My Thoughts dot on Mauritius dot com

What is more important in Mauritius, Tolerance or Respect?

I have now been living in Mauritius for over 17 years and the way people are in Mauritius makes it very difficult for foreigners, like me, to understand the lack of respect that Mauritian have; mainly through ignorance or lack of education.

Well, to help any X-Pat living in Mauritius to overcome this lack of respect there is the other side of the coin – EXTREME TOLERANCE! Mauritian are generally extremely tolerant of everything!

There are, of course Mauritian who are respectful and will not:

• burn dry rubbish on a Sunday afternoon with the wind blowing onto the patio
• hoot their horn every morning at 05:00 am to pick up the next door neighbor to take him to work
• throw money back at you, over the counter, without saying thank you
• run over a dog and not stop to see if the dog could be saved
• show disrespect to the general public if employed as a policemen
• show disrespect for your time

But they are too few in this world of capitalism where discipline let alone self-discipline is non-existent!

Bottom line if there was more respect there would be a need for such extreme tolerance.

Opening Bank accounts in Mauritius

If you want to open company bank account in Mauritius the time needed to do this ranges from one day to 14 days depending with which bank. South East Asian Bank in Mauritius takes maximum 2 days and the Mauritius Commercial Bank 2 weeks. The Mauritus Commercial Bank is 160 years old hence the slowing down in old age.

ADSL in Mauritius god forbid fair competition!

It’s just not getting better. Telecom Plus, one of Mauritius’s major Internet Service Provider claim that if you can access the Internet locally then they are providing Internet Access and therefore are not in breach of their SLA (service level agreement) when not providing international access.
I would say that means they offer no real service except for a Mauritian working at their call centre speaking with a "forced cool French accent" pretending to be a linux administrator and never resolving, but wanting to, your internet access problem.
When I am in doubt for the bandwidth supposedly offered then I use the following sites:
http://www.adslguide.org.uk/tools/speedtest.asp
http://www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/
http://www.dslreports.com/stest

I use all 3 to get an average. Have phun, discovering the bandwidth for, and I quote Telecom Plus's advertising slogan in Mauritius, "up to 512 KB" which gives no guarantee, by using the words “up to”, of ADSL bandwidth – “Take it or lump it” seems to be their motto and that’s what they call an Internet Service Provider.

A weekend at the Blue Lagoon Hotel, Mauritius as well as the surroundings of Blue Bay

