Desert Safari Dubai

All the best things in life include food. Celebrations with friends, relaxing with family, comfort after a long day and of course, travel. My list of best travel moments and top ten meals are almost identical; pirogi on Lake Baikal, a picnic atop the Meteora... the list goes on.

Just a few years ago, a tiny step off the beach front in Mauritius onto a literal road less travelled led me to the number one on both lists.

I was searching for a dive school to take me on my first wreck dive. I was headed to one of the fortressed luxury resorts in Grand Baie when a little scuba man, spray painted on an alley wall beckoned me to follow him. He led me to a small house with a front deck that doubled as a dive school run by Tum.

Tum. No fear of forgetting his name, big Tum with a big tummy and an even bigger enthusiasm for diving. Tum was so well insulated that he chose to dive in a pair of threadbare board shorts and a woolen jumper while I squeezed myself into 6mm neoprene from wrist to ankle.

We took his little tin boat out to the dive site and jumped overboard. At this point the most exciting adventure of my life began as we began our 42 metre descent. After minutes of nothing but blue, the wreck of the Silver Star loomed out of the deep.

It could not have looked more impressive and perfect had it been part of a James Cameron film. The electric excitement that coursed through me was so far at odds with the quiet majesty of the sunken ship and the leisurely pace of the large schools of fish that cruised around its decks.

By the time we returned to Tum's front room dive school, the sun was getting low over the bay and talk had turned to food.

"You are vegetarian?!" he bounced from his seat. Apparently the idea of Western vegetarian was a novelty to the Mauritian giant. "Wait here."

Still clad in his dripping dive jumper, Tum all but vaulted onto the bicycle leaning against the porch and was off down the alley. He returned minutes later with a stack of plastic containers balanced between the handle bars and his chin.

They contained, it turned out, left over delicacies from a Diwali feast at a neighbour's house. Fluffy dosa, curries and every type of chutney or pickle you could ever imagine - all vegetarian. A Diwali feast for one that could have fed half a dozen. And so I sat on the beach that evening basked in golden sunset, salty and exhausted, and gorged myself - all within in view of a painted scuba man who pointed the way to marvelous things.