Follow my journey in the Seychelles as I explore around Praslin.

After a tiring journey from Karachi via Dubai, we arrived in Mahe, Seychelles on a rainy morning. As much as I was bummed for not being able to see the aerial views of the islands due to the cloudy weather, I was thrilled by the Captain’s ability to land the plane with very little outside visibility. For a person like me, it was magic. Truly surreal.

Soon afterwards, we found ourselves queuing up for immigration and, my God, the queue was never ending. We had pre-booked a ferry to take us to Praslin from Mahe Airport and we were sure that given the endless queue we might not be able to catch the shuttle bus to the port. Lesson learnt: Never underestimate the power of an immigration queue.

Once through with the immigration formalities and having the visa stamped on our passports on-arrival, we rushed outside to find out that the shuttle bus was too kind to be waiting for us! We left for the ferry harbour.

Super tired and dehydrated, I boarded the stylish Catcocos catamaran along with my husband. Our journey over the water would be of 60 minute duration and we were oblivious to the fact that in no time we would realize that our upper deck seats paired with the perfect chilly/windy weather (as it was raining – otherwise it’s humid in Seychelles) would treat us with magnificent panoramic views of the whole journey!

Upon arriving in Praslin, which is the 2nd largest island of Seychelles after Mahe, we were welcomed by the guy from the car rental company, Maven, who was kind enough to deliver us our hired car at the port. We quickly got done with the formalities of hiring a car, and drove off to our accommodation # 1 in Seychelles: Villa Belle Plage hosted by the lovely Bert and Danielle.

First Look of Praslin Island from the Praslin Ferry Harbour

Praslin is a pretty straight forward town. Less traffic, more peace, slow and beautiful pace of life, I knew I would be falling in love with this place. As we are very smart human beings, we forgot to download an offline map of Seychelles on Google Maps, so we had to rely on a paper map to reach our accommodation. P.S. We didn’t have a local SIM card yet because a) If you are reading my blog with your eyes open, you would know that we did not have time to do anything other than catch our ferry as soon as we landed and naturally did not have time to buy a SIM, and b) We arrived on a Sunday and EVERYTHING, I repeat, EVERYTHING is closed in Seychelles on a Sunday.

After taking a couple of wrong turns and ending up at someone’s backyard over a hilltop and then being barked at by their dogs, we realized we have officially lost it and need to return to the port to start navigating all over again.

Eventually we reached our destination. Bert (the house owner) was just getting done with setting up our apartment. He briefed us about the do’s and don’ts of the house, showed us around etc, gave us a couple of recommendations about Praslin etc. By the way, we landed this amazing amazing amazing property on Airbnb, I will link it below if you would like to check it out. The place was better and more economical than any hotels in Seychelles. I highly recommend this villa for any couple who wishes to stay in Praslin. Really amazing price point (given that good hotels are very expensive in Seychelles) and bonus points for the private beach right outside your villa!

Just in case you want to see the villa

The rest of the day, we just wanted to soak in the beach views from our villa, so spent the entire afternoon doing just that. Later, had a scrumptious dinner of Fish and Chips and Veg Curry at a restaurant called “Britannia Hotel“. The food was good but it will leave a dent in your pocket if you earn in PKR :p In fact, food in the entire Seychelles is expensive (maybe ’cause of the conversion rate or because they mostly import stuff from other countries, I am not sure). It’s also difficult to find halal food. After a couple of attempts, we gave up our search and planned to cook our own food thanks to the fully equipped kitchen in our villa.

The next day we had big plans to explore Praslin as this would be the only day out of the three nights we would be here before leaving for Mahe. We had already spent Day 1, and on day 3 we had plans to go to La Digue Island.

In the quest to discover Praslin, our first stop was Anse Georgette. Our host, Bert, was so kind to book it for us beforehand. The way to the beach is through Constance Lemuria Hotel, so you first need to call up and take permission. It’s free of cost, but you still need to make a booking with the hotel first. We parked our car outside the hotel, after which it was around 30 minute walk to the beach through the beautiful, green, clean, eye-candy level golf course of the hotel.

Golf Course and way to the beach! At Constance Lemuria Hotel, Praslin

Once at the beach, we realized that this place really is out of heaven. I had never seen such a beautiful beach. Loved being there so much! We spent a good amount of time there before heading back home for lunch.

Had some coconut water too 😛

Seychelles is all about beaches. If you are a beach lover, this place is heaven for you. People often say ke kia faida, har jagah beach hai, sab aik jaisa hi hoga. I think that’s the beauty of it. You get to explore so many gorgeous beaches, hang out, chill, sleep, get sun-tanned – that’s all a wonderful experience too.

Post-lunch we headed out to Anse Lazio which is another beach. It’s geographically close to Anse Georgette, but you have to go all the way around the island to the other side to reach it. However, the drive is really beautiful. You just can never get bored of driving in Seychelles! Each and every road has a wonderful view going on along it that you simply feel rejuvenated.

I found Anse Lazio to be a very populated beach. There is a bar/restaurant there as well for you to enjoy some drinks if you wish to. The tide was also good for swimming or just to get your feet wet. I loved it. Also, it was at a pretty nice stretch.

After lazing around at Lazio, we decided to call it a night. It gets pretty dark to drive around at night there so we headed home before sunset. Also wanted to capture the sunset really bad this day ’cause the beach outside our villa was BOMB really. Just see for yourself:

Hope you enjoyed this post! Stay tuned for part two where I will take you around La Digue! 🙂

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Useful Links:

Villa Belle Plage – https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/17980719?s=51
Britannia Hotel – http://www.britanniahotel-seychelles.com/
Catcocos Ferry – https://booking.catcocos.com/