The wrong kind of reunion

Well, it's a poor do, when you haven't visited your blog for so long that when you open Safari, it's not even on the page, and when you start to type in the address, it's four down on the list of suggestions. Top was Tripadvisor, which in itself makes me feel a bit shifty, seeing as how I'm a professional travel critic and all. (But it can be very useful, finding out what Joe Public thinks of a place.)

Anyway, here I am again, fresh from writing up the Seine river cruise, and about the food in Normandy, and the Dog Cemetery in Paris, and Hobbiton, and Macau, and the Kimberley, and the Grand Union Canal... No shortage of variety, here. That's on top of trying to revive some Spanish for my upcoming trip to Latin America, and sorting out the itinerary for a Mediterranean cruise in October. Oh, and selling the house. But enough of my First World problems.

Today's connection is the finding, finally, of a bit of MH370 on a beach on Reunion Island. I was sitting on Cottesloe Beach near Perth earlier this year looking out over the Indian Ocean, all clear and turquoise and inviting-looking (sharks notwithstanding) and marvelling at the dedication of the Australian searchers to their Herculean task. That is one big ocean. I've flown across it, to South Africa, and it takes ten hours. Ten hours! So it's no wonder at all that, despite all those months of peering down, they haven't turned up anything.

And then, some guy wandering along the beach on Reunion finds a bit of a wing! Remarkable. A TV report called it "a tiny island" but that's not right. Yes, it's a tiny dot in such a huge ocean, but it's really not that small. It took a good day to drive around it, and it's got some pretty impressive mountains in the middle, one of which is currently erupting. It's La Piton de la Fournaise, which in 1977 rather dramatically spouted a river of lava that poured down to the sea, splitting very conveniently right at the point where the church now called Notre Dame des Laves stands, burning the back door but leaving it otherwise untouched. Pretty good PR for the man upstairs, if you're that way inclined, I have to admit.

I stood on the lava flow from a later eruption, and even three years after the event, could feel the warmth through the soles of my shoes. Our guide, Philippe, leapt around on it declaring it to be 50-70m deep, but I wasn't so confident, especially when he thrust some twigs into a hole and they caught alight almost immediately. 

Anyway, Reunion Island is a lovely place to visit, with striking scenery, a stimulating ethnic mix in its people, and a lively and friendly French/African/Indian culture. It's not "tiny" and it's not, Daily Mail, "the unluckiest place in the world" (despite its 18 shark attacks in the last 4 years - thanks for pointing that out). I hope it will prove to be a turning point in the sad mystery of MH370; and that, having been brought to the world's attention, more people will be inclined to travel there to see it for themselves.

 

A plus and two minuses

It's been quite a week for connections, most of them, alas, negative. For a start there was, sadly, nice young Cory Monteith dying at the Fairmont Pacific Rim, which has had its frontage splashed nightly across TV screens around the world. They've just this week opened their new Italian-themed cafe and wine bar, which is what I'm sure they would much rather be getting publicity for right now. It's been rated Vancouver's #1 hotel, and of the three Fairmonts we stayed at there, it was certainly the most impressive. And technological: the iPad in the room greets you and controls everything from the lighting and curtains to contacting the concierge. The bellhop wanted to show us how to "operate the room" but we didn't have time (travel writer's curse) so when it came to bedtime after a multi-course degustation dinner there at Oru with lots of Okanagan Valley wine including, bliss, my first ice wine, shutting everything down was almost a challenge too far. Most spectacular was the bathroom, all glass on the corner overlooking the harbour, cruise ships and the Convention Centre's 6-acre grassy roof. On the 12th floor, who cares that the glass is regular two-way?

Then there was the horrifying report of a teenage girl being bitten in half by a shark on Reunion Island, accompanied by a map because who would know where that is, unless you've been there? She was swimming in a known dangerous part of the beach at St Paul, which is where I went to a market beside the black sand beach with its cannon pointing out to sea. It was a colourful market - of course, aren't they all? - notable for its cute mini-pineapples, baskets of cheap vanilla pods and nutmegs, brown-skinned rag dolls, perfume still and dodos. Which were a bit of a cheat, since they were endemic on Mauritius, not Reunion.

