RETURN TO EDEN

ESCAPE TO PARADISE WHERE SUN, SEA, SAND AND SOLITUDE ARE YOUR SOUL COMPANIONS.

- PREETI VERMA LAL

With a toe sunk in silken sand, 750 million-year old granitic rocks in the hood, and the accompanying orchestra of the turquoise waves, thoughts of the ill-fated Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, James Bond, British royals, and Adam and Eve may seem completely random. But in Seychelles, a string of 115 granite and coralline islands, they can pop up mysteriously. If you trust history-and gossip-a French planter who died in Mahé (1804) claimed to be Dauphin, the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Writer Ian Fleming shacked here to write the Bond adventure For Your Eyes Only. Prince William and Kate Middleton picked a Robinson Crusoe kinda island for their honeymoon. And if you believe the myth, the Vallée de Mai on Praslin and the Coco de Mer palm are the real Garden of Eden and The Tree of Knowledge.

LOCAL DELICACIES

→ Salade de palmiste (also called Millionaire salad), a salad with the heart of palms as its main ingredient

→ Daube Sweet potato + breadfruit or cassava stew

→ Pwason Sale (salt fish) chutney often served with green mango or grilled red snapper basted with garlic and ginger

→ Octopus curry made with onion, garlic, ginger, saffron, curry powder, herbs and cooked in coconut milk.

→ Cassava chips: Made of thinly sliced cassava

→ Mango salad: Sliced mango with onions and vinegar

→ Ladob Plantains baked with coconut milk and sugar. The savoury version consists of salted fish

→ Satini reken: Shark chutney