onsdag 3 april 2013

News of the day



Rules and regulations.





So this is why it´s always so quiet on the bus… it is also forbidden to smoke on most places on the island of Mahé. You are not to speak on the phone at the petrol station! It´s easy to know where everybody belong because E v e r y o n e has a business “costume” or logo on their shirt, even the prison staff (lime green..). Fancy. The most important concern for the government in the Seychelles is education and health, so the biggest budget is set in this sector.

Work.
The office of STB closes at 4pm. I really mean at 4 P M. 15:59 all employers stand outside the building and most of us (around 30 people) go together in one bus that the office provides. The bus drop us off in town (Victoria) where we then wait for another bus to take us to the south of the island. If you want to stay longer than 4 in the office, you need to apply for it. We usually get home by 5.30ish. Squeeze in at the bus, u know what I mean, seats for 3 where there´s no way u fit in more than 2 people. With sweaty buttcracks or boobs up in my face for 45 minutes approx. Hot, humid, crazy tired from the early wake up (6am) after the sunset at 6.30 it is night. Black outside, as I mentioned before, in our area there´s no light. When not to dead we´ll go for a swim, exercise or laugh most of the nights in front of Big bang theory (Cathrin has all of the series on the computer!) Love it! We´re soon about to watch crazy stupid love for the X… time as well J

People were right about the surf, although I read about it before going here there is none really. The culture hasn´t arrived to Mahé. Or if someone knows- tell me please. In any case there´s no place to rent boards they told us, so if I wanna surf I need to go to the beach, hoping that someone would lend me their board. We drove around the whole island during easter, and I didn´t even see one surfer dude or board. Oh yes, one SUP board at a snorkeling spot. Most breaks I´ve seen are, are way close to the beach or tubes on the coral reefs.

Study.
We´ve been writing some theory and methodology while awaiting the interviews to start. It is slowly but surely moving forward and we now have about 5 interviews scheduled. Will use a recorder for the first time, will be interesting even to see how people actually respond to that. It´s challenging to get everything the quality we like as we are writing the thesis in english.

and Easter. Yes. Lövely. More pics to come…


Puss och kram

måndag 1 april 2013

Pics from Easter, Mahé

île Souris, Anse Royale

Anse Royale

Barracuda



Anse Royale


Anse Parnel

Anse Soleil



Port Launay, Ephelia Resort


Eden Island

söndag 31 mars 2013

Research



Something about our study.

Behind the scenes of sustainability.

Tourism has grown rapidly since the international airport opened in Mahé in the seventies. A lot of businesses have been launched and while speaking to the locals there is a lot of disappointment in this situation. Foreign investments and all-inclusive hotels are taking over the beaches. Tourism business owners struggle to survive and want even more tourists to arrive. There is a huge amount of accessible beds, probably more than ever needed so no wonder why there is a big competition of the tourists. How sustainable are the hotels in terms of environmentally, socially or economically impacts? We will be working with the Seychelles Tourism Board, in the sector of sustainability. Seychelles Sustainable Tourism Label (SSTL) is working to certify all hotels in the Seychelles, we will spend our weeks in this department and conduct interviews with non-certified hotels but also evaluate the already certified hotels. 

Time flies! We´ve been here 3 weeks now…been preparing, reading strategy documents, books and creating interview questions. This week we have our first interviews. Feels great to get that part started! 

This weekend we rented a car and drove around the whole island of Mahé. 3 days of pristine beaches, some unattractive all-inclusive hotels..yes they do exist here as well. It´s been lovely, great creol food, snorkelling, left hand side driving. I will post some pics and write more about the fab easter weekend soon :)

Puss och Kram

tisdag 26 mars 2013

From paradise with Love



Fascinated by the water for being sooo warm and crystal clear (supposed to be 29 degrees) compared to Cape Town…small school kids shouting we looove u and looking at us as very exotic. Huge twin sized coconuts, creole food, happy smiling people, natural beuty, pristine beaches. Humid. U sweat even when not moving. This is the Seychelles.


cool diver!

Mangroveträd



beermojito!!

This is Seychelles



Seychelles 12th of March.

Departure. The line to our flight was nothing that I thought of. I was picturing myself with Cathrin and a bunch of millionaires on their way to expensive paradise. Not really. Tourists like anyone else, a lot of older people, lot of couples. We were certainly the only swedes.
Arriving in paradise…Mahé. The door of the airplane opens and I can already feel the sweat dripping from my back. A bit tired and humble the air hits us. This humid, warm, 30 degree (def feels like 35) air is shocking! Coming from ice cold Sweden. Paradise, tropical island, we are here. Unfortunately our bags were not. 300SR each as a compensation while waiting (15Euros). As I never experienced this before I could not imagine what could happen to the bag and of course think the worse possible, but hey we were happy anyways we finally arrived. All our stuff, all our books for the study, yes the fear strike me once or twice but no worries.  


  
My first meeting with the seychellois turned out to be very positive. Very organized people. Diandra, from Seychelles Tourism Academy (sent by Sinha, our supervisor in the Seychelles and the Tourism Board) waited for us with a sign with our names. She led us through fast track and we felt like two VIP researchers. Robin, owner of the house we are staying in was also at the airport waiting for us. To our surprise we got upgraded to a 2 floor house, amazing view overlooking the Indian Ocean, almost in tears and chocked of the result of our achievements. Air condition- we can´t live without u. I remember when we were discussing the budget version of the houses, without aircon, that would have been our death.
Two days later we found out that the bag was on its way. I didn´t mind walking around in my bikini and surfers shorts for another couple of days that I luckily by plan left in my hand luggage, but maybe not the best clothes for the office…lol. Check out the huge papaya!


We live in Au Cap. A heavy bus drive to the office in Victoria made us choose to work from home a couple of days a week. The bus drive is as exhausting as a 40 minute sauna. At night its gets very dark here, and there is no lights so we´re kinda forced to stay inside. On our side of the island, the “countryside”, far away from deserted but not many tourists in sight, is in the southern parts of the island of Mahé.





Local. Au Cap primary school
Beautiful..

 

måndag 25 mars 2013

Pics from Paradise!

Seychelles

Will write more soon!
Happy travellers!

View from our balcony

View from our balcony..

Bedroom, 2nd floor

Beau Vallon, Mahé. With Ocean Dream Divers, where I took my diving certificate

Beau Vallon

Overlooking the garden from our 2nd floor

1st day of the study, on our way to Seychelles Tourism Board (STB)


Pretty impressive sunrise..

The local beer (just to inform u, they even have it in the Mojito! delicious)

 Cathrin in the office of STB, we got our own room:)

Say no more

Our beach in Au Cap, where we live

Au Cap, Mahé

The way to the bus in Au Cap



Massive!