On April 9th, 2024 both my wife and I hopped on a flight to Vancouver to visit some friends and family. I got an excellent deal from Expedia for TD paying $1035 CAD for 2 return trips and a rental SUV for the week. We ended up getting a fancy Nissan Rogue for the trip.
We did not do any sightseeing other than Port Moody. Our primary purpose while staying in the City of Vancouver is to sample the Chinese food in Vancouver. This means hanging out largely in Richmond and doing some dim sum.
On the fourth day of our trip, we took the BC Ferries to Vancouver Island, visiting Nanaimo for two days, and spending our final two days in Victoria. We finished the week-long trip by taking a return ferry to Tsawwassen terminal, which is close enough to Richmond for us to get another good Chinese B.B.Q pork meal at HK BBQ Master, which I highly recommend!
Our rough schedule looked something like this:
Day 1 – Fish & chips along with ice cream at Port Moody; visited Natalie’s beautiful home on the hills, and gave Zoey (her cat) a nice rub; and then to Burnaby to stay at our cousin’s place and got introduced to Maple our new, small canine friend;
Day 2 – Lunch, snacks & dinner in Richmond; love the pineapple bun with its tasty, thick, cold butter; savored the lamb served at Hao’s;
Day 3 – Dim sum at Kirin restaurant in New Westminister and catching up with Agnes; followed by dessert at La Foret Jubilee with Natalie joining us;
Day 4 – Ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Departure Bay at Nanaimo; did some hiking and scenery;
Day 7 – Hiked the Beacon’s Hill Park with a huge breakfast at Blue Fox Cafe; met a couple of new friends, one named Lynda at the cafe; visited the Butterfly Gardens; drove along the Malahat scenic views; experienced high tea at Pendray Inn and Tea House; and finally dinner at the Pagliacci’s.
Day 8 – Took the ferry back from Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen just in time to do lunch at HK BBQ Master; say goodbye to Derrick and Maple; and back on the afternoon flight to Toronto; Darci welcomed us back home at 2:00am on the following day!
The most memorable part of the trip was of course getting to meet up with our family and friends. The best food from this trip had to be from HK BBQ Master, in my opinion, with an honorable mention of the Banh-mi sandwiches that Derrick got for us from his famous Vietnamese sandwich vendor.
What would we do differently? I think knowing what we know about Nanaimo, we would probably skip all of Nanaimo1 and reallocate the days to be one more in Vancouver and an extra day in Victoria. We would also switch the order of our visit to Vancouver and the Island. This way we can spend more time during the weekend with our friends and family.
With this trip and our visit to Victoria, the capital city of British Columbia, we have completed our tour of all of the provincial capitals in Canada. Checkbox checked!
Below is a summary video produced by Carol of our trip.
We just returned from Mauritius in the afternoon of October 24th. We left Mauritius on an Air Mauritius flight at around 11pm at night on October 23rd, and arrive the next day at around 4pm in Toronto, with a 6 hours layover in Paris. If you do the math, we have a total of 25 hours from the first takeoff to the final landing, and 19 hours of actual flight time when the layover time is accounted for. If you count, the transit and waiting to and from the airport, which is another 5 hours in Mauritius, and 1½ hours in Toronto, that is a total of 31½ hours door to door time from our vacation condo in Mauritius to the front door of our home in Richmond Hill. Whew!
The arduous travel itinerary aside, we had a wonderful stay in Mauritius. We stayed at the Residence Abrico near Mon Choisy beach. The owner was wonderful and the place was just right for the four of us. For 33 nights, and the privilege of both early check-in and late check-out, we paid less than $2200 CAD. You can read my review here. I also rented a car from Azam Joomun, who resided in Grand Bay. My cousin Nathalie arranged an excellent price for the car. The car is a Suzuki compact car with automatic transmission, perfect size for the cramped lanes in Mauritius. For the entire month of our stay, we paid less than $600 CAD. The combination of a wonderful condo with free parking, and a rental car resulted in absolute freedom to explore the island and command our own schedule during our stay.
