I finally came up with this post since I have been asked practically the same questions for the last few days! Most of the people landed on my D5000 blog post in which I describe my first experience with eBay. So, this post will go mainly to Mauritians wishing to purchase something on ebay, some sort of eBay purchasing guide

Secure Payment

That’s the main concern of most…

• Be re-assured, payment on ebay is totally secure!
• You need to have a paypal account, linked with your credit card *yeah, u need one*.
  When you create your paypal account, you need to “connect” your credit card to that paypal account. Once set up, paypal will carry out a tiny transaction to check if you are actually authorized to use that card. Once this transaction has been done, you need to check your credit card statement (either through an ATM or internet banking) and type the transaction code on paypal so as to get your credit card and paypal linked together.
• Whenever you buy something on ebay using paypal, you will be required to enter your paypal login and confirm before the transaction is carried out. All of these go over a secure SSL line, no need to worry…

Note : Paypal accounts in Mauritius CANNOT receive money, not yet, neither from other persons nor through “donations” done on web sites.

What if my item never reaches me?

eBay even thought of this possibility… That’s why the site is one of the most reliable places to do your online shopping.

eBay Buyer Protection, everything is in the name…

In case you don’t receive the advertised item or the item does not reach you, the first thing you should to is : Contact the seller.
The item may have been delayed somewhere. Most sellers with whom I dealt were great, helping as much as possible. Some may even propose to send another item meanwhile or reimburse you. If ever the seller does not revert back to you, eBay advises you to open a case on the Resolution Center. This will enable you to recover your full purchase, including the shipping cost.

However, always be sure that the item provides eBay Buyer Protection, displayed on the item’s page. Also, it may be advisable to insure your costly item for a few dollars, usually offered by Seller during the purchase.

Finding the right item

eBay contains thousands of items on sale through bidding or “buy now”. So, it might be a bit difficult for you to browse the virtual stores without having the slightest idea about what you wanna buy. For your first purchase, let’s simplify things, we will be talking about “Buy now” items only, no bidding…

Do you really have a $2000 budget? So, as we say in creole : “Pas faire gros liziers!”

Set the minimum/maximum amount you are ready to spend!

IMHO, one of the best features of ebay remains the search engine driving the site. It is free, do try it out!

It is useless spending time browsing items which cannot be shipped to Mauritius. Make sure that the results listed are available to Mauritius by selecting “Mauritius” in the advanced search options.

Finding the right seller…

Sellers on ebay rely a lot on feedback, positive ones. No one wants to deal with a seller with loads of negative feedback. On the other hand, top rated sellers are the ones usually offering a better service, fast shipping etc… And everyone wants to deal with those “top rated” eBay sellers, marked as below :

If you wanna find out negative feedback from a particular seller, you can use third party web sites to check this out. Head over to http://toolhaus.org/ and type in the seller name :

This is one of the best tools to check out more info about a seller. As you can see, there was only 34 negative feedback and 5898 positive ones registered over the last month. Now up to you to read the negative ones to see if they are really bad or the buyers were simply ’stupid’. btw, I highly recommend CameraAuctions for your purchases. My D5000 and SB 600 flash both come from that shop
Hi to the great people out there!

Shipping and tracking

I have been using ebay for less than 1year, purchasing items starting as low as $1 up to the most expensive one at $700…. The items have been shipped from different countries, including US, UK, Hong Kong and China.

Most of the US sellers out there use USPS (United States Postal Service) to ship the items. The commonly shipping methods available are :

• USPS Express Mail - See details in above screenshot
  ULTRA FAST and Costly but takes only 3-5 days to travel to Mauritius
• USPS First Class Mail
• USPS Priority Mail

You can get more info about the 2 last shipping here. The items usually take 2-3 weeks to reach the island.

USPS Tracking page : http://www.usps.com/shipping/trackandconfirm.htm

Hong Kong post.

While purchasing my Tamron 70-300mm, I paid nearly $50 dollars for shipping. pff. Nevertheless, the parcel took over 3 weeks to reach Mauritius. At that price, it was much worthy to purchase the item from the US and pay for an USPS Express Mail for the same price!

