Travel Guide Port Mathurin

In the north of Rodrigues, Port Mathurin, the capital and only port of the island, is a peaceful, heterogeneous and cheerful town. Few cars circulate in the center of this pocket-sized town, mostly frequented by pedestrians and still composed of numerous wooden and metal stalls as in the past. A historical-political incongruity: the street names are sometimes written in English, while most of the inhabitants speak only French and Creole. The store signs, on the other hand, hesitate between the language of Shakespeare and that of Molière, and are often content to bear the names of their owners, most of whom are Chinese! Through its door, hidden by a curtain with big flowers, a hairdressing salon lets us see a small room in which a lady is putting curlers on her customer. Further on, a sign with extensions indicates: "Kitchen, dining room, furniture, we also do repairs"... Sausages are drying in the window. In the Chinese man's store, a supermarket before its time, you can find (almost) everything: mopeds, televisions, washing machines, postcards, clothes and some food products. With Christmas approaching, a plastic tree decorated with synthetic garlands is enthroned in the middle of an incredible junk shop... What an atmosphere!