Seychelles (DAY 1) - travel

This year we couldn't decide where to go for holidays. We also didn't have much time to discuss it, cause Jeppe is finishing his master degree and I am working full time. Anyway, we decided by random choice to go to Seychelles - paradise on Earth, as it's called by many.
We took a flight from Copenhagen to Dusseldorf, then from Dusseldorf to Abu Ahabi and from Abu Dhabi to Mahe. The trip in total was 16 hours. It was sooo tireding, I was not ready for it, cause we flew right after my work on Friday at 7pm.

We flew with Air Berlin, but from Abu Dhabi we had partner flight by Etihad. I was so surprised when catering brought cutlery. There was real knife and fork, together with big spoon. I was like "what the hell, this is against all safety rules", but apparently it's normal there. Still don't understand it though.

The flight was delayed and we landed at 2pm next day (2nd of July). Already the view from the plane took my breath away. It was soo beautiful and that was just the airport area. I couldn't want to see more!

Unfortunately, when we stood in line to get our luggage - it didn't arrive. We were not the only one. With us there were standing around 15-20 other people whose luggage got lost. We had to stand in a huge line, cause there was only one lady working. We had to fill all information about the luggage, describe it and write our address, so they can send it to us. I was pretty nervous, because when we arrived I had nothing with me and Copenhagen clothes on me. I had long jeans, sneakers, top (stinky after the trip) and nothing more. Etihad told us that the luggage should come in the next flight (evening flight) so we took some Seychelles rupee and grabbed a bus towards our place. Our guest house was near Viktoria (capital) so the trip took around 30-40 minutes. The bus cost 5 srp (rupee) so it is pretty affordable for everyone and we very happy to integrate with the locals. We also heard that when you travel with the suitcase, you are not allowed to take a bus (cause it is simply full all the time and there is no space for luggage). Also remember to have max 25 rupees, because the bus drivers are not allowed to take bigger bills (we managed to ask him politely to take 100 when we took a bus from the airport, but he wasn't very happy about it).

The view on the way to Viktoria was amazing. I didn't check before that Seychelles are basically mountains. Beautiful mountains. We had to travel through the rain forest to get to Viktoria. On the way we saw how people live and how children play football on the streets. We were also pretty scared to drive the bus (locals call it "blue monster") because it was super old and it looked like it will burn while trying to go uphill. And there is a lot of hills on the way. A loooot!

Also, in Seychelles they drive on the left side of the road. The also drive like maniacs, so there were moments I feared for my life, but only until I got used to left side traffic.
What is good to know in Seychelles, that the bus stops are not mentioned anywhere. Even the bus schedule tells you only the time where the bus starts and where it should be in the next big place. All the small stops in between you have to control yourself and guess the time of arrival. Also buses are often not on time and they go every 30 min or every one hour sometimes. At the beginning it was pretty hard to adapt, thank God for GPS.

We arrived to our destination around 6pm and we didn't realize that it is so far away from the beach (on the map it looks so close, but we didn't take the mountains into considerations). When we arrived, the first thing what we did is to take a shower and go to sleep. We were insanely tired from the trip. I was also insanely angry that all our luggage is gone and I don't have clean clothes to change for, but I managed to fall asleep.

Shortly about our place - it's called Chez Lorna. It is a guest house, not a hotel like they write. It is lead by a lady called Lulu and she is super friendly. She lives there herself together with her son. He two daughters come there for a weekend. The family is super nice.
The room is equipped with air conditioning and a small fridge. Bathroom contains nice shower and a toilet. The only bad thing was that we had a room just under the hosts and the walls are not really thick. We could hear everything what is happening upstairs, especially when the kid started jumping. I was not super happy about that.

Room overview from the last day there. We were too tired to take a picture at the arrival.