Hong Kong post tracking page : http://app3.hongkongpost.com/CGI/mt/enquiry.jsp

And China?

lol, I don’t even worry about items shipped from there… It usually takes 4-6 weeks, no need to hurry

Free Shipping

It is sometimes tempting to look for items marked with “Free Shipping”… However, the item might take 3-5 weeks to reach you and no tracking is available for these “free shipping” items. So, be patient!

Collecting your parcel

Yay! You finally got a card from your postman, asking you to come over to the post office… Take your ID card and run to the nearest post office asap!

Depending on the type of item/price/size, it may be collected from the post office directly. In that case, just sign the necessary papers before going away with your parcel.

Now, if your parcel/item is quite bulky/expensive/important, the postmaster will handle you a card, which needs to be shown at the Parcel Office of Port Louis. All (if not most) personal purchases collected there will be charged a vat amount of 15%.

VAT Calculation :

Given that you have purchased the item for personal use and below Rs10,000, you will be charged a vat amount of 15% on (The value of your purchase – Rs1000). Example : Your item costs Rs8000, you will be charged 15% vat on Rs7000 only.

Hence, do not forget to add the VAT amount in your estimations before buying an item.

Post office delivery charges

I do not know the exact amount, but you may be charged around Rs50-100. Unfortunately, I have no additional info on this part. I just paid it quietly

Purchases over Rs10,000 – Critical!

All items valued above Rs10,000 cannot be cleared out of the customs without hiring the service of a “Customs Broker”, a.k.a “Courtier Maritime”. These persons will thus be representing you and carrying out the necessary paper works so that you can get your item out of the customs. They will need some of your personal details to register you at the Mauritius Revenue Authority as an “importer”. Their fees might vary. I paid Rs1, 400 to the one I hired for my camera.

So, before confirming your purchase of over Rs10000, make sure that you add the custom’s broker fee to the purchase’ total amount.

Duty on certain items

No duty is applicable to camera equipment. However, items such as Bags have a duty of 30%!

So, if you bag costs Rs2000 on ebay, make sure you add (30% + 15%) = 45%, which roughly comes around Rs2900… A few weeks ago, the MRA officer advised me to check the MRA web site for further details about the duty on applicable items. Need to find that list!

Some last words…

We are no more living in a remote island and the advances in technology are bridging the little gap which still exists. Online payments are becoming part of our everyday life, unlike some years ago. The price difference is indeed huge, I had the opportunity to compare prices of DSLR cameras a few months ago.

Shopping online through eBay might be the only solution to Mauritians if they need to access items either not available to Mauritius yet or simply, items at a more reasonable price. From what I learnt, transactions on Amazon and Google Checkout are not possible for us yet, but I am confident that in a few years time, we won’t really feel that we are thousand of kms away from the biggest stores of the world…

I end this long post with these words and hope that the content here really helped you to understand some basic things about eBay, especially if you are looking forward to your first purchase from within the paradise island of Mark Twain…

Feel free to share and like this article on Facebook!

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Post tags: achat ebay, achat enligne, acheter sur ebay, buy on ebay, buying online, checkout mauritius, customs ebay, customs mauritius, delivery ebay, douane ebay, douane maurice, Ebay, ebay basis, ebay mauritius, livraison ebay, MBC ebay, pay ebay, paypal maurice, paypal mauritius, SBM ebay, secure ebay mauritius, USPS maurice

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A ce jour, je n’ai heureusement pas entendu parler les accidents impliquant ces véhicules à deux roues. Mais est ce qu’il faut vraiment attendre que quelqu’un trouve la mort pour que les autorités prennent les actions nécessaires?

Pas plus tard qu’hier soir, je suis passé à coté de deux scooters électriques :

• Le premier : Un garçon d’environ 12-15 ans dirigeait le véhicule, accompagné d’une autre fille, du même age.
• Un second scooter les suivait de quelques mètres. On pouvait clairement déduire que c’était très probablement le père et la mère. Et deux autres enfants (environ moins de 5 ans) étaient coincés entre les deux adultes!

