Mahébourg

Mahébourg's wide, well-planned streets date from its colonial past. A settlement first grew here in the Dutch period, but the town took shape under the French: the name first appears on a plan of 1804, it honours Mahé de La Bourdonnais, governor of the island from 1735, and General Decaen built barracks, fortifications and warehouses here. The site already carried the island's oldest European history: the Dutch had sailed into the bay in 1598, naming it Port de Warwick, and in 1638 made the first permanent settlement at Vieux Grand Port, a few kilometres north.

Its moment came soon after. In August 1810 a French squadron defeated a British force inside the reef in the Battle of Grand Port, the only naval battle commemorated on the Arc de Triomphe; a colonial house nearby, now the National History Museum, served as a field hospital for both fleets. The victory changed nothing in the end — a British invasion took the island in December of the same year.

The French had already made Port Louis the main port, and Mahébourg declined into a quiet coastal town, settling into the role it has kept ever since: a trading and fishing town for the south-east and the main town of the Grand Port District. A naval air station begun at Plaisance, near the town, in 1942 became the island's international airport, and the town has grown steadily since, although the tourism that transformed other coasts has mostly gone to the beaches south of it rather than into the town itself.

Mahébourg is a Creole town more than a resort, with a mixed population of Indo-Mauritian, Creole, Sino-Mauritian and Franco-Mauritian families, and the public calendar to match: Cavadee processions in January or February, Maha Shivaratri, when columns of pilgrims in white pass through on the way to the highlands, Eid, Divali, Chinese New Year and the Catholic feast days of the parish church.

Boats are central to local identity. Fishermen work the lagoon, the largest in Mauritius, and an annual regatta of sailing boats with brightly coloured sails is raced off the waterfront. The 1810 battle is remembered in a monument raised at the harbour in 1899 to the British and French sailors killed, and in the museum, and the naval past is part of how the town sees itself.

The other institution is the market. Mahébourg is a busy centre of local trade for the south-east, and a trip into town is as much a social occasion as a shopping trip, with people coming in by bus from the villages to meet, eat and talk. Otherwise the pace is slow, the greetings in Creole are unhurried, and visitors who take the time to greet before asking are treated well.

About 15,500 people live in Mahébourg, making it a substantial town by the standards of the south-east but a small one on the island. It is the main service centre for the coastal villages and the Grand Port district: the market, the bus station, secondary schools, clinics, banks and government offices all serve a much larger population than the town's own.

Work comes from fishing, the market trade, the sugar industry — the Omnicane group, whose mill is at La Baraque, is the area's largest employer — the airport, and tourism at Blue Bay and Pointe d'Esny to the south. Many residents commute — to the airport or up to the plateau towns — and the seafront promenade, rebuilt in recent years, has brought more visitors into the centre.

Daily life is governed by the trade winds and the sea: boats out early, the market at its busiest in the morning, a quiet middle of the day, and families along the waterfront in the late afternoon. The town's concerns are those of a coastal community on a windward shore — cyclone damage and flooding in summer, the state of the lagoon and its fisheries, which suffered when the bulk carrier Wakashio ran aground on the reef near Blue Bay in July 2020 and spilled oil along this coast, and the shortage of work for young people that pushes many towards the capital.

Mahébourg eats from its lagoon and its market. The catch — fish of the day, octopus, crab and squid — is cooked simply as grilled fish, octopus curry, or vindaye, made with vinegar, mustard seed and turmeric, and appears in rougaille, the tomato sauce eaten with fish, meat and vegetables. Curry and rice make the usual household meal, and briani is a favourite for larger occasions.

Street food is the town's everyday cooking. Dholl puri — soft split-pea flatbreads folded around a curry of large peas and tomato sauce — is sold from carts around the market and the bus station; with it go gâteaux piments, small chilli fritters, samosas, and boulettes, fish balls and meatballs with chayote served in broth by Sino-Mauritian counters. Mine frite, fried noodles, and bol renversé are found on the same streets.

The market is the place for tropical fruit, vegetables and spices, as well as for alouda, the Mauritian version of the falooda milk drink. To drink there is tea, a taste the island took from the British, Phoenix beer and local rum.