Praslin

Six thousand coco de mer palms in a valley that has changed very little in millions of years, with a nut that weighs up to twenty kilos and a shape nobody describes without a pause. General Gordon came here in 1881 and concluded it was the Garden of Eden, which tells you more about the Victorians than the valley, but the valley is genuinely strange.

It takes two hours at a slow walk on made paths. Go early, before the coaches from the ferry, and take water. It is a rainforest floor and it is warm.

Anse Lazio is at the northern end of the island and is a long curve of white sand between granite headlands with a restaurant at each end. Anse Georgette is smaller, harder to reach, sits inside a resort's land, and is the more beautiful of the two.

Both are on the north and west of the island, which under the December-to-March monsoon are the windward side. In those months the sheltered water is on the south and east, at Anse Consolation and around Baie Sainte-Anne.

Praslin is about twelve kilometres end to end and the whole island is served by two bus routes and a road that runs around the coast with one steep road over the middle. Journeys are ten or fifteen minutes. A car is useful rather than necessary, and plenty of people manage on the bus and a taxi at night.

The Cat Cocos fast ferry from Victoria on Mahé takes about an hour and runs several times a day. It is the normal way to arrive and the crossing is open sea, so it can be rough between May and September.

Domestic flights from Mahé take fifteen minutes and land at Praslin airport, which is a strip and a shed on the south coast.

The inter-island ferry to La Digue leaves from Baie Sainte-Anne jetty and takes about fifteen minutes. Boat trips to Curieuse and St Pierre also leave from there.