Malheureusement, j’ai pas pu les prendre en photo mais je crois bien que beaucoup d’entre vous avez peut être déjà vu d’autres exemples de ce type.

Des enfants au volant de ces scooters…

Très souvent, des enfants moins de 15-8ans sont au volant de ces mobylettes électriques avec l’autorisation des parents.

Ont-ils une notion du code de la route? Comment peut-on autoriser ces types de véhicules roulant à plusieurs Km/hr à des gosses?

Quelque temps de cela, j’ai cru entendre que les autorités voulaient introduire le port du casque obligatoire pour ces véhicules, mais rien de concret a été réalisé en ce sens. Tout comme les motocyclettes, ces scooters électriques sont des vrais dangers pour les usagers de la route mais je crois bien que nous devrons s’attendre à quelques morts pour que les choses commencent enfin à changé…

© Yashvin, pages of my life, 2010. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: code de la route, danger, danger scooter, dangerous vehicles, driving scooters, mauritius road, mauritius scooters, road safety, scooter electric, scooters, Scooters électriques

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While the authorities are making daily press conferences to announce measures taken to reduce  H1N1 flu and trying to deny/cover up real figures about the number of people infected in Mauritius, vast vaccination campaigns are being carried out in the island. Officially, only 2 persons have died from H1N1 for the current period…

Some months earlier, only the elderly and other persons at risk were given access to the vaccine in our hospitals. However, as a precautionary measure, the Ministry of Health has now decided to provide free vaccination to every Mauritian. Today for example, government officers of the Emanuel Anquetil Building of Port Louis were invited to get vaccinated on the 5th floor, occupied by the Ministry of Heath.

Some additional posts to read : How to protect yourself at work (funny) and another article on H1N1.

My questions today :

Are YOU willing to get yourself vaccinated against the H1N1 flu?

Yes/No? Why?

© Yashvin, pages of my life, 2010. | Permalink | 18 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: campaigne de vaccination, Flu, Free H1N1, Grippe, Grippe A, H1N1, mauritius, Ministry of heath, vaccin H1n1, vaccination campaign, Vaccination gratuit H1N1, Vaccination Grippe A

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After the disturbance caused by certain people in a ceremony held inTriolet by a community of people commonly known referred as “Mission” in creole, a similar one was on the verge of taking place in Bambous a few days ago. Fortunately, the authorities were already present to discourage anyone from going beyond their limits.

Since then, a few hindu associations have been protesting and requesting an anti-conversion law to discourage people to change religion. They are also claiming that these people are forcing people from other religious beliefs to join them. On the other hand, the other community denies all these allegations.

What do you feel about these incidents? How should the Mauritian population react? How will the authorities deal with this?

Feel free to express yourself on this topic…

IMPORTANT :

• Comments will be strictly moderated. Anonymous, vulgar and inadmissible wordings will not be approved.
• As far as possible, I will remain totally neutral…

Once again, don’t forget to click the “LIKE” and “Share” buttons below

© Yashvin, pages of my life, 2010. | Permalink | 92 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: catholic missionary, hindu, hindu mission, mission, mission maurice, missionaries, religion

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The bloggers’ event finally took place as planned… The day was great, slippy, muddy, fun and tiresome!
14 persons replied positively to the bloggers’ event invitation, of which 8 are bloggers.

All of us met at Shoprite where a van picked us and drove to Petrin, at the start of the hiking path. Shortly after our arrival, we had to take out our raining coats and umbrellas, for some.  The views were simply gorgeous…

Halfway, we stopped at Machabée view point to have lunch while admiring the vast area in front of us… The same area which was the remaining part of the hiking journey.

Small funny incident :
A sweating guy coming from the other direction, asked Julien if this was the way towards “7 Cascades” lol.

We took roughly 4.5 hours to walk from Petrin to the other side, Black River Visitor’s Center.

At the end of the day, another blogger joined us. Indeed, Reena DKL  accompanied by her cute little daughter and her husband, Michel were waiting for us in the park. After a little chat, she made the traditional bloggers’ event painting which you can see.