And finally, and more cheerfully, the Minister of Conservation has turned down the proposal for a the Milford-Dart Tunnel, which would have dumped half a million tonnes of spoil in the beautiful Hollyford Valley, increased exponentially the traffic through contentedly sleepy Glenorchy and put lots of concrete and tarmac at the start of the Routeburn Track. All so impatient tourists can get to Milford Sound more quickly without having to "waste" a day on the return journey along fabulous Lake Wakatipu, through rolling farming country, along moody Lake Te Anau to the township and beyond along one of the best drives in the country. Pft. Milford is magnificent and a must-see, but having to earn it by travelling there along three sides of a square makes it that much more special. Like walking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu instead of taking the bus up from Aguas Calientes. Quick and easy isn't always better.

Rumblings

Tongariro hasn't spat the dummy again - yet; but White Island has been having hissy fits for months, and is particularly unwelcoming at the moment, with ash now featuring in the constant billowing clouds of sulphurous steam. Also, there are rafts of pumice stones floating downstream of the Kermadecs, so they've stirred into underwater activity too. These volcanoes are all on a line, along the edge of the same plate that our Volcanic Plateau sits on. Nothing to worry about, say the scientists airily.

You can go out to White Island - it takes about an hour and a half by launch from Whakatane - and do a tour, kitted up with hard hat and, yes, gas mask. They're even running the tours right now: "It's a great time to see White Island at a higher level of activity," the website claims cheerfully, but I don't know that I'd be keen. That place has killed people before now (not tourists - so far) and evidently you're told not to walk too close to the person in front, presumably so you don't break through the crust. I've been to Rotorua enough times to be aware of how thin the layer can be between us and the boiling water or mud - but to risk dropping into a volcano? Not so appealing, really.

When I was on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, our guide took us to the site of a lava flow from 2007: a kilometre-wide swathe of black basalt cutting dramatically through the jungle, all the way from the volcano right down to the sea, where it was apparently pretty spectacular when the lava hit the water. Philippe took us up onto the lava-flow and even through my shoes I could feel the warmth, which was unnerving enough. Then he poked some dry sticks he'd brought into a hole and within a minute they'd caught fire - that was more than four years after the eruption. Liz and I skedaddled out of there pretty fast then, despite the Gallic mockery.

In the nearby village there was a very striking sight: a church on the edge of the lava flow. It had come to the back of the building, but then stopped, cupped right around the church but without doing any worse damage than blackening the window sills. Notre Dame des Laves, it's called now - also, a miracle. Almost enough to make you believe in God.

Fishy tales

With the aftershock total now 8175, any small bit of cheer is welcome from Christchurch, so it was heartening yesterday to hear a good news story for once, about the two goldfish Shaggy and Daphne discovered still alive in their tank in an office in the Red Zone, 134 days after the building was evacuated following the February quake. There was some dark muttering about their having lived off the corpses of their disappeared companions, but informed opinion has it that they have simply been in shut-down mode because of low temperatures (and snow is just the latest environmental insult that Cantabrians have had to cope with), the missing fish probably having been swept over the top in a post-quake mini tsunami.

From one extreme to another, my Ningaloo Reef whale shark story is recently out too, on the cover of the Herald's travel section, which was rather exciting - especially as my Leavenworth one was inside too. And then this week it was Reunion Island's turn. As ever, feast or famine - which is how it must be feeling for Shaggy and Daphne now.

Ringing bells

The OH knows he’ll be in big trouble if he ever buys me my favourite perfume. For years now I’ve been training myself to associate the scent of Lancome’s Miracle with setting off on a plane trip; so as soon as I’m airside, I swing by the duty-free shop for a squirt from their tester bottle. Already, if I catch a lingering whiff on my watch-strap when I’m back home, I can instantly visualise the airport, the passport and boarding pass in my hand, the planes outside — and feel the excitement. The idea is that when I’m a shrivelled old lady and stuck in a chair, I can sniff the bottle and get instantly high: say, 30,000 feet.

When we travel, we take photos and buy souvenirs, but all too often ignore the other senses, which can be much more effective in summoning vivid memories. Smell seems to be a particularly direct route back to the past, although it’s not always possible to reproduce once back home. This is certainly a good thing in the case of the stinking durian, even if it does evoke tropical markets with all their colour and buzz. But vanilla will take me back to Reunion Island, where it’s grown and processed; 4711 cologne to the elegant shop in Cologne where a perfumed fountain tinkling in the corner scents the air; frangipani to Tahiti; cloves to Indonesia.