It took about a week to fully acclimate myself to driving on the opposite side of the road and on the opposite side of the car. That particular change is difficult enough, but why the car manufacturer had to also switch the windshield wiper and turn signalling levers as well? I totally do not understand that design decision. As a result, I constantly turn on the wipers when I really just wanted to signal my turn.
Nonetheless possessing a car allowed us to drive to neighbouring malls like La Croisette and Super U Grand Bay, to purchase convenient groceries, toiletry supplies, etc. If we are lazy, then there are plenty of restaurants in Grand Bay near the coast for us to sample. We also discovered Chez Popo Supermarket, that has a more international selection at its store. If we really, really miss the super malls of the West, then we can drive to Bagatelle Shopping Mall South of Port Louis.
With the car, we can visit family who resided in Port Louis, as well as other regions such as Rose Hill, Pereybere, and Balaclava. Aside from the beaches, reacquainting with family members and catching up is the other highlight of the trip. Speaking of family, we also took the opportunity to pay respect to my grandparents and other memorable family figures at the Bois Marchand Cemetery. Let’s face it. If it was not for family, going to the Caribbean can probably have similar access to paradise like beaches and comfort.
Of course the other reason for being in Mauritius is to ensure that we get our fill of Mauritian street food, such as Roti and Dhal Puri. These pancake like delights are pasted with the usual curry or tomato based fillings. The baguette sandwiches that we got from street stall on BourBon St North of Royal Rd were also very delicious. This place is literally downstairs from our family grand central nexus in Port Louis at La Rue Royal, which makes it super convenient for breakfast, brunch, and lunch!
On our second day, our Uncle Claude and family invited us to eat at Restaurant Lai Min, a restaurant with literally decades of history in Chinatown of the Mauritian capital city, Port Louis. That meal was exquisite! I don’t know whether I was hungry or not, but everything from the soup, the deep fried calamari, the Hakka dishes, and the chicken were all very savoury and I devoured them all to my happy and fulfilling belly. Throughout our stay, we frequented Lai Min and the food there has never disappointed.
On a similar note, The City Orient Restaurant, near our family’s place in Port Louis was also delicious. The stir fry dishes, and winter melon soup were all very memorable to my palate. Thank you Uncle Regis, and Auntie Dominique for treating us there. The dumplings, fried noodles and vermicelli at the Restaurant Panda were extremely moreish. A big thank you to Auntie Mary and Josiane of showing and treating us to Panda.
Our cousin Jimmy treated us to local Creole food at Friends Cafe-Restaurant. This provided a unique experience. It is not Chinese and not Western food. A different mixture of spices and a combination and interpretation of different cooking techniques from different culture. That night was a tasty experience.
The restaurant food is one thing, but family cooked meals like the dishes provided by Auntie Maryse, Ah Manfa, and Ah Moy, were all very good. Personally I think their personal touch made their food better than the restaurants.
Mauritian cuisine is good, but in the end, one earns the variety and quality that Toronto culinary reputations have to offer. However, one can never get tired of the fresh baguettes in Mauritius. We found a local bakery that we can walk to during the morning. It is located just South of the pharmacy on Trou Aux Biches Rd. At the bakery, we can have a long fresh baguette for just 5 Rs! That is equivalent to a little over $0.15 CAD. I’ve been told that the flour is subsidized that is why it is so cheap.
Me holding onto the 5 Rs baguette (the paper bag cost 3 Rs!)
Having our family largely centred in the city of Port Louis, I have to drive and park there. The experience of driving in Port Louis during morning and afternoon rush hours is not for the faint of heart. One has stay calm and possess nerves of steel to get to where you want to go. If you drive with hesitancy, you will get no where fast. Parking is another matter. During my stay, I either park at my relatives who reside outside of the commercial district of the city, and then simply do a 20 minute walk to city centre, or I give up and park at Dias Pier Parking at Caudan. The latter costs money, but it is so much more stress free, and relative to Canadian parking rates it is cheaper beyond any comparison. If I park at Caudan during the weekdays, then I usually move the car back to our family building at La Rue Royal at around 5:30pm to 6pm. If it was the weekend, then Saturday after 2pm or anytime Sunday I can usually find parking near La Rue Royal.
