Some tasteless humour

© David Mullineaux

The above photo was featured in the The Telegraph's Sign Language special photo gallery on toilet humour with the caption 'The world is your urinal'. 'Sign Language' is a picture gallery where readers send in amusing photos of strange signs and bizarre translations in the UK and around the world which are published each week. Pisse en l'air is a small waterfall on Reunion, in the cirque (natural amphitheatre) of Salazie, but ironically it's not the waterfall shown, which is actually 640m-high Cascade Blanche. Pisse en l'air literally means 'piss in the air' and it is another smaller waterfall renowned for falling from a cliff onto the road - and onto your car if you happen to be driving by underneath (make sure you keep your car windows closed!).

Something else that frequently amuses non-French visitors to Reunion is Le Tampon - this is the name of a town and municipality in the south of the island, not far from the volcano.

Le Tampon logo

While 'tampon' only has one meaning in English, in French it has several meanings,  including 'buffer' or 'stamp', however in this particular case no one is exactly sure of the town name's origin. There are several theories:

- Tampony is a Malagasy word which means 'viewpoint', or 'summit that can be seen from afar';

- it could come from tampon de combat, or 'shot plug', a type of stopper used to seal a projectile hole in a ship's hull during combat, and/or tampon d'écubier, which was a 'hawse-plug' or 'buckler' (a block used to stop up a hawse hole at sea);

- documents dating from 1727 mention a small river gully known as the Ravine du Tampon, so known because a tampon de hublot, or 'porthole stopper', had been placed there as a landmark. 

Keeping with the theme of toilet humour, I saw this sign in the lavatory on an Air Koryo flight when I was flying back to Beijing from Pyongyang (it also featured in The Telegraph’s ‘Sign Language’ photo gallery):

Hips don't fly

 Still on matters of taste, what about this on a Delhi restaurant drinks menu:

Name your poison - toxic or tonic?

Back in Reunion a restaurant in Saint Denis has these offerings on its menu:

Drop in for dinner?

For those that don’t speak French the Crotin [sic] de Chèvre Chaud should be ‘Warm Goat’s Cheese’ in English and not ‘dung’! (These photos were also featured in The Telegraph’s ‘Sign Language’ ‘Best of January 2014′ photo gallery).

Here Souris [d'agneau] (knuckle of lamb) has been translated literally as ‘mouse’:

Puts a ro-dent in your appetite?

Things have improved however, as a few years ago filet was translated thoughout as ‘net’ instead of ‘fillet’, and cabot de fond (a type of fish) was translated as ‘dog bottom’!

Related links:

• Tourist office of Le Tampon (in English)
• Translation Troubles
• Just the tonic!
• Toad of Road Hall?

Related articles:

• 'Hybrid' toilet - seen in India
• How not to go to the toilet - seen in Java, Indonesia
• Etiquette Bell - in South Korea
• Life in South Korea - includes a visit to the Toilet House

• Back to Salazie

My list of unique eating places

A chance question on Facebook recently asking about my favourite restaurant got me thinking - do I have a favourite eating place? On reflection I realised I don't as there are too many to choose from. There are many restaurants I've enjoyed for different reasons, depending on whether I was looking for relaxation, luxury or a fantastic view. So here are some of my favourites:

• Most 'desert island' - during one of my trips to the Maldives in 2005 I stayed on board the Four Seasons Explorer. One evening we were taken to a deserted island where the crew dug seating into the sand. When we arrived back on the ship later the remaining crew members played us music on local instruments. A truly magical evening.

• Most 'spiritual' - when we lived in South Korea we spent a weekend in a Buddhist temple, and on another occasion we also participated in a day of temple food cooking. Korean temple cuisine is vegetarian and generally avoids garlic, onions, leeks, wild chives or shallots due to their pungency.

Eating temple food at Gilsangsa, Seoul

• Most 'axis of evil' - any of the meals I had while visiting North Korea!

one of the dinners I had in North Korea

one of my lunches in North Korea

• Most northerly - lunch in the Icelandic town of Akureyri which is 65°N. We had spent the day diving in the nearby fjord.

• Highest altitude (on land) - any of the meals we had in Tibet which has an average elevation exceeding 4,500 metres (14,800 ft).

• Most 'chillax' - at a hammock restaurant in Cambodia somewhere on the road between Tonle Sap and Siem Reap.

hammock restaurant near Tonle Sap, Cambodia

• Highest above ground - in April 2011 we were lucky enough to spend two nights in what was then the world's tallest hotel above ground - the Shanghai Park Hyatt. Our room was on the 81st floor and meals were in the restaurants on the 87th and 91st floors - almost 400 metres above ground.

• Highest on a building roof - in 2009 we were in Bangkok on my birthday and to celebrate we had dinner at the open-air Vertigo restaurant of the Banyan Tree Hotel, located on the hotel's 61st floor.

a vertigo-inducing dinner?

• Favourite dessert - at the (now-closed) Bistrot de la Porte des Lilas restaurant here in Reunion Island they had my all-time favourite dessert: discs of chocolate interspersed with raspberries and fresh cream :-)

my favourite dessert

What about you? Do you have any unique eating places to share?

Spider tales

Here's a spider I photographed in my kitchen last night. A member of the Huntsman family of spiders, this is a Giant crab or Banana spider, known as a babouk in Reunion Creole (latin: Heteropoda venatoria). I see these spiders fairly often, but this is the first time I've managed to get such a good picture of one.

