XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Paradise doesn’t have to be deathly dull.

Alongside the Seychelles’ perfect beaches,

Ed Grenby finds giant tortoises, edible bats

and a local party scene

48 worldtravellermagazine.com

SEYCHELLES

worldtravellermagazine.com 49

I

’m pretty sure George & Amal

— headed to the same tiny

Seychellois island as me —

didn’t do it this way, aboard

a ferry where holidaymakers

and commuters and cargo

share deckspace (as well as

sick bags). But more fool the

Clooneys and their helicopters,

because this was exactly why

I’d come to the Seychelles.

True, I could live without the

nauseous shipmates, but hanging out

with islanders? Gawping gobsmacked

at vast green mountains? Ambushing

my tastebuds with crazy Creole cuisine?

These — not to mention the humming

towns and fascinatingly weird plant

and animal life — were the reasons

I’d given Mauritius and the Maldives a

miss this year and dropped in on their

Indian Ocean neighbours instead.

See, the Seychelles has all the

screensaver good looks and endlessly

exquisite sandy shores of its brochure

rivals, but with more. While the Maldives

has nothing but pancake-flat micro-

islets staffed by international automata,

with little to do but stare at the sea or

argue with your loved one, the Seychelles

archipelago is a beach paradise with

an actual country attached. (The main

landmass is Mahé, and there’s 114 more

once you’re done with that one.)

Previously, the price you paid for all

that was universally indifferent, shoulder

shrugging service. But a bunch of new

hotel openings has taken the pain

out of paradise. And, for the moment

at least, it’s still thrillingly exotic.

Take my first stop, the Four Seasons

resort on Desroches Island, a half-hour’s

flight from Mahé. Here, instead of some

desultory strip of sand and an ersatz

‘village’ on stilts, you get a proper island:

14km of fringing beach wound like

wrapping paper around chunks of virgin

forest, a village of traditional Toblerone-

shaped Creole houses, a settler cemetery,

a serious conservation centre — and,

of course, a nice high-end hotel. Here,

between massages performed with a

giant ostrich egg (now that could have

gone wrong in less expert hands) and

These pages: Four Seasons

Resort Seychelles at

Desroches Island