How to visit Seychelles on a budget

by Alex Robertson Textor on

How to visit Seychelles on a budget? It’s simple. Stay in a friendly little guesthouse on the island of La Digue, eat dinner at said guesthouse, rent a bicycle, spend time on the beach and chill out.

For tourists, the Indian Ocean country of Seychelles is luxury territory. This is a fact. It’s expensive to fly there and it’s expensive to stay there. The country is dotted with unfathomably pricey digs, places like Maia and North Island (the latter, the site of Will and Kate’s honeymoon last year) where guests pay €3000 ($3940) per night for extreme luxury, butlers and all.

But on the small Seychellois island of La Digue, there are plenty of guesthouse options, some quite reasonable. La Digue is one island that travelers of modest means can actually afford to visit. My guesthouse, Calou, was a friendly and satisfactory option at €100 ($131) per night for a cottage, including breakfast. I’ll write more on Calou in a subsequent post.

Budget-friendly means different things in different places. On La Digue, a couple can have a perfectly blissful time for €170 ($223) a day, €150 ($197) on a slight austerity plan. Is this Central America cheap? No. Is it Balkans cheap? Again, no. But in Seychelles it is bargain territory.

La Digue is a green speck of paradise fringed with enormous boulders. It’s like something out of the Flintstones — only, of course, its boulders are real granite objects and not the work of animation. Roosters do duty as alarm clocks. There are enormous tortoises, both in a reserve and sometimes lumbering down the road. The land is lush, the roads narrow, and the town very social. Bicycle is the main mode of transportation on La Digue and cars are rare. People wave and say hello on the street. For anyone who has spent time in the Caribbean, there are unavoidable social parallels. There is a Rasta subculture here as well, with reggae spilling out of supermarkets and houses.But in February, when beaches in the Caribbean are heaving, La Digue is remarkably quiet. It’s not difficult to find a solitary spot on one of the island’s top beaches. This is the wet season in Seychelles. Though, even during the wet season the rains tend to be spaced out. A torrential few hours of rain will usually be followed by hours of clear skies.

In the southeast of the island, Grande Anse, Petite Anse, and Anse Cocos beaches are very, very close to perfection. (And if shade were not at such a premium, they would be completely perfect.) Beach bums cluster under the few trees and in the shadow of the boulders along the periphery of the beach. There are one or two makeshift shelters constructed from logs, driftwood, and palm fronds. These go quickly in a more rustic version of the early-morning-towel-on-beach-chair phenomenon seen at countless resort poolsides around the world. On the weekend, tourists are joined by Seychellois teenagers surfing the waves.

You want a perfect day? Here it is. Eat fresh fruit and eggs for breakfast at Calou. Bike to the island’s strip of shops for a stronger cup of coffee before heading on to Grande Anse, where you laze without purpose for six hours. Break for a grilled fish lunch at the beach’s restaurant. In the afternoon, when the burn is undeniable, embark on an intense bike ride up the hill from the beach. Stop at Simon’s juice shack just past the crest of the hill. (You can’t miss it. Simon’s is a small bright yellow hut.) Simon will prepare you a glass of tropical freshness that will change your life. From here, bike downhill, shower off the salt and the sunblock, nap, enjoy a beer as sunlight falls, and then eat creole chicken for dinner. Fall asleep by 9 p.m.

If you can beat that, drop me a note.

Previously unknown Egyptian pharaoh discovered

by Sean McLachlan on

Egyptologists have made a stunning discovery at the famous temple of Luxor: an inscription naming a previously unknown Egyptian pharaoh.

A French team restoring a temple of Amon Ra found hieroglyphs bearing the name “Nekht In Ra.” The inscription dates to the 17th dynasty, a relatively little-known dynasty from a murky period in Egyptian history.

The mysterious dynasty was the last of the Second Intermediate Period, a time when northern Egypt was ruled by Semitic invaders called the Hyksos and the rest of Egypt had fragmented into various factions. The 17th dynasty dated from around 1585 to 1550 BC and had their capital at Thebes, next to Luxor. Most of the dates of its rulers are not known for certain and in many cases it’s not even known how long they ruled or who was related to whom. Thus the discovery of a “new” pharaoh, while important, doesn’t come as a huge surprise.

It’s unclear just how Nekht In Ra fits into the king list of the ten previously known 17th dynasty pharaohs. The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities has called for further excavation at the discovery site to find more pieces to the puzzle.

While the 17th dynasty is obscure, it was hugely important to Egyptian history because the last two pharaohs waged war on the Hyksos and eventually defeated them, although both pharaohs appear to have died in battle. The 18th dynasty marked the beginning of the New Kingdom, a flowering of Egyptian culture and power that lasted five centuries.

Several interesting items survive from the 17th dynasty and are now on display. Check out the gallery for a sample.

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Photo of entrance into the Precinct of Amon-Re courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Angola rising: tourism is next

by Alex Robertson Textor on

I spent last week in Portugal‘s Azores, absorbing the rhythms of daily life on Flores, Europe’s westernmost island. An unexpected discovery was the ongoing focus on Angola in the Portuguese media. Evidence of the rise of Angola as an economic power is everywhere.