Heteropoda venatoria / Giant crab or Banana spider / babouk

Unfortunately the photo doesn't give much sense of scale, but the body is about an inch long (including legs it's almost the size of my hand). If you look closely at the photo you can see the erect bristles, known as setae, on the legs, each of which is marked with a black dot. Females can produce 100-400 spiderlings. These spiders often live in houses and don't spin webs but capture insects directly, injecting them with venom. I'm rather arachnophobic, but these spiders do eat cockroaches so I try and let them be!

Related articles

• Some useful words in Réunion Island

Videos for thrill seekers

Here are two recent videos which definitely show some of Reunion's possibilities for adventure.

In the first one, by Epic TV, Réunion plays host to wingsuit pilots Espen Fadnes, Jokke Sommer and Ludo Woerth. Between BASE jumps, they find time to explore  Reunion's waterfalls and cliff diving, but their wingsuit jump is still top priority. After days of planning and scouting, including an ultralight flight and wingsuit jump to scout out the area, the three pilots are ready for a flight from the top of Piton des Neiges (the tallest mountain in the Indian Ocean). But first they must get to the top...

 

In the second video the local organisation "Slack and run" equip and cross a highline at over 2100 metres altitude at the Trois Salazes Ridge separating Cilaos and Mafate. It's a site that offers a 360 ° panorama at the heart of Reunion (Images: Jean-Philippe Lorgeau & Jean Galabert; Editing: Jean Galabert). Don't watch if you have vertigo!

This second video was featured in the Daily Telegraph, see:Tight-rope walking on La Réunion, Indian Ocean

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• 48 hours in Cilaos & Ilet à Cordes
• Hiking from Dos d'Ane to Plaine d'Affouches
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• Belouve and its gîte
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• Crags and Craters review

Diving World Record in Reunion Island

(photo ©GPP)

Reunion Island's water sports and tourism sectors have been hard-hit by the recent spate of shark attacks. Although divers know that you have nothing to fear from a shark underwater, the general public has a different perception. This is  the main reason why on December 1st the local Groupement des professionnels de la plongée (GPP, Association of diving professionals) decided to create a positive action and break a world record by forming a human chain of 110 divers at a depth of 18 metres.

(photo ©GPP)

200 hours of preparation were necessary for the event, which also involved 40 extra volunteers, 13 dive boats and 14 dive clubs.

(photo ©GPP)

The youngest diver was 18, and the oldest 82!

(photo ©GPP)

Six photographers and cameramen were present.

(photo ©GPP)

It took place place at Saint Leu on the island's south-west coast, and although originally only a minute together was planned, in the end the divers managed 5 minutes and 12 seconds without breaking the chain, which measured 76.2 metres long.

At the surface (photo ©Laurent Figon)

Four independent judges were present to attest to the world record, which will be sent to the Guinness Book of Records for certification.

celebrating at the surface afterwards (photo ©GPP)

You might also like:

Diving, Reunion Island a video about scuba diving in Reunion Island.

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La Vallée Heureuse, Le Brûlé

At an altitude of almost 1000 metres, in a part of St Denis known as Le Brûlé, you can find La Vallée Heureuse, a beautiful 6500m2 19th-century garden inscribed as a French Monument Historique (National Heritage Site).

entrance, La Vallée Heureuse 

The owner, Pascale Boyer-Vidal, inherited the garden from her grandfather, and she organises visits twice a month. 

La Vallée Heureuse literally means the 'Happy Valley'. 

tree ferns

Pascale is passionate about the garden in particular and nature in general and this really shines through during the visit.

grapefruit tree leaves, note the two parts (small then large)

The garden consists of three different parts: a semicircular 'pleasure' garden with azaleas, camellias, hydrangeas and tea bushes; a 'practical' garden with bamboo, fruit trees and other useful plants; and an endemic garden with indigenous and endemic vegetation typical of that found in a mid-altitude forest.

footbridge in the pleasure garden

pond in the pleasure garden

azalea flower

path, pleasure garden

Throughout the visit emphasis is placed on nature, including the observation of birds and endemic insects. Pascale explains how she fights erosion and tries to restore the environment, and how she obtains endemic species to replant.

this species of yellow bamboo looks as if
someone threw a pot of green paint at it!

Pascale standing next to some (aptly-named) giant bamboo

toadstools growing at the foot of the giant bamboo

toadstool growing on a tree

The garden also has several Ginkgo bilobas, a tree that my husband and I got used to seeing when we lived in Seoul. Ginkgos are a very unusual genus of non-flowering plants that first appeared on earth 250 million years ago; Ginkgo bilobas are the only species of the genus left and are considered living fossils. They adapt well to urban environments, as they tolerate pollution and confined soil spaces. They rarely suffer disease problems, even in urban conditions, and are attacked by few insects. For all these reasons, as well as for their general beauty, they are excellent urban and shade trees, and are widely planted along many streets in Asia.

 gingko tree leaves

camphor tree

unusually on this species of plant the flower grows directly from the stem

Jambrosades originated in South-East Asia but are commonly found in Reunion, having been introduced as fruit and ornamental trees. They are also known as 'rose apple', 'water apple' or 'plum rose' in English. As a non-native species they are currently present in the garden to provide shade, and will be chopped down once the endemic plants they are shading reach adulthood.

jambrosade flower 

camellia flower

The visit lasts for about two hours, and afterwards you can share a cup of tea with Pascale and taste some of her delicious home-made jam (ambarella, Costa Rican guava …).

passion fruit flower

Practical information:

If you read or understand French take a look at the Vallée Heureuse Facebook Page which has beautiful photos and also contains some practical information about visits. Pascale also makes some handicrafts, which you can see here.

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