Travelogue - Seychelles

Imagine a place where people are happy about everything.. No big complexities in life.. You work from 10 to 4:30 / 5 PM on weekdays..Everything in city is closed from Saturdays 1 PM .. Most of the natives party on Saturday & Sunday evenings on beaches... That's Seychelles.

A quickly planned trip over an extended weekend. We flew in EK 705 from Dubai. 4 1/2 hours flight.. A quick tip for all flying to Seychelles - Always take the window seat and make sure that you land there in the morning. The runway in Mahe Island runs parallel to the coast line..The view that you see while you land is one of the best experiences that you get in the trip.

Snippets from the trip.. 

Long time back when I used to collect stamps & coins, it was very difficult to get a few stamps / coins of small nations like Seychelles. I'm no longer into those hobbies. But somehow, didn't want to forego this chance.. Central post office in Victoria, the capital city has a philatelic center. Bought a few from there :).. Few of those where released to commemorate Prince William & Kate.  They came to one of the Islands in Seychelles for their honeymoon. ==> http://www.north-island.com/  . 

Clock-Tower, Victoria.  Erected in memory of Queen Victoria. Perhaps one of the smallest capital city areas in world. Most of the significant areas in capital city are at a walkable distance from this point. 

Waves, beaches & pristine beauty . Cameras cannot capture it fully .. You have to experience it. Umpteen spots around the island. Thanks to our wonderful guide Alrick - http://discoveryagritour.com/   . Highly recommended if you are ever visiting Seychelles. He'll explain everything about the island with apt historical , cultural & scientific background

Seychelles Flag 

Blue for the Sky, Yellow for the Sun, Red for their hearts, White for the beaches, Green for the vegetation. This tiny nation has imagination !!  And Seychellois are proud of their heritage  

Coco De Mer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_de_Mer

This tree is unique to Seychelles. The gender of the tree is known only when it produces its flowers / seeds .. That happens when the tree is about 20 - 25 years old. Lot of stories / legends associated with it..


Aldabra Giant Tortoises 

Again unique to the Seychelles Islands.. They can live upto 200 years apparently.  Endangered species..Conserved in special enclaves.. Nature has even created an Island there in the shape of a tortoise.












The creole cuisine.. Fish, Tuna, chicken  & octopus curry..
Non- veggie's delight.. :)

The cuisine is highly spicy.. with cinnamon as a main ingredient..

"Lavenir  dan ou lanmen" - Your future is in your hands..   Big words  for a small nation.  Till a few years  back Seychellois had no options for higher education.       Now, they have a university which offers a lot of courses.. A few Seychellois who are educated abroad have come back and joined as professors over there..

The beauty of Seychelles is that it'll make you realize that people can be happy with limited opportunities...  Limited income, limited ambitions, limited dreams.. They seem to be blissfully unaware of the high-paced world outside, yet quite content & happy about that ignorance.. At-least for a moment it makes you wonder , whether you really need to have all the riches to be happy in life.

Euro : The Curious Case of Profligate family member

Someone asked me a few days back about whats happening over the Eurozone crisis. It took a while for me to explain. However, i've been thinking about the correct way to explain it in a simpler language. Here it goes

Imagine a big joint family ( i.e, European Union), whose members are practicing different professions . Each has their own pet concerns, but supports each others in times of need .Suppose a profligate member of the family starts spending beyond his means. To meet his expenses, he starts approaching money lenders or banks. The lenders, because of the fact that he's from a reputed family initially starts lending to him at lower interest rates or without guarantees. This puts additional fillip to the spending person and his income expenditure gap widens. Gradually, lenders tend to doubt his capacity for repayment and reduces loans to the all members of the family. This creates difficulties even for the well performing members of the family . The knee-jerk reaction is to try to bail out the spendthrift. But even after bailing out couple of times, if he goes back to this overspending mode, what will you do ? You have two choices 1) kick him out of the family (2) make him follow an austere path somehow.

This is precisely the question that European Union is facing now. And the exacerbating fact is that the profligate member is no longer a fringe nation like Iceland. They are major economies like Italy. Few years back in my introductory MacroEconomics course at IIMK, professor Nandakumar explained the pitfalls of getting into a monetary union without making a fiscal & political union. Such a union is inherently unstable . Europe could have never achieved a political or fiscal union as cultures are totally different from one side of continent to other and they require different kinds of political policies. Maastricht treaty which established the concept of Euro was fundamentally flawed in that angle. It was an attempt to put up a strong front which would combine the bests of different factors of production , or rather efficiencies prevalent in different parts of Europe . It was a political stroke without working out necessary economic fundamentals. Given the quagmire that Europe is in now, the costs of pulling out of Euro is far higher for even the strong economies like France & Germany. Hence, I think in the short run, these powerhouses will force the rogue member states like Greece & Italy to follow good fiscal discipline. But in the long run, the associated loss of freedom ( both economic and political ) will be too much for these nations to bear. A decade down the lane, i won't be surprised if Euro nations are just the well performing economies of Germany, Netherlands, France etc.

Why Inefficiency Is Better ?

Seventy Eight years ago, two nations (lets say A & B) were distressed with inflation , corruption & unemployment. A person in country A ( a hero, already by then by his clean background ), blessed with extra-ordinary oratory & crowd pulling skills  , proposed an 'Enabling Act' .  It was supposed to be the 'Law to remedy the distress of people', which gave him sweeping powers..  He didn't have the necessary majority to pass the bill in parliament. By a carefully crafted campaign of mass public hysteria, he appeared to have the backing of masses,especially middle class. Parliament was burned on one day. Shortly after that, the Enabling Act came into place. The immediate economic impact was enormous. The corruption level was minimized, economy was galvanized, the nation dramatically pulled itself out of the great depression .. and much more...Masses hailed him as the hero who replaced a non-functioning system (Parliament) and brought efficiency in all spheres..  But the price this particular nation had to pay for this 'Enabling Act' was big..   This particular 'Enabling Act' became the basis of the greatest tragedy that was to fall on human race in the last century..

The president of nation B implemented a set of policies advocated by eminent advisors. The resistance to these policies / laws was large. People in country B initially loathed the president. It took a very long time for the country to get prosperous. But finally it emerged as the economic superpower of world

- The Nation A was Germany . Nation B was USA . President of nation B was Franklin D Roosevelt.
They key difference between Germany & USA was that USA respected systems which put checks and balances in place by accepting inefficiencies

You cannot draw parallels everywhere. But the above story illustrates why we should always prefer systems with inefficiencies over draconian power systems. Because the functioning of an authority vested with unbridled power is solely dependent on who is at the head.

The story also illustrates on why majority opinion / referendums should not be the basis for law formulation. Democracy is not entire-population-based decision making. It is about electing representatives who would form laws in the best interest of society. For if, majority based views were always reflected in laws, we would have crazy laws everywhere. To put it simple, the 'will' of people cannot always be enforced as a law.

The success of nation depends on the institutional strengths , checks & balances & the culture. It is a delicate balance. Nobody, even those of highest moral eminence should be allowed to subvert that. Agitations & lawmaking should be directed towards strengthening the institutional balance, rather than making them all-powerful