super U, which is like Super K, but with kiddie race cars, bumperboats, and some attached shops, I found a guide book. It was horrible, and I couldn't believe that I didn't want it. I know people criticize Lonely Planet and Rough Guide for various reasons, but they're so much better than this thing I couldn't believe it.

My room is nice, it's a studio apartment with balcony and kitchen (fridge, stove, sink even complete with pots, pans, etc), under $7 / day. And the owner's son lives and works in Oakland!