The beautiful fake world of Mustique

As I've mentioned before, there aren't that many people that have heard of the island that we are currently residents of.  However, name drop the next closest Grenadine island - Mustique, and at least some people recognise the name.

The Princess and The Gangster

Mustique is a private island and most famously, a former secret retreat for Princess Margaret to go and shag criminals on the beach, and snort copious amounts of coke.  The royals still go there to frolic in relative peace, as because it's private, the paparazzi are banned.  In fact Wil and Kate love it so much, that the owner of Mustique's Basil's Bar (funnily enough called Basil) actually recreated his bar in the backyard of a London hotel the night before the royal wedding.   There was sand, bamboo and marguerita mix all over the show.  Basil himself also scored an invite to the wedding.  They must really love his rum punch.

Getting into it before the Middleton's arrive

Other celebrities have houses there too.  We saw Mick Jagger's modest beach hovel side by side with Bryan Adam's run down shack.  We also saw Tommy Hilfiger's simple gated cottage.  Apparently Oprah and Kate Moss also have shabby shitholes there somewhere.

Tommy wasn't home....I tried

The actual island itself is totally strange.  Basically it's a fake world of perfection.  Naturally of course it's a beautiful place - the colour of the sea surrounding it, is pure clear aqua.  But as soon as you step foot onto the island itself you realise that something just doesn't feel right.

It's too clean for a start.  There is no rubbish lying around anywhere.  The natural environment is, well, not natural.  There are rolling green pastures of perfectly manicured bright green grass.  This is in contrast with our island - wild out of control tropical plants, scrappy goats wandering around, and rubbish chucked all over the side of the road.

Not an empty can of coke in sight

Just smile and wave boys, smile and wave

Then there are the locals.  Here on Bequia, you will get a few casual waves, some smiles, but often there's a sullen stare of "What the fuck are you looking at whitey? give us some cash".  Not on Mustique.  I've never seen anything like it my life.  Every local we passed started waving like an out of control maniac, who lives only to wave.  Then there were the beaming smiles - I though they were going to break their jaws off.  Add a lot of "Hi there"s "How you doing"s and "Welcome"s and you start to feel a bit creeped out.  Our taxi driver took us to where all the locals live.  All of them compressed into a tiny collection of houses, on top of an out of the way hill.  Apparently 20 people live in each little house, and they all work for the multi millionaires that have their summer getaways located there.  Not only that, but when Mustique's residents die, they cannot be buried on Mustique - even if they've lived there all their lives.  Nor can anyone be born there.  if a woman goes into labour she is immediately rushed off the island to have her baby on a neighbouring island.  They seem incredibly happy though, or maybe they're on some kind of drug.  If so, I want some.

Another hill, another mansion

Mick and Byran's places are in the distance....way in the distance

We did a little more touring around the island, teamed with a swim at one of the few beaches that isn't private.  There was a lot of seaweed......that's probably why they let all of us peasants take a dip there.  What really spun me out though, was the horse farm we drove by.  There were large groups of plump white horses nuzzling each other in the shade of leafy trees.  They were surrounded by more bright green grassy paddocks, and stables that looked so comfy I was seriously considering asking if they had a weekly rate.  This horse heaven was right next to a complex of about fifteen immaculate tennis courts.  All empty.  It really was like we wandered onto the set of some movie or something, and everyone had gone home for the day.  The main form of transport on this island paradise are golf buggies - so that added to the movie set-like atmosphere.  It was surreal.  Kind of like a Stepford Wives type situation.

What's another mansion between friends

Hovel

As we boarded the boat ready to suck in an hour and half worth of engine fumes in the beating sun, I looked back at Mustique. I certainly wasn't in any kind of hurry to come back here again.  Besides, you need to pay absolute top dollar if you actually want to spend any kind of serious time here - in the vicinity of 3 grand a night.  I like Bequia much more.  It may be a bit rough around the edges, but I feel more at home here, than I would mounted on a white pony galloping through though perfectly manicured lawns with a gin and tonic in my hand.  And although it may be nice to kick back with a rum punch while watching Mick Jagger give an surprise performance at good old Basil's (it's been known to happen),  Bequia does get the occasional famous face as well.  Jude Law has been known to visit our island.  However, he's really lost it in recent years.  He used to be jaw-droppingly gorgeous.  This snap taken of him on the beach we visit daily is not his finest moment.  But as I just mentioned, Bequia is a bit rough around the edges, so perhaps Jude feels more comfortable here too.

Hey Jude