Our rental condo is already pretty satisfying with a semi-private pool steps away, and a pretty quiet, beautiful beach minutes walk away. We still have to plan our meals, do laundry, and wash our dishes. For a real relaxing experience, we decided to stay a couple of nights at Constance Prince Maurice. You can read my review here. I can summarize by saying that it was heavenly.
We also took a sojourn of 4 days to the Rodrigues island, which is also part of Mauritius, staying at the Cotton Bay Resort. The beaches and scenery there was beautiful, and we love to sleep with the natural sound of the waves, and the nighttime stars were glistening and calming. The locals on the island were friendly, and the hotel services were indicative of the island’s gentle and calm culture.
Our trip ended with a big climax with our Uncle Claude’s 85th birthday celebration, which was held at the Opium Restaurant. It was a unique location. The restaurant is actually situated above an Audi car dealership. The decor was the most beautiful Chinese restaurant that we have experienced on the island. The food was prepared by a chef from Hong Kong. The family and food combination created a celebratory atmosphere that is difficult to forget. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
I started out this post with a notion that Mauritius is not an easy place to get to, at least from the Eastern part of Canada. Having said that, the generosity and welcoming nature of our family makes the visit memorable. Although when we left on the 23rd of October, there is a mixed feeling of the desire to return home, and the sadness of not seeing some family members for sometime.
One thing is certain, we left happy. Although the company of family may have been cut short, the memories that we created here on this visit will be ever lasting. I want to thank all my Mauritian family members who helped to make our stay as memorable as it is. To ensure of this, my next task is ahead of me is the video editing of all the footages marking those happy memories!
We decided to spice up our stay in Mauritius with a two night stay at the Constance Prince Maurice, one of the 5 star luxury hotels on the island, located on the East shores.
The drive from our apartment at Mon Choisy to the hotel was longer than expected, as we twist and turn to follow the many curvy roads of the Mauritian country side, bridging from the West to the East of the island, passing many sweet, but pungent smelling sugar cane fields.
The final stretch was lined with palm trees on both sides, which ended with a double, metal front gates, welcomed by staff members who have your reservations at hand. After providing our names, we were promptly let through and we drove directly to the reception area. Our luggages were handled and our car was parked for us. All we needed to do was to take our passports and were guided to the magnificent, welcome lobby, and a spectacular view of the elegantly placed, central swimming pools that blends with the natural, and beautiful beaches of Mauritius. The afternoon skies just had enough cotton clouds to contrast against the comforting blue skies. Our eyes were filled with the near perspective of man made wonder and far horizon of natural paradise that only Mauritius can offer. The welcoming experience culminates into a single word in our minds, and that is “relax”.
Colorful and flowery pool at the reception
Youdish and Shaan, the manager, who handled our check in were very gracious and welcoming. Youdish had a sense of humour about him that I find it at home and was certainly easy to open up to, he was the perfect ice breaker. Shaan informed us that we were upgraded to a honeymoon suite, a junior suite on stilts, overlooking a lagoon connected to the white sand beach. Upon entering the suite, our eyes were graced with a magnificent view. I will not even attempt to use words to describe here, but check out our media below.
Play the above video to see the scenery to our suite.Our suite consists of a balcony overlooking this beautiful view. (click to enlarge)Another perspective of our balcony view.A quick tour of our suite. (play the video)
We started out our stay with a light lunch at the beach at the main restaurant, which we planned to visit again for dinner, since we were unsuccessful in attaining a reservation at the Asian restaurant. However on the same evening, I received a surprising call from Akshada, a wonderful magical worker who made it possible for us to attend the Asian restaurant that same night. We were really appreciative of this gesture. Thank you Akshada for pulling a rabbit out of your hat!
Our first lunch by the beach (click to enlarge)
The Asian dining was very pleasant. The most enjoyable was my after dinner chat with our waitress, Anousha, who was extremely friendly. I feel that all the staff members were genuinely friendly, and not the facade that most other hotel staff put up during their working hours. I hope my five plus decades of life experience can tell the two apart!
