[Dietmar]

Hi Eunice,

hope you are having a nice week end in singapore then!?

"Oh yes, when I was reading the brief history of Mauritius, I thought I was reading the history of Singapore! Haha! It's really similar. Just that the culture of Singapore is mixed with more of Asia's culture on the whole. Thus, our local population comprises more of Chinese, Malays and Indians. With the influx of expatriates, we too have become multi-cultural."

In Mauritius the dominant group of people comes from Asia to, mainly from India.

"English is our first language in school, thus tourists can converse with us easily. Though our local language are still spoken more frequently on a casual basis, like the different dialects of Chinese, Malay and Indian."

Here at primary school pupils learn english, french and an oriental language of their choice usually corresponding to their origins. In high school they then choose another language such as spanish.

"Singapore is really small so in a way, it can be governed be upgraded more easily, as a whole generation."

Mauritius is a little bit bigger than singapore, around 3-4 times the size of singapore. But Mauritius also has a sea territory which is around a million square kilometres which includes some islands such as Rodrigues where people also live. Mauritius is also experiencing a rapid upgrade of its economy and infrastructure at the moment. Mauritius still dreams and aspires to reach the level of singapore someday.

"We have limited ground so architecturally, we have to grow upwards and thus, most of our natural resources have to give way to high-rise buildings throughout."

This is not the case yet here. Some cities have some sky scrapers, but they are not by way as high as in your country. Maybe in future we will have some as those. We still have space for agriculture here. There is still a long way to go in improving the agricultural sector. Compared to Africa, Mauritius is way ahead, but its level of efficiency is not yet that good because we still import lots of vegetables that we could have planted here on our own. Also some African countries have provided Mauritius land that can be developed by us. And Madagascar aspires to become the central grains distribution country and depot in our region as they have very good and big vast lands excellent for rice cultivation and other crops. How is Singapore handling its dependancy on food imports ?

"To me, it is still the best and safest country to live in, especially from natural disasters such as earthquakes, and rain or snow storms."

Mauritius is quite safe in sense of criminality even though it doesn't mean you can go walking around anywhere alone at night. Concerning weather, Mauritius is located in a region where there are Hurricanes during summer, so from time to time we are visited by these.

"Though we love to travel to places where natural resources (namely beaches and forestation) are reserved, for us to enjoy the beauty of Mother Nature."

...which you could enjoy here very well

"Hmm, this makes me curious. Does Mauritius have 4 seasons?"

No, just 2. Summer and Winter. Summer is like from november till may, and winter is from june till the end of october. All year round its nice to visit. Winter here is in some regions more enjoyable than its hot humid summer. Depends on what the person prefers. On summer its also nicer to go the beach as the water is warmer. Summer here averages a 33°C during the day and Winter averages temperatures in its 23°C. Humidity here is often around 80 - 90%-

"Or just like Singapore, summer throughout?"

Probably as humid as singapore.

"What's the best time to visit Mauritius"

Hmm, depends on what kind of weather you prefer. Really nice is also May. Not to hot, not to cold..

"with perhaps local festivities being held in a granduer manner, for us to see the culture of Mauritius?"

Actually in mauritius, every community has its public hollidays which amount to around 14 public hollidays a year also including the chinese new year celebration, the ramadan and so on...
But you can come at anytime, to experience the culture of mauritius! In my new coming website we will talk more of these festivities, so maybe you can select a date then corresponding to a celebration you might want to experience.

"In Singapore, whenever big games are being broadcasted, coffee joints and pubs will show the telecasts via big projector screens for people to hang out and watch the games together, instead of watching alone at home via cable channels. Does Mauritius have such a football scene to? "

Hmm, i don't think such a lively scene exists here yet. Most often people gather in groups at friends home to watch the games. Here in Grand Baie, where I stay, which is the most popular location in Mauritius for tourism, has several bars, and in my street there is the Bar B51 which often displays football games through a projector. I've watched some stuff there, but not the full games. The last game i watched in a bar was for the last world cup in 2006 where I was in France, we watched France loose, don't remember against whom they played...