Last minute decision Friday afternoon we decided, Carol and my two sons Zowie and Zidane and I, to spend a weekend at the Blue Lagoon Hotel in Blue Bay.
Although we have been experiencing bad and anti cyclonic weather the last 7 days we felt we might be luckier spending a weekend on the coast. I said to my wife, Carol “all we need is to be dressed for the occasion so pack the woollen jumpers because the winds are reaching speeds of up to 60 – 70 kilometres per hour.”
SO, Saturday at 09:30 we left our house in Curepipe (650 meters above sea level) to arrive within 30 minutes (driving at European norms hence within speed limits – Mauritians would expect you to be there within half the time).
Mauritius has a micro climate and normally, if you are prepared to travel, you can always find a spot of sunshine in this case our luck was out!
On arriving at the hotel’s gates with our non-rented car; for the security guards we can’t possibly be tourists as we have black number plates and not orange (rental cars and for taxis the number plates are white) so we are scrutinised at the gates as if we were potential terrorists. This said security or hotel staffs in Mauritius look down on other Mauritians that do not work in the same industry what ever their social status.
Finally, after 2 or 3 questions like do you have money or are you going to steal the hotel’s light bulbs, only joking, but those are some of the reasons of such a stringent control, we make it through the gate.
The Blue Lagoon hotel, Mauritius is a 2 star hotel but has some of the amenities of a 3 star hotel in Mauritius (extras have to be paid separately) then from cost factor it would be cheaper booking, from abroad, a 3 star hotel.
We are warmly greeted, after waiting 30 seconds more for the receptionist to finish her personal call in Creole, we booked in at a “special price” of Rs 2,900 for 2 adults and 2 children of 7 and 4 on HB (half board – breakfast and dinner).
We make way to our room, with the help of a porter, and on the way I notice reprints from Hitier hung on the wall and in some cases the paintings repeat themselves within 2 to 3 metres. Hitier is a Mauritian painter and in this case there seems to have been over 10 paintings/reprints but only two motives of underwater sea life with tropical fishes.
On entering the room, quite spacious, we find 3 beds and bathroom with only a shower that does not hang on the wall so, when showering one has to hold the shower to rinse or wet oneself. There is no mini bar however a very small television on a wall bracket. The room is air conditioned and well maintained; it seems that it has been recently redecorated.
Electrical wirings are conducted through cable trunking, pretty rare for a hotel of this star category, most times one would see the cables running all over the top and bottom of walls. This said a new law was recently passed in Mauritius in December 2005, to make sure that electrical problems and lack of security was stopped, it could well be the reason why this room looks so newly decorated.
The rooms has the look of a 3 star, branded paper mats for your bathroom utensils such as glasses (only one glass per room for 4 persons), the soap is branded and sealed in a plastic (vacuumed packed?) that takes substantial time to take off, the shower curtains, industrial thickness (rubber/plastic feel) have also the logo from the Blue Lagoon Hotel printed on the curtains but one thing that was missing, as mentioned above, was the shower unit fixed on the wall and shampoo which we had forgotten to take with us but then again if you are going to a 2 star hotel, striving to be a 3 star hotel, and so much merchandise being branded I am sure shampoo could only come and compliment the branding process.
I mention above, that there is no mini bar which seems to be a general policy for hotels that cater for Mauritian local residents or connecting one night stopover clients who tend to purchase from the local supermarkets their beers at a seventh of the price that the hotels sells the beer for i.e. a beer cost no more that Rs 10 the hotel is selling at Rs 70, a coke is sold at Rs 55 and a juice at Rs 60 where as a 2 litre of coke and 1 litre of juice respectively is sold at not more that 25 and 40 Mauritian rupees.

The curtains don’t close flush to the wall so when the day breaks, at the moment winter season and at about 06:45, then the bright light “pushes” you out of bed..

The beds 3 beds in the room (family room) were clean and comfortable.

The toilet swayed whilst sitting, it seems to that the floor does not seem to be level.

There is no safe however the cupboards, both sides, have a key how reliable I can’t say and there is nothing stopping the personnel having an additional key cut unbeknown to management.

The room is double glazed hence no noise from the on looking public beach area (trees and grass).

The room stationary is in four languages, the German version has been printed with some charming and funny errors.

There is satellite television (over 20 channels) and enough cartoons to keep a 4 and 7 year old boy happy long enough to take your shower “together”!

So after a while of suitcase unpacking we make our way to the pool bar but much to our surprise the pool was being maintained and painted but management assured us that if we wanted to “take a dip in the pool which…” then the hotel had the arranged the possibility of doing so with the neighbouring hotel Le Preskil 5 kms away. At least it is a consolation, if you have a car, but I don’t think anyone took up the offer then again maybe. I would have appreciated if we had been informed of this prior to booking so we could have postponed the stay in this hotel for another time.

The restaurant has a spectacular view of the sea shielding the winds by massive windows (probably anti-cyclone tempered glass) but yet dirty due to the ongoing water spray from the sea.
The dinner buffet on half board was of average standard, breakfast was very nice with all the exotics fruits from pine apple to papaya except for the artificial flavoured sausages. My sons did enjoy 3 pancakes with pure chocolate at least Zidane got to eat something before going on a morning stroll behind the Blue Lagoon Beach Hotel (the hotel is situated on point) towards the public beach and away from the gusty winds reaching up to 70 kms an hour that week-end. This said; the east coast is very windy in winter months of May to August but great for kite surfers. The East coast of Mauritius, hence Pointe d’Esny/Blue Bay, is one of the favourite spots for kite surfers in Mauritius.