At the Asian restaurant (click to enlarge)
Sticking with dining experiences, the breakfasts at the main restaurant were pleasant and accompanied by the ever present, heavenly view of the sea side. The neighbouring birds all seem friendly enough to dine with us adding to our angelic culinary experience.
Another special restaurant is one that consists of several floating platforms on the lagoon. Each platform consists of around four to five tables. We had our last dinner there, where I had the scrumptious and mouth watering Sous Vide veal on the rib. That was the best piece of meat that I have tasted in recent memories. There are fishes of different sorts swimming around the platform, and a light rain that evening, added nuance during dining.
Walk way to the floating restaurant.The floating restaurant
My wife is a frequent swimmer, who took advantage of the lap pool every morning while I sleep in. I would usually walk along the beach but I’m still recovering from an earlier heat stroke so understandably I was a bit allergic to the sun, BUT not the SPA. We both took advantage of the SPA services, taking on a Deep Tissue and a Balinese massage spanning across two days. The masseuse that I had — she was phenomenal — probably the best masseuse that I have ever had, and I have been getting massages for many decades. Once again I have to apologize for not remembering her name. Something about Mauritian multi-syllable names always throw me out.
Can you tell how relax I am at the SPA?
On our last night, another wonderful conversation with Atish, our housekeeping supervisor, whose department arranged a wonderful flower petals covered bath which my wife thoroughly enjoyed. Happy wife, happy life!
A rosey bubble bath
As I am writing this in the last few hours of our stay, I just wanted to thank every staff member at Constance Prince Maurice for a truly wonderful, and relaxing experience that was sorely needed from the hustling and bustling of noise infested traffic of Port Louis.
Last and certainly not least, our many thanks to Jean-Philippe who facilitated to help bringing this heavenly, paradise experience to us. We also appreciated the early and late check-in and check-out respectively, allowing to savour our relaxation as long as we can, before rejoining the crowd in the whistling winds.
If the fruits of life are happy memories, then the Constance Prince Maurice is certainly an orchard ripe of such fruits! We look forward to more harvesting at our next Constance experience.
In an earlier post, I mentioned that we purchased the my.t tourist package. In this article, I will explain how to configure the iPhone when using the Dual SIM feature.
Fig. 1: All Configurations are in Cellular
In Canada I have the Koodo mobile service, and when I arrived in Mauritius I purchased the my.t tourist package. This package can be provisioned with an eSim. An eSim is an electronic SIM card. This is a digital, virtual SIM card residing in the secure memory of the phone instead of a physical SIM card. Any iPhone above an iPhone Xs has the ability to add one or more eSIM card. My Koodo service has an existing physical SIM card already within my iPhone. Both the eSIM card and the existing physical Koodo SIM card can coexist on the iPhone. In other words, the iPhone can access both networks at the same time. This is essentially the Dual SIM feature.
Fig. 2: Adding an eSIM
To add the eSIM, simply goto Cellular Settings and select Add eSIM. You will need to scan the QR code which is provided by the my.t provider. This is important. Remember that you must have WiFi service before you scan the QR code. We did this at the airport using the telecom kiosk WiFi. You can have eight or more eSIM installed but only two phone numbers active at the same time, so this is quite a handy feature if you frequently travel to many destinations.
Once the eSIM is activated, you should have my.t service in Mauritius. By default the iPhone labeled my existing Koodo service as Primary and my my.t service as Personal. I renamed the Personal to Travel as depicted in Fig. 2. I also make sure that Cellular Data and Default Voice Line is using the Travel (my.t) service.
Fig. 3: Ensure Data Roaming is OFF
The other thing that I did was to ensure that Data Roaming is off. See Fig. 3. You can do this by tapping into the details of the SIM service. In my case, I tapped on “Travel”.
I also went online to Koodo self-service and activated Easy Roam® International. At this point, you are probably wondering why are you roaming with Koodo when you already have a local Mauritian eSIM? The answer is that I am simply enabling Koodo roaming services but will actually not be using it. The Koodo roaming needs to be enabled so that my existing Koodo phone number is “reachable” by voice and SMS from Canada and elsewhere.
