Though Mauritius was an incredible island to explore, my favorite part of the trip was spending time with some special friends from Kingsley's Universtiy years.  Below are a few of my favorite snapshots from the week.

Our first day in Mauritius we took the opportunity to dive at a beautiful dive site called the Aqarium.  This was my first time in about a year so I was a little apprehensive about it,  especially since the surface waves were fairly significant just above the dive site.  I also had not done any diving in water that far south so it despite my 5mm wetsuit I was pretty cold, well actually freezing during the entire dive.  But all of that was so worth it for the beautiful turtle encounter I had which can be seen in the video below.   

Mauritius is an entire nation of immigrants, many of which are from India. Kingsley went to Universtiy with quite a few Mauritians who became his close friends.  Thus our trip back to visit these friends was very special for Kingsley after all of these years.  Creole is the informal language and is spoken in homes and between friends, but everyone also speaks English.

A good portion of the island is surrounded by an outer reef, which creates calm and piercingly blue lagoons for swimming and awesome water sports. We had a chance to kayak, water ski and do some amazing diving while staying at the resort.   

Overall I would highly recommend this hotel as a gorgeous place to stay in Mauritius.  I am hoping we can return to visit again someday soon. 

Kingsley and I took advantage of the long weekend over Singapore's National Day and went to stay at Telunas Private Beach Resort in Indonesia.  To get to the island you take the Batam Fast ferry from Singapore to Batam island in Indonesia, which takes about 40 minutes.  From there you take the Telunas resorts private boat for 1.5 hours to arrive at the resort. 

The resort proudly offers a no wifi experience which in today's day and age is actually a rare and refreshing find.  The hotel has about 18 over the water bungalows which are beautifully decorated and maintained.  There isn't any air conditioning in the villas however the contestant gentle ocean breeze kept the place cool. 

I would highly recommend this place for an easy to get to weekend break from Singapore.  

Kingsley and I tried Stand Up Paddle Boarding (SUP) for the first time at the resort.  One of us got the hang of it pretty flawlessly,  the other spent more time in the water than on his board! But we both had a ball and couldn't stop laughing! 

Neil and Kingsley were very close friends in school growing up in Johannesburg.  And have kept in touch remotely over the years as both moved away from South Africa.  Neil and his wife Amanda have visited us in Seattle once before many years ago and we visited them once in London.  Though we only had about 24 hours together this time around, it was fun to show them a bit of our lives in Singapore and to catch on all of the events over the last few years.  As often happens when spending time with lovely friend, we didn't have enough time together. Hopefully we can meet up again somewhere in the world one day soon.