First off, Portuguese people are moving to the former Portuguese colony in droves. Back in 2010 there was an interesting article by François Musseau in the French newspaper Libération about Angola’s magnetic appeal to skilled Portuguese workers. Musseau’s article points out that skilled Portuguese workers can make three times as much money in Angola than in Portugal. While life in Angola might not always be easy, Musseau suggests, the payoff in terms of salary and career development is high. More recently, a BBC article from this past December also documents the Portuguese exodus to Angola.

The flow of workers doesn’t appear to be leveling off. The current issue of newsweekly Visão features an article on superior economic environments for skilled workers hoping to escape Portugal’s economic crisis. Angola is one of a handful of countries listed – and the only one of the bunch in Africa – next to rich countries like Germany, Switzerland, the UK, and the US.

“The future starts here,” says the billboard of an Angolan bank, Banco BAI, at a prime spot at Lisbon’s international airport. This statement appears to be true for Angola in many ways. A number of different stories over the last few months have observed that Angolan investors are busy buying up Portugal’s businesses and newly privatized state assets in a postcolonial reversal.This is all particularly remarkable given Angola’s recent history. The country suffered through a truly horrific civil war from 1975 until 2002. Ten years ago Angola was just emerging from the rubble. This article on Angola in 2002 describes an extremely impoverished, shellshocked country limping to normalcy.

While most Angolans remain very poor today, oil and diamonds have generated incredible wealth. A domestic middle class is finding its feet. Tourism will surely follow the emergence of a consumer class. And, in point of fact, Angola’s tourism boom has already begun. To give one example, the current issue of Angolan business magazine Rumo reports that over 300 new hotel rooms will open in March in the northwestern province of Uíge.

More decisive evidence can be glimpsed in the March issue of Up, TAP Portugal’s in-flight magazine. The issue is devoted to Angola with a collection of features spanning two dozen pages. There is an exciting hotel primer, which includes an architectural classic in Lobito’s Hotel Terminus as well as the very slick Epic Sana in Luanda.

At the heart of the themed issue is a dossier titled “10 Angola Basics.” Within, beautiful images are paired with scores of exciting destinations: the city of Benguela; the beaches of Restinga, Ilha do Mussulo, and Lobito; national parks in Bengo, Cunene, and Malange; and the rainforests of Cabinda. Aesthetically very striking, the dossier of articles serves as an irresistible catalog of a country in dramatic flux. With a growing middle class and an increasing number of vacation-ready foreign workers living in the country, it is clear that that Angola’s tourism potential has just barely been tapped.

Photo of the Day: Sudanese guide

by Jeremy Kressmann on

I had never heard of the ancient Nubian tombs at El-Kurru, located in Sudan, until I saw today’s photo by Flickr user Mark Fischer. Mark took the photo above of his guide while wandering around exploring the site. I was immediately drawn to the man’s bemused posture and stoic glare. I wonder what he knows about this place? What stories could he tell us? You’ll just have to head to Sudan to find the answer…

Have any great photos to share from your travels? Why not add them to our Gadling group on Flickr? We might just pick one of yours as our Photo of the Day.

Serena Hotels: Opulence amidst squalor and bloodshed

by Dave Seminara on

Anyone for a game of badminton and a round of emerald-hunting in Pakistan’s Swat Valley? Or perhaps you fancy a beach resort on the shores of Lake Kivu, just minutes from the Democratic Republic of Congo?

The March/April issue of Foreign Policy features an interesting story and photo gallery on the luxury Serena hotel chain, which they dub the “Ritz Carlton of Failed States.” The chain, which originated in Africa in the 70s, operates luxury hotels in a variety of dodgy places, including Pakistan, Kabul, Rwanda, Tajikistan, Mozambique and others. The Serena hotels are operated by an economic development fund founded by the Aga Khan, a spiritual leader for Shia Ismaili Muslims.

FP reports the Kabul Serena (see photo above), which has been attacked three times has rooms that start at $356 per night. The chain has been criticized for partnering with the Assad regime in Syria on the development of hotels in Damascus and Aleppo, but Aga Khan told FP that the company’s involvement in conflict zones brings “an investment seal of approval” that helps attract more foreign investment. The hotels also create jobs in countries with high unemployment.

But is there something unseemly about a luxury hotel which features “holistic health and wellness services,” a pastry shop, swimming pool, a “mind, body and spirit spa,” and other amenities in an impoverished, failed state like Afghanistan? FP’s slideshow juxtaposes scenes of opulence at the Serena hotels with images of children sorting through trash, smoldering buildings, and tin roof shacks.

One can certainly quibble with the high prices and unnecessary luxuries of these hotels, but the notion that aid workers, journalists, government officials, and businessmen should stay in slum-like conditions while traveling to conflict states is far-fetched. The reality is that many of these people are stuck in very primitive, dangerous conditions, sometimes for weeks, months or even years, and only get to repair to places like the Serena hotels for well-deserved R & R’s.

I certainly wouldn’t begrudge a Medicins Sans Frontieres volunteer who spent the last six months treating sick children in the Congo a long weekend at the luxury Serena resort in Rwanda. That said, a case can be made that holing foreigners up in luxury hotels allows them to exist in a fairytale bubble, where they are insulated from what’s going on in the country at large. What do you think?

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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