Fig. 4: My Primary Service Configuration
To ensure that I do not roam on the Koodo network, I then have to make sure that Data Roaming for my Primary service is also turned off, as depicted in Fig. 4. Notice that the “Network Selection” is EMTEL-MRU instead of Koodo, because Koodo is roaming under EMTEL.
So now while I’m in Mauritius when I use data and voice, by default it will use the my.t local Mauritian service. However, I am also reachable from Canada with my existing Koodo number. Koodo roaming is only activated if I accept an inbound call from Canada or other international countries other than Mauritius. Not to worry, receiving international SMS messages is free. This is especially handy for two factor authentications, like logging into a bank. You can even customize which service each contact should use, but I won’t go into that here.
Any apps that uses your primary number, like WhatsApp and WeChat will still be okay, because that number is still active, but those apps will use the local data service. You do not need to change your number that is associated with WhatsApp and WeChat.
If all goes well, your iPhone should report dual services.
Fig. 5: This is what your iPhone
Finally I turned on automatic Data Switching, so when I go back home to Canada, Koodo data will be used again.
Today we are heading off to Mauritius, taking an Air France flight this evening. I’m going to try to live blog our travel experience here. It has been several years since our last flight, so it will be interesting to see how much have changed and what remains the same.
We arrived at the airport about 4 hours prior to our flight. The check-in counter for Air France / KLM in Terminal 3 opened about 3.5 hours before the flight. This was perfect timing. We had our bags checked and passed security in about 45 minutes since arriving at the airport.
The terminal is super busy. Glad that masks are mandatory here. We situated ourselves in front of Smoke’s Burritorie to kill about 2 hours or so.
September 20 3:33am (In Air):
Just finished breakfast and we are close to Paris now. Ended up paying for Wifi on the flight costing about $45 for the entire flight. Caught up on the House of Dragons and did some surfing.
Flight Information
September 20 11:31am (CDG Paris):
Even though we are connecting and going through the same terminal (2E), we still had to go through security. The security at CDG airport is more strict. Anything that is electronics had to be taken out. This is quite different than in Toronto. A couple of us were caught and had to get our bags separately inspected. Now we are going to the gate for our connecting flight to Mauritius.
Our layover is approximately 5 hours long. We spent the time snacking and napping. I was partially amazed that our Apple Pay continues to work flawlessly with my Apple Watch at the airport. However, not all electrical outlets had power. This is a bit of a mystery. My theory is that power consumption that is impacting the entire EU, and perhaps this is an energy conservation policy that is being enacted. Just 30 minutes before our boarding, we finally discovered an active outlet. We quickly charged our Apple Watches that were all on their last legs.
September 20 3:30pm (CDG Paris – Gate M45 – Boarding):
During the boarding process, half of us had no issues with our electronic boarding passes and their corresponding QR codes worked flawlessly. The other half were sidelined to get our passport rechecked. I am not sure if this is a random selection process, or something went wrong with the QR code validation.
September 21 5:50am (Mauritius Airport):
There was no issues with immigration, since we had our health information form all previously filled out. We got to baggage claim quite quickly.
Mobile shop at airport
I previously signed up for the my.t tourist package. My expectation was that once we landed we can just scan the eSim with the QR codes provisioned after my registration. Unfortunately, this did not go as plan. Our cell activations with the provided QR code continuously fail to activate. While other waited for our checked baggages at the baggage claim area, I went out first to the telecom kiosk to see if we can resolve the activation issue.
I was told by the representative, that a face-to-face check-in is required at the kiosk so that a passport authentication can be performed prior to the activation of the eSim. All of this makes sense, I just wished they told us this when they provided the QR code!
The good news is that everything got sorted out and we all had our dual eSim ready to go online and make calls.
September 21 7:15am (Mauritius Airport – Parking Lot):
Our vacation home
We found our driver and started our journey to our vacation home. This took much longer than I thought. The traffic in Mauritius was horrendous! Someone needs to tell urban planning that roundabouts and motorways do not mix. The concept of on and off ramps are the way to go.
September 21 9:00am (Mauritius – Trou aux Biches):
Finally reached our home away from home. The host was very gracious and nice, and the hand over was without a hitch.