Many thanks to

• Tushal – The one who claims he never fell down during his monthly visit to Gorges
• Sun – The man who falls where no one falls lol
• Girish – Fell 6 times
• Carrot – Still anonymous in the pictures, locate him! I met him for the first time!
• Varsha and Yogesh
• Preetesh (and his 4 soldiers) – Very active team, always in front lol
• Julien and Christine – Welcoming expat-blog to the bloggers’ team
• Reena, Michel and Tasya – The banner is great, Reena!!! btw, that makes a total of 9 bloggers!

Finally, special thanks to Fadil(dormant blogger) for making the transport arrangements

That’s all folks!

~ The End ~

© Yashvin, pages of my life, 2010. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: black river gorges, blog hiking, bloggers, bloggers meet, bloggeur, event blog, hiking mauritius, maurice bloggeur, mauritius, natural park, petril, third bloggers event

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Hi!

So the World Cup finally ended with the Spain’s victory over Netherland.

We have to give credit to the excellent organization of the event which was the first one in Africa and which also had its loads of surprises making this a unique world cup!

Here are some of the main topics which someone would remember of the tournament:

• Vuvuzela: it sounded like a bee hive during the matches, irritated a lot of the viewers, is as loud as an airplane, but finally everybody adopted it as the instrument got so popular being even used in strikes in France! [Read post]
• French player strike: As Zidane said in an interview, everybody would remember the winner of the world cup and the French players strike! Never ever seen such thing before, deplorable is the word! But well it also reflect the countries constant strikes and French revolution attitude
• Referee mistakes: This World cup saw 2 terrible referee mistakes during the Germany-England and Argentina-Mexico Matches. These are mistakes which could have been avoided if the video was used. This is a continuous debate for which Fifa really should do something!
• Suarez of Uruguay hand: After a very intense action at the last minutes of prolongations, Suarez hand, or hand of gods, saved the team from a defeat from Ghana. This was a sad and unfair action which deceived all the African continent in gaining their first team to attend semi-finals. The penalty after could not be achieved, and maybe should fifa consider giving a free goal if a hand is used to save a goal
• Shakira’s Waka Waka : Song which was constantly being played on radios, tvs… This time for Africa!
  Even translated in other languages! lol

• Paul Octopus: Last but not the least, the spychic Octopus everybody was talking about: his predictions were correct for 8 consecutive matches!! That makes 1 out of 256 chances to make a correct guess. This Octopus created such a hype during the world cup that angry supporters wanted to kill and eat it, other considered it as a star, and even Spain government willing to send special forces to protect the gifted one

[youtube]

Don’t hesitate to share your views on this world cup!

Once again, don’t forget to click the “LIKE” and “Share” buttons below

Image from fifa

© Yashvin, pages of my life, 2010. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: coupe du monde, Maurice, paul coupe du monde, paul octopus, world cup 2010, world cup mauritius

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The Mauritian population is watching one of the worst tv serials ever, filled with marriages, divorces, cheap relationships and ongoing betrayals among the family members themselves. My blogger friend Bhoot has recently written a nice article here. As far as I know, this serial is being broadcasted on the Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation TV since at least year 1999.

Recently, the MBC has rescheduled the broadcast of the hindustani serials and consequently, “tulsi” is on our tv screens only 3 days per week, but 2 episodes on Tuesdays… At the end of the day, the result is the same. And the worst thing is that, MBC is now broadcasting the “Mahabharat” serial, already shown on TV years ago.

I seize this opportunity to recommend “Sarabhai vs Sarabhai“, on air every Thursdays at 19hrs.

Please spread the word

Finally, someone has got the guts put an end to this (at least, try to). He contacted me to share this petition link in order to collect the maximum of signatures. In addition to the petition, we also created a facebook page which we hope will grow very fast.

Once again, don’t forget to click the “LIKE” and “Share” buttons below

© Yashvin, pages of my life, 2010. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, Mahabharat, MBC tulsi, Sarabhai vs Sarabhai, stop tulsi, tulsi, tulsi mauritius, tulsi petition, tulsi virani

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Only one (1) of the thirty four (34) of the prisoners is still in the wild at this moment. Members of the police has captured the Steve Monvoisin, the one who is believed to be the “Michael Scofield” of the local version of “Prison Break” which was shot on the 27th June 2010.