I’ll be writing more about my week-end experience in the Blue Lagoon Hotel in the days to come until then enjoy life and just laugh every morning for 5 minutes alone or with your family – good therapy to start of the day.

New web sites I have discovered

Some really interesting web site you can discover:
www.sacred-texts.com
www.fileswap.com
www.questionswap.com
Let me know how you find these webs sites post your comments on my Blogg.

Is this the end of Mauritius Telecom?

Abusive prices, arrogant and in a monopolistic situation dictated by France Telecom it is high time that Mauritius Telecom get their first major slap like they have never before slapped before. Mr. Nishstar from Telecom Plus customer service (a subsidary from Mauritius): how long will you be a star? Do you want a new job? If you are not yet concerned look at www.jajah.com a service that permits you to ring free of charge (for the time being) from fixed phone to fixed phone and no software needed!
Have phun!

How TotalGAz in Mauritius distribute “mul”

A press communiqué placed in Le Matinal of Friday 7th July 2006 request that all 6 and 12 KGS gas bottles be returned immediately to the distributor in Mauritius as recent bottles placed in the market not long ago are defect. To recognise these bottles you need to look for the word “MUL”: in German MULL, with 2 l’s means rubbish!

Internet Access in Mauritius down now 2 days on and off

Since 18:00 hrs 5th July 2006 access to the internet, excluding services offered before the Telecom Plus gateway hence any servers physically in Mauritius, are not accessible. Great: an early evening with my family!
The following day everything should be ok but no the problem was still there, NO INTERNET in Mauritius!
I can’t believe my ignorance to believe that things could get any better in ten years that Telecom Plus have monopolised access to the internet.
Yesterday morning at 07:30 I decided to ring our ISP (Internet Service Provider), Telecom Plus, informing them that our company has no access to the internet. They informed me that this was a problem with the international connection.
I believe that Telecom Plus have only one gateway or maybe 2; one satellite and 1 fibre optic. It seems that the satellite connection is for home users and the fibre optic for businesses. Correct me if anyone knows better.
Finally at midday (6th July 2006) some of the services started coming back i.e email (port 25), FTP (port 21) Skype (what port is that?) but the web (port 80) not before 3 o’clock in the afternoon the connections/services came back.
Discouraged by the problems and the delays of the day I decided to leave the office at 16:30 hrs and start a fresh the following day (today) and guess what? I get into the office at 07:00 and again NO INTERNET!
As I write this it is now 08:00, the Telecom Plus technicians don’t start before 09:00 I believe, there is still no internet!
We are a small company and problems like these have a devastating and crippling effect on our productivity let alone on the economy in Mauritius.
What does it cost the Mauritian economy this lack of productivity?

Let us take an IT employee earning Rs 25,000 (just short of $ 800 per month) i.e. a PHP programmer and multiply this only by the hourly salary of 100 professionals then the economy is loosing Rs 15,625 per hour (Rs 25,000 divided by 160 hours a month) around $ 500 per hour so 2 days could be costing the economy Rs 15,625 * 8 hours = Rs 125,000 a day based on 100 employees hence Rs 250,000 (nearly $US 8,000).

Let us now suppose, because we are a cyber island with a state of the art technology and have a centre (cyber Tower) for the leading international call centres that we actually have 5,000 professionals that are dependent on the internet, and then one could take an average low salary base of Rs 25,000 and multiply on the above basis to see that the economy is losing:

Rs 781.250.00 an hour X 8 hours per day = Rs 6,250,000 so for two days the economy has a productivity loss of Rs 12,500,000 hence nearly: $ US 400,000 for 2 days.

How can the whole country be paralysed because of one company?

As I rang today (7th July 2006) the Telecom Plus hotline 208 9998 (administrated by their call centre) they informed that they have released a press communiqué on their web site (http://www.servihoo.com/Aujourdhui/kinews/v3dossier_details.php?id=128255 or as seen extracted below), for the time being accessible only if you are accessing the internet from Mauritius.


