The staircase at the Department of Immigration is the kind that makes you look at your shoes. Linoleum, a little worn, the colour of old paper. It’s not a grand entrance. But the air inside is cool and serious, and the quiet hum of ceiling fans reminds you that official things move at their own pace here. I brought my passport, a printed copy of my accommodation confirmation, and the receipt from that E-Border form I filled out before the flight. A woman behind the desk, kind-eyed, wearing a bright yellow headscarf, asked for the documents without looking up, and I felt a small wave of relief wash over me. The initial thirty days they grant on arrival never feels like enough time, especially when you're trying to imagine a life here, not just a holiday. So I came for the extension.
The office on the second floor is painted a soft government green, and the big windows look out toward the harbour, where the masts of a few fishing boats wobble slowly. I saw a man in a faded work shirt arguing gently with a clerk about a stamped form; the clerk was patient, repeating the same instruction with a measured calm that felt very Seychellois. My turn came quickly. I handed over my passport and rental lease. The officer, a younger man with round glasses, flipped through the pages, stamped something, and asked a single question: how long was I thinking? Three months, I said. He nodded, wrote the date by hand, and asked for about 7,500 rupees, which feels like about five hundred and fifteen dollars. Then he said, bonzour, and that was that. A quiet transaction. The mountain of paperwork had turned out to be a gentle slope, but the sense of legitimacy it granted was solid. Now my presence here had a future.
Out on the street, the drizzle had stopped and the air was thick with the scent of wet earth and car exhaust. I walked downhill, through the roundabout where the Victoria Clock Tower stands. The locals call it Lorloz, and it really is a charming, miniature replica of London's Vauxhall Bridge clock. It’s a strange little colonial echo dropped right in the middle of this tropical place. A bus let out a cheerful horn blast, and a cluster of schoolchildren in crisp uniforms chattered past me, their backpacks bright against the grey granite of the government buildings. I was heading to the Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke Market, the true beating heart of this town since 1840. The market is a city of sounds: the slap of fish on steel counters, the gossip of the spice sellers, the dry rustle of sacks of rice being poured into smaller bags.
The air in the market shifts as you move. Near the entrance, the flower stalls give way to a soft perfume of frangipani and tuberose. Deeper inside, the scent turns sharp and salty with the morning’s catch, arranged in neat rows on crushed ice. I saw fish I couldn’t name, with silver scales and startlingly blue eyes, and baskets of bright red snapper that I guessed would end up grilled with a squeeze of lime and a dusting of piment. A woman behind a high counter of fruits called out to me, holding up a small, black, spiky fruit the size of a bowling ball. Coco de mer? I asked. She laughed and shook her head, telling me that was for the tourists on Praslin, and this, this was just a young breadfruit for the pot. I bought a small bunch of bananas and a lime for about twenty rupees, a little under a dollar and a half, and thanked her with a smile.
I found a spot at a tiny takeaway counter nearby, of the kind that gets no name on a map, and ordered a plate of kari zourit — octopus curry. It came on a bed of steaming rice, the sauce a deep ochre, rich with coconut milk and the slow burn of local chillies. The price, about seventy-five rupees, is something around five dollars. It was the kind of food that makes you close your eyes and chew slowly. I took my plate and stood at the counter, watching the world move. The market floor is a mosaic of wet footprints and dropped leaves, and the chatter around me folded into a rhythm, a hum of sellers and buyers, of greetings and haggling that felt like an old song. I thought of the moutya, the slow, hypnotic dance where bodies move to the beat of a goat-skin drum, a tradition that once let slaves speak their sorrows in rhythm. I’d seen a photo in the museum, but here, in the market’s chaos, I felt its pulse for the first time.
I left the market through the back door, which spills you out near the French and Creole bakeries. The smell of fresh-baked bread was a solid thing you could lean on. I walked up the slope of State House Avenue, past the old stone walls of the government offices, and found a bench at the entrance of the National Museum of History. The admission is about fifty rupees, which I think is roughly three dollars, and it was worth every cent. The building is colonial-era, high-ceilinged and cool, and the exhibits trace the journey from the first French settlement to independence. I spent half an hour reading about the Arul Mihu Navasakthi Vinayagar Temple, which I could see the top of from the window, and about the lives of the early settlers. It’s a history that is not always easy, but it is told here with a straightforward honesty. The name for this island story, they told me, is about making a life from the sea and the granite.
By early afternoon, the heat had returned. The clouds pulled back to reveal a bright, sharp sun, and the asphalt of the streets shimmered. I decided to catch a bus from the terminal, just to feel like a resident. The bus, part of the SPTC fleet, was a faded green and white and left with a gentle shudder. The single fare, paid with a smart card I’d topped up that morning, is around ten rupees — maybe seventy cents. I rode out of the immediate centre, climbing into the district of Bel Air, the so-called noble suburb on the slopes above the harbour. The houses here cling to the hillside, painted in pinks and yellows and turquoise, with steep, mossy roofs and gardens spilling over with bougainvillea and takamaka trees. The road turned and twisted, and through gaps in the greenery, I caught wide views of the harbour below, the container cranes standing like patient, giant birds.
I got off near the top, by the entrance to a small path that led up to an overlook. The air was quieter here, and I could hear the wind moving through the leaves and the occasional cry of a bird. Below me, Victoria lay flattened by the afternoon sun, a patchwork of corrugated iron roofs and church spires. The ocean beyond was a rough, steely blue, churned up by the southeast trades that define this winter season. It was a different world from the shaded market stalls. I found a flat rock and sat for a long while, just watching the light change over the bay. The cost of a day like this is simple to tally: twenty rupees for fruit, seventy-five for lunch, fifty for the museum, ten for the bus. A day can be had for so little if you let it be measured in sun and dust and good smells.
On the walk back down, I paused at a small café terrace, one of those places that seems to exist only for the view. I ordered a cappuccino, about sixty rupees, and sat with the thick, sweet coffee and watched the road curve towards the city. A distant sound reached me, a low, rhythmic throb. Not a car, not a generator. I remember reading that the moutya drum is played with an open palm, a heartbeat, a pulse. It drifted from somewhere in the hills, a practice session, a private afternoon of music. It wasn't a performance for anyone. It was simply the culture, breathing. I finished my coffee and felt the rhythm settle underneath my skin, a deep, slow beat that matched the pace of the day itself. This is what I wanted from this journey, not just the postcard beaches, but the deeper sound of a life being lived.
I got back to the flat in Victoria as the light began to soften, turning the granite boulders on the hillside a warm gold. The little one-bedroom flat costs me about thirteen thousand rupees a month — that’s close to nine hundred and forty dollars — and I can hear the geckos already starting their nightly calls. I made some tea, sat by the window, and watched the lights of the town flicker on below. The permit is stamped, the cupboards have rice and lentils, and my card is loaded for the week’s bus rides. The urgency of arrival has passed. Now, there is simply the leisure of being somewhere else. Tomorrow, I’ll walk up Mount Fleuri and find the botanical gardens, but today, I feel the city has already told me a secret: it’s not a place you rush through, but a rhythm you fall into, one slow beat at a time.
A final thought for anyone planning this leg of a trip. Don’t just fly into Mahé and see the airport. Give Victoria a day or two. Walk the market before ten, when the crowds are light and the fish is freshest. Check your passport’s expiry date before the flight, and keep that E-Border receipt. And if you hear the moutya, let it stop you. Let it pull you out of your schedule, if only for a moment. It’s the sound of this place remembering itself.