While some of the prisoners surrendered themselves, the others were captured by the local forces… Things to remember :

• Prisoners escaped from the GRNW prison a few days after the announcement made by the PM in the national assembly about the high level of security in our prisons.
• A few prisoners called private radios to reveal their reasons why they decided (or were forced to) to do this act. They also used private radios as a medium to communicate with the police, asking for security and fair treatment after their surrender.

It is now clear. The job is being done correctly by all (or mostly) and hopefully it won’t take too long to capture the last one. There are times when we need to encourage the police by showing that we are proud of them.

So, this post goes to these persons who deserve to be congratulated for the work accomplished. Keep it up!

Bon weekend!

Don’t forget to click the “LIKE” and “Share” buttons below

© Yashvin, pages of my life, 2010. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: escape GRNW, Maurice, plan evasion, prison break, prison escape, prison evasion, prison plan, prisoners mauritius, Prisons, steve monvoisin

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Together with other Mauritian bloggers, I am trying to organize a bloggers’ event once again, like we did for this one at Mac Do and here’s the one at Flic en Flac.

Finally, after doing a small poll with some bloggers (Thanks for your participation), we came up with the following :

What ? Bloggers’ event

When ? Saturday, 17th July 2010

Where ? Black River Gorges

Who ? Bloggers + Friends

Why ? To have fun!

And you know what? It’s even more fun when it has been raining, so get yourselves prepared

Come and join us…

Whether you own a blog or regularly visit and comment on blog articles, this is an open invitation to everyone who wants to join us… It will also be a great opportunity to meet the guys and girls, usually hidden behind those wordpress or blogspot urls. Depending on the number of persons, I will be making transport arrangements, either a 15-seat vans or a 30-seats minibus which will drop us at Petrin and wait for us down, on the other side. We might also go to some beach (Tamarin or Flic en Flac) if we have time.

So, now I would like to get the names of all the serious people out there who wanna come with us…
You are kindly requested to either leave a comment or send me an email at yashvin@gmail.com or a facebook message.

Obama ine dir “Yes we can”, MAM p dire “It is the time! noune parE!” Cross fingers!

btw, we do not bite…

© Yashvin, pages of my life, 2010. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: black river gorges, blogger meet, bloggers event, bloggeur mauricien, gorges, maurice bloggeur, mauritian bloggers, meeting bloggeurs

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In short, Defensive driving consists of thinking about the worst thing that might happen due to drivers’ mistakes or any other unpredictable situations and how you can deal with it appropriately to reduce any risks involved.

Good drivers make errors too, human errs but there are still loads of careless drivers on our roads :

• A car suddenly turning to its right or stopping without giving any signal
• Crashing into a vehicle because signal lights were not working properly
• Door of a stationed car opening suddenly
• A stupid driver fails to comply with rules
• Loads of more examples, don’t hesitate to add them in the comments’ section!

Above are some of the situations in which the consequences can be reduced or even avoided, perhaps saving life. A few general good practices :

• Keep your intentions clear while driving.
• Always slow down at pedestrian crossings.
• Be alert, do not panic and fasten your seat belt.
• Avoid (or be very cautious while) driving behind cycles and motorcycles.
• Be visible on the road by using the appropriate lights, turning your headlights when necessary.
• Watch ahead for oncoming traffic and keep an eye on your mirrors for any vehicles around you

Lastly, in the event of an accident, try to limit damage to you, your passengers and your vehicle. There are many ways how you can do that depending on the situations. Anticipating these scenarios can keep you alive and away from small hassles with insurance companies and hospitals!

Can you share other examples and how drivers can try to avoid them?

Do not hesitate to correct me if I wrote anything wrong above. Thnks.

© Yashvin, pages of my life, 2010. | Permalink | 18 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: conduite defensive, conduite preventive, Defensive driving, defensive preventive, example defensive, mauritius road accident, preventive driving, road accident

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