Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Islands are waiting to be promoted as tourist destinations. This provides great opportunity for eco-tourists who can visit before over popularity will spoil much of the atmosphere, ambiance, natural scenery and fauna and flora. Situated deep in the Indian Ocean, these Australian Territories were once mined for their guano (Phosphates) and yet retain ecological wonders of its undisturbed tropical rainforest and marine life. (With a little imagination – the shape of the island resembles a ‘flying lizard’!)

A strange history permeates both Cocos and Christmas Islands – Once the preserve of a ‘Feudal’ Scottish family, short-lived occupation by the Japanese, British and ‘cession’ to Australia, and its modern day conflict with the flood of immigrant ‘Boat People’, and a new Immigrant Detention Center. It has even been mooted as a possible ‘Space Port’ of the future.

There are two Container Ports on Christmas Island , Flying Fish Cove and the alternative port at Norris Point – in use during rough seas. A small resident population of less than 2000, it also hosts an airport with 3 weekly flights to Perth and weekly to Malaysia. A new Recreation Centre on Phosphate hill and an abandoned Casino. The road network is reasonably good, with only a few areas requiring four-wheel drive vehicles. Crustacean (Crab) and Bird species abound – a naturalist’s paradise.

Cocos(Keeling) Islands are another Coral Islands gem waiting to be promoted for tourism. Blessed with an infrastructure of a WW2 Aerodrome (now an International Airport) and Oil Terminal and various Anchorages, the South Keeling circle of islands has the potential to become a Resort Destination between Australia and Sri Lanka. North Keeling Island with its encircled lagoon offers a smaller scale development potential within the ‘Pulu National Park’ area, which protects the only endemic bird, the ‘Buff banded rail’ and a number of sea bird and Green Turtle breeding colonies. Around the archipelago are more than 