Taste always works well, although foods that are still limited to their places of origin by definition won’t work as memory aids: you’re not going to find roasted guinea pig, casseroled fruit bat or coconut crab on any menu here. But something you taste for the first time on holiday is good, so for me Parmesan cheese means Sydney, parsnips are England, quinoa is Peru, chowder means Vancouver.

Though crowing roosters bring back Bali for me, sirens and whistles evoke New York, and cawing crows epitomise Australia, music is the best audio trigger. I first came across the quirky compositions of the Penguin Café Orchestra thanks to the driver of my car in Mauritius; an M2M hit sweetly sung to us by our guide at the end of a tour always reminds me of China; and Kelly Clarkson got me dancing on Reunion Island (possibly also the rum). Hear the music, and I’m there: so in Tasmania I used repeat plays of my latest favourite song to fix the association. Now just the first few notes take me back to the Bay of Fires, the spinifex seeds tumbling over the hard sand, the sun on the rocks, the turquoise sea.

This value-adding holiday tip is brought to you by P. Wade: that’s P as in Pavlov.

Excited mixer...

...is excited, looking forward to the fledglings coming home for brunch. Eggs, bacon, baked tomatoes and mushrooms, pastries, all sorts of fruit, juice and this time a lemon cake with marscapone frosting. Yum.

Lovely to see them both and catch up with their news, even if the reporting was all one way (we aged parents aren't expected to have news of our own). And brunch is the perfect, casual, free-wheeling kind of meal for this type of gathering. It's also the opposite of grazing: one good brunch will keep me going all day.

Oddly, the slightly scaled-down version that is a hotel breakfast never seems to last as well, even when I've managed to get outside an entire panful of super-hospitable Renee's sweet and more-ish appelskivers at Abendblume just outside Leavenworth, Washington; or prowled round and round the chefs' stands at Indigo Pearl in Phuket, dithering over freshly-cooked crepes or stir-fry or noodles or omelette or waffles, at the same time dazzled by the huge range of pastries, fruit and cereals. Or toyed with the idea of a Buck's Fizz at the Grand Hotel du Lagon in Reunion (first time I've seen an open bottle of champagne on the breakfast buffet).

But it's not all groaning tables, I'll have you know: in Peru, the standard breakfast was a saucer of (one) dry scrambled egg, two slices of tomato and a cup of coca tea. Yet, strangely, I didn't hanker for a larger helping...

Trying to look busy here while the painter does the window frames...

It seems rude to pick up my laptop and decamp when the light is suddenly blotted out by a man in overalls and baseball cap looming outside the window; but it's impossible to work while he's doing just that over my right shoulder. Also there's the smell. He's putting oil-based gloss on the joinery and it's pretty powerful. But he's getting on quickly, hoping to have the soffit (I'm down with all this jargon now - eaves? Pshaw! Amateur) done by the end of the week; so that means time is running out for choosing the colour of the walls.

I'm afraid that after interior flings with lolly pink, aubergine, orange and butter yellow, I'm going to come over all Anglo-Saxon and plump for something boringly sludge-like for the outside: calling it Tea or Quarter Biscotti or Half Haystack doesn't help to make me feel adventurous, Resene. I wish I could break free of this convention and give the painter, who is a lovely man but very depressed about having been in this job for 30 years, the excitement of applying something vivid. How his eyes would surely brighten, given the chance to slap on Blue Lagoon, Tamarillo or Bright Sun!

He should live in Valparaiso, or Quito, or Lima, or on Reunion Island, or in the Cooks: they paint their houses such fabulously gaudy colours there: lime green, lemon yellow, pink and orange. And turquoise: most popular of all, everywhere. I wonder why that is?

It's the hardest colour to describe in an original manner in a lagoon story, that's for sure. I once even took colour charts to Aitutaki to help me: "...the colour of the water is Mint Tulip deepening into Riptide with a band of Curious Blue under an Oxymoron sky..." Poetry!

Not so ordinary

I've just finished off the left-over rice pudding: it was calling to me through the quiet house. I thought I would only tidy up the edges a bit, but that was never going to work, and the dish is now scraped clean. It was a particularly good one, which I'm putting down to the fact that I used real Mauritian vanilla extract instead of the cheap local make of essence.

