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If you love first-class hotels, warm friendly service, fine cuisine and watersports on tap, then you’ll love Mauritius. If you prefer independent off-track travelling, then you might not. Tourism is orientated towards the sort of super-equipped hotel that you don’t leave all holiday. Which is a shame, since Mauritius has so much more.

It is an initial surprise to see gleaming white temples and familiar British road signs alongside the fields of tall green sugar cane. With no indigenous population, the island has a great cultural diversity – nearly 70 per cent are of Indian origin, 30 per cent of African or mixed descent, and the rest French or Chinese. Mauritius has passed through the hands of the Dutch, French and British, but although the Brits ruled longest and most recently (up to Independence in 1968) and left their legacy on the highways, the French influence and language prevails.

Although when you think Mauritius, you think beaches, the island has a ravishing interior, volcanic and lush. I flew over by helicopter to Le Morne in the south, and hiked from Chamarel along a jungly 8 km marked trail with coastal views. I saw remnants of British colonial days at Eureka (pronounced the French way), a 19th century colonial mansion, where you can have lunch and walk down into the ravine and splash in the river. I also scoured the market in the capital, Port Louis, and stocked up on little straw baskets of the type that no Chelsea girl would be without.

Nevertheless, the prime motivation for heading to Mauritius remains to crash out in the sun and not have to think beyond your next waterski session or barbecued lobster. Mauritius is often compared with the Caribbean, but it scores more highly in several ways. For a start, people are generally welcoming and the atmosphere unthreatening. Perhaps because unemployment is low, there is no sense of resentment against the rich westerner, and certainly not against the British – far from it. The locals supported England rather than France in the World Cup. The people I spoke to appeared proud of their chequered history. ‘My surname is Poule,’ said my driver, Georges. ‘Hen! My ancestors were slaves. When the British freed them in 1835, they had to give them surnames. They just plucked a name out of the air. I am proud of my name.’

Mauritius devotees find the islanders more service-orientated than West Indians, and the cuisine more diverse – buttery-fresh seafood, fiery creole curries, spicy Indian and Chinese. Dining and nightlife is mainly in hotels, but, before you get lobstered out, do make a lunchtime foray to Le Pescatore restaurant, a Med-style favourite near Grand Baie.

You can’t rely on cloudless skies, but you’ll see sun, even in the rainy season (January to March – which is also the best time for deep sea fishing). May, September and October are the best months; in winter, June to August, the West Coast can be more clement. The East Coast, however, is the preferred one among smart hotels because it is more scenic, with inlets and islets, lagoons and bays. Mauritius seems to keep its holidaymakers happy and its residents loyal. As Georges said, ‘I’d like to touch the snows once in my life and then come back very quickly to my island.’

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