The Fifth Continent

In the span of 48 hours Laura flew a full two-thirds of the way around the world -- from Atlanta to Tokyo to Bangkok to Dubai to Mauritius. She arrived in Bangkok after 1 a.m. local time -- I met her at our favorite hotel. We had a nice sleep, a good breakfast, and within 12 hours we were back at the airport.

On this trip I`ve flown in and out of Bangkok so many times it had become like a second home. This time, though, when I got our tickets and we got stamped out of Thailand, was the last of this trip. Thailand has been very good to us these past three months. I`ll miss the vibrant street scenes, the pleasant hotels and the killer food.

(Flic en Flac)



In the airport, waiting for our Emirates flight to Dubai, I glanced out the window. Sure looked like a big plane, I thought. It took me a moment to realize we were flying on an Airbus 380 -- the double decker plane. It was brand new and very nice. Best of all were the personal video screens and the ability to look at plane-mounted live cams positioned at the nose, the tail and the landing gear. Very cool.

We had a nice layover in Dubai; the airport, like the city, it really just a shopping mall. Who plonks down thousands of dollars on gold jewelry in airports, I wondered. Then a woman sat down next to us and opened her bag. Inside was a huge gold necklace. Well, there you go. Our flight to Mauritius left at 3 a.m. and we flew straight south, over Oman and into the Indian Ocean. We crossed the equator and at 9 a.m. descended into Mauritius.

(Flic en Flac)



Mauritius was not a destination we chose. We wanted to go from Bangkok to Madagascar, but our booking agent said we would connect through Mauritius and could have a layover there at little extra cost. After seeing what the price of accomodation was, always a factor in francophile nations, we decided we could afford to stay a week.

Mauritius was colonized by the English and the French. Socially, it`s a low key version of France. Ethnically it`s more like India. Economically it would rate as second world. Geographically it`s got a flat high central plain which slopes down to the coast, where jagged mountains meet the sea. Meterologically it was as close to perfect as you can get at 21 degrees south.

(Blue Bay from the air)



Mauritius is about the size of metropolitan Atlanta; there`s one city and a slew of dense villages and towns. We stumbled out of the airport to find crisp blue skies and a temperature in the 60s. We took a series of pokey busses across the island and to a beach town called Flic en Flac. I wandered down to the beach for sunset and bought a baguette but we fell asleep before dinner time.

There`s not a whole lot to Mauritius. Besides biking and swimming and chasing dolphins you can taste rum and then lay on the beach. All we did was sleep, eat and lay on the beach. The scenery was fantastic and the weather incredible, especially after the soggy warmth of southeast Asia. It`s a place we`d definitely go back to.

This morning we woke up to rain and chilly temperatures. We had cute little French pastries and took a local bus to the airport. Our Air Madagascar flight gave us a surprise -- a half hour in Le Reunion, an incredible island to the west of Mauritius and a departement of France. We landed in Madagascar at 2 p.m. local time. It`s Africa, but a part of France, too. For those of you keeping track at home, we are now on our fifth continent. We are down to the final month but are still trying to take advantage of every minute!