”Slowness in Internet connection

Due to a technical problem encountered on the network of our service provider in Hong-Kong, Internet service is currently experiencing slowness.
The engineers in Hong-Kong are doing needful to restore the connection as quickly as possible.
We are following the situation very closely and a communiqué will be issued later to keep you informed.

Telecom Plus regrets any inconvenience caused and sincerely apologises.”

Upon reading this I rang Telecom Plus’s hotline again and informed them that our problem was not about slowness but we had no internet at all. I was then informed that the technicians were working to move all connections on another network in view of the existing problem. Is this there redundancy solution? Wow! This is quite impressive, nearly 48 hours to resolve the problem and switch to a new network.

Another annoying issue with the Telecom Plus hotline is that you can be waiting, sometimes, up to an hour before someone takes your call. However, today only six minutes, but we pay the waiting time as a connected call. This is unacceptable and would be interesting to know the Telecom Authority point of view on its legality! Telecom Plus should at least offer their subscribers an 800 line (hence free calls), but then again with the amount of problems that arise on a day to day basis this “FREE” service would probably eat into Telecom Plus’s net profit from their Rs 2 billion per year turnover. I don’t have the exact figures if anyone knows more on this: your comments would be appreciated!

It is now 15:20 Friday afternoon and we have now finally access to the Internet just in time for the team to work all week-end.

April fool, it went down again 20 minutes later hence 15:40. It seems that the problem is now getting worse and now going into the week-end it could well be that the Telecom Plus’s technicians have now gone home (18:39 Friday evening and won’t be back on duty until Monday morning hence 60 hours from now.

It is moments like this that I would to sue Telecom Plus for damages but the law, if I recollect being right under the Telecommunication Act of Mauritius, does not permit Telecom Plus being sued, this is obviously absurd! Telecom Plus has SLA’s (Service Level Agreements) with other ISP’s who in turn offer their SLA. If these ISP’s are in breach of their SLA, I am sure that Telecom Plus would sue and probably win. Anyway, it is not because it is written in the law that it makes it constitutional as a matter of fact I believe that it could well be anti-constitutional not being to sue a service provider of any kind, including Internet Service Providers, for loss of earnings!

How can the Mauritian government even dream of investors, within the IT (Information Technology) industry, wanting to come to Mauritius and invest in this sector it with such infrastructures, it would be like selling a car where there is no petrol within that market to make the car run!

CEB (Central Electricity Board) in Mauritius

If there is something that is really expensive in Mauritius then that's electricity. When foreign investors come to Mauritius I don't think they are completely aware of the exorbitant electricity cost in Mauritius. So, if you intend to invest in Mauritius "look before you leap"!

How NOT to brand your travel agency in Mauritius

I was riding back home on my motorbike last night and just in front of me, and for over 6 kilometres, I had the privilege to have a mini bus from RG Tours (Travel operator/agent in Mauritius) pouring out a curtain of black exhaust fumes, so much so, that I had to leave over 40 – 50 metres distance to be able to see so as to ride my bike. At the first traffic lights I was able to see that the back of the van had a picturesque panorama of a beach setting somewhere in Mauritius. I ask myself if the directors of RG Tours know the paradox they set in wanting to promote their travel agency in Mauritius when there are so much exhaust fumes contradicting the lovely cliché of a non-polluted destination such as Mauritius. Maybe he wants to associate his trade name in a “fuming” way!
What am I complaining about: The NTC (National Transport Corporation) in Mauritius has never even bothered to consider the pollution they cause in Mauritius. I once read, whilst living in Germany, that a bus in Germany diffuses over 1 ton of dust per year. In Germany exhaust controls are very strict so when looking at buses in Mauritius, I wonder how many tons of dust they emanate per year: 10 – 20 tons I suspect! The NTC are not the only company creating so much pollution one has all the individual bus/coach operators as well.