Dubreuil is the most remote village in Mauritius. It is the village that is furtherest from the sea and any other village. While it might be isolated geographically it is by no means an isolated community. The friendly locals are happy to show you their great village and help you order the best snacks and even let you say hi to a horse.
Famous for its tea, we started at the Kuanfu-tea factory, but it was closed, hopefully, we will make a video about that soon. They have a full-size football field and an astroturf indoor-outdoor field, which Riki called action soccer, at the start of the town, with a kids play area. They looked new, so things are happening in Dubreuil. But we were hungry.
Our first food in the middle of Mauritius was some roti at a very popular place. After inspecting some plants for brooms we ordered a chicken roti for Riki and a veg with piment (chili) for me. Most places have a little something extra that they add to a roti and this was no exception. They add what we think was Chou Chou (Chayote), which adds the texture of a potato, but a great fresh taste. The chicken roti had a great flavour and tons of meat in it.
What was great was no one spoke English, but they went on found a guy who did. In hindsight, I should have tried the haleem, as everyone had ordered it. Off to explore the town and its many community centers. There are more community centers in Dubreuil than I have ever seen before.
At the young boys YC they have some of their trophies on display, and they seem to have won quite a few. There is a huge bus stop next to a restaurant that was sadly closed. After walking around and seeing more centers and sports courts, not sure, either volleyball or badminton, we found a church and some temples. Prith Snack looked good for a meal with a great dining area.
We ended up in what I called the shopping district, it had quite a few shops, that are correctly marked on Google maps. We met Natasha and bought one of each of her 2 rupee snacks, chana puri, a cabbage one which was the best, a gateaux piment and a few others. They were great with the relish.
We stopped at a few temples and some odd buildings and also found the tree that supplied the material for the brooms. There is an ashram with an attached hospital, the priest is currently stuck in India, but we did get to see the small dam and they actually labeled their trees. One was a Karamja tree which is also Indian beech.
While we were driving off we watched in almost disbelief as a man rode a horse down the road. It was a moment that reminded us of where we were. Almost as if Dubreuil was saying “this is a place where anything can happen.” Our final stop of the day was at some of the tea plantations.
They had been pruned back to the branches due to the neglect during the lockdown. The good news is that the plants are starting to produce again and the government has released a grant. It was fitting that we ended at this point as tea is important to the area and it was great to see its glorious return.
Dubreuil might be in the middle of nowhere but it certainly is not to be overlooked. The people that live there are friendly and helpful and it feels appropriate that they have the most community centers as they are one big community of 2500 people, that seem to laugh a lot and a nice smile can be found where ever you look.
Great content! Keep up the good work!