Whenever I read a recipe that calls for a vanilla pod, my heart sinks a little - but now I know why they're so expensive. The vanilla plant is an orchid, did you know that? It's native to Mexico, where it's pollinated by a local species of bee that's specially adapted to the vanilla flower: that's why attempts to grow it elsewhere continually failed, even after this fact was discovered. But in 1841 a slave named Edmond Albius, who was only 12 years old, worked out a way of pollinating the flowers by hand. And where did this happen? Reunion Island!

We went to a really interesting plantation there called Escale Bleue, where a very jolly man called Aime Leichnig demonstrated (with a commentary including a series of faintly risque jokes) how to do the pollination. It's ironic that Edmond's discovery led to even more work for the slaves, crouched over the vines fiddling with tiny flowers.

Once the grown pods, the size of round beans, are picked, they're dipped in hot water then dried in the sun, turned several times a day and shaded if they're drying too fast - they're constantly being checked. Then Aime wraps them in cloth and puts them into polystyrene chests to mature for 9 months (more jokes), being regularly sniffed, until they're ready to sell 12-18 months after picking. So there you have it: labour intensive.

We saw them in bundles at the markets in both Reunion and Maritius where they're also grown as a crop: 20 euros for a bunch of 100. That's $36 - whereas in the local supermarket here, they're $7.44 for a measly three. Rip-off! There was an enterprising young man with a machine at the beachside market in St-Gilles busily sealing them inside plastic bags for tourists wanting to take them home through customs. Clever.

Showy

What a dreary day: cool, damp and dull with not even the slightest gleam of sunshine. It's the kind of wrist-slittingly depressing weather that England does so well and for such long periods at a time, and I feel especially vulnerable having had heat and bright sunshine so recently.

I took this photo exactly a week ago, to the minute almost: sitting on the beach at Le Grand Hotel du Lagon on Reunion Island, as the sun slipped down into the Indian Ocean behind a bank of cloud after shining all day. The previous evening the sky was clear and we had the green flash: about the sixth time I've seen it, and still a thrill, fleeting though it is. It astonishes me that some people have been able to capture it in a photo.

The absolute best sunset I've ever seen, so good that it made me late for dinner, was from the beach near Cullen Bay in Darwin. There were good clouds and it was a scarlet and purple sunset, unlike the sepia one above. Besides me with my basic point-and-shoot, there was a friendly lad with a brand-new fancy digital that had a sunset programme (cheating, I reckoned - also unnecessary) and a stand-offish man with a tripod. After the sun disappeared, Tripod Man packed up his equipment and went home, leaving Digital Boy and me to gloat over the fact that the after-glow was even better - literally brilliant - getting more intense by the moment, and lasting for ages.

Duds for dudes

Metro indeed. This is what I meant before, because I can't think of a single person or occasion in the whole of New Zealand that could even dream of associating with shoes like these - but they were simply the most eye-catching item in the window display of a whole line of men's clothing shops in the pedestrian centre of St-Denis, the capital of Reunion. They were a revelation, what with the embroidered shirts, the striped pants, the coolly-English tagged t-shirts...

And they weren't just in the windows, these hip duds for dudes - have a look at Jean-Bernard here with his collar up and his cap on backwards. When we first saw him he had that lilac jumper tied around his neck over a black jacket. Angelique didn't put in so much effort. She didn't have to.

Looks are still something

We've had a lovely wander around St Denis, the capital of Reunion, poking into backstreets and finding all sorts of pretty pastel-painted houses with shutters and dormer windows, fripperied up with fretwork lace under the eaves and wrought iron gates.

The people here in this little city are more varied than along the tourist strip by the lagoon, or in the mountain villages: Muslim men in robes and caps, splendid African ladies in colourful long dresses with scarves wrapped around their heads.

How dull it's going to be back at home, where everyone dresses the same.

Au revoir a l'Ile Reunion

The spell-check just wanted to correct 'revoir' to 'reboot' and I suppose that says it all: last morning, last dawn wander along the pearly-pink lagoon, last cruise around the breakfast buffet with all its exotic fruits and buttery pastries. Ahead lie three flights totalling 16 hours.

I've enjoyed this taste of France. It's been great to hear French spoken all around me, to see the style and insouciance, to appreciate the joie de vivre. They do seem to live with enthusiasm: for their partners, their children, their dogs, their food, for nature, for exercise as well as sitting doing nothing.

Sixteen hours of sitting doing nothing holds no joie for me.

Hot stuff

This is Philippe, who has guided, informed, entertained and scared us silly over the last four days. Sometimes several of those things at once: I had no idea, for example, that it was possible to drive for so very many seconds at 110kmh with both hands off the steering wheel without crashing. (Philippe is a great gesticulator.)

But he knows his stuff, and enjoys sharing it, which is exactly what you want in a guide. Here he's spiking our cynicism by proving that you can indeed - and in no time at all - light a fire with the heat still coming from the lava flow that swept down to the sea more than three years ago.

His trick with the chilli, though, that was just mean.

Today Anaheim, tomorrow the world!

Can anyone see Pluto here?

Reunion's central cirque area is the latest (as of last Sunday) addition to UNESCO's list of World Heritage sites. And rightly so: it's spectacular.

Bon appetit

If anything tells you we're in a part of France, it's that after rushing through the morning everything stutters to a complete halt at lunchtime.Today we drove around 420 corners in 31km and up 1300m for an astonishing view over Cilaos, another cirque that could stand in for the Andes with its steep green ravines and isolated villages. It was an exciting drive, thanks to Philippe's verve behind the wheel - but a doddle compared with the palanquin that used to be the only alternative to Shanks's pony.

And after hurtling around all those hairpin bends, now we're at Le Vieil Alambic spending two hours sitting over our Creole lunch of yummy vegetable beignets, fish curry and dessert that's an "invention de la maison" according to Madame, who's come out to introduce each course and get the verdict afterwards. Which was, genuinely, delicieux.

Highs and lows

Anyone noticing a theme here?

I've just finished a lovely meal at the fine dining restaurant here at Le Grand Hotel du Lagon, that began with this rum, coconut and caramel cocktail and ended with a snort of rum with vanilla and, and - damn, it's literally on the tip of my tongue still, I can taste it, but can I remember what it is?* That's what happens when you bookend a meal with rum. I wouldn't have done it, but the waiter said it would make his heart cry if I didn't. He claimed the rum wasn't strong, but it's a bit of a giveaway when you lift up the glass and your eyes instantly water.

Today there were incredibly steep and winding narrow roads made even more exciting by Philippe's being what you might call an eager driver (not to say a tailgater). There was a fanfare of tooted horns along our route.

We saw Andes-type high mountains cut by dramatic ravines dotted with remote villages (less remote since the local baker bought a couple of copters), a plunging waterfall, beaches with gorgeous young women who would have worn plunging necklines had they had anything on their top halves at all, and finished by stepping off our own beach here at the hotel to plunge into the midst of schools of yellow and black striped angel fish, beautifully patterned Picasso fish, fat little puffer fish, and lots of others. Great snorkelling! Topped off by the sun plunging (have I overdone this?) into the sea with a distinct green flash.

*Ginger!

Alcohol-induced confusion

Gimme a bourbon! Eh, what?

Les oiseaux! Les oiseaux!

Good thing there were more croissants in the basket. Next time I fetch my cup of tea first.

NZ scores nil

Checked out the Score supermarket here in Reunion today, wearing my NZ trade commissioner hat, and was deeply disappointed. No Anchor anything, no Montana or Cloudy Bay, no Steinlager, no lamb. Tch. Those French and their protectionist policies.

Ah, but the cheeses! Twenty local ones made from cow, goat and sheep milk, plus a good selection of France's 500-odd. I love to watch the cheese ladies wielding their double-handled cleaver on the big wheels. Take it from me, Parmesan is the most fun.

A rum do

I don't know how it is that I've been to three rum distilleries so far this year, but I feel confident I could turn out a decent drop myself now, if only I had access to sugar cane.The Isautier one here "only" turns out a million bottles a year. A small player in the rum world, but it's quality stuff.

The tour was well presented, but I was feeling that the Bundaberg operation had the edge, simply because of its vast and mouthwatering vats of molasses - until we got to the end and settled in for eight, count them, eight sample shots. Vanilla and ginger was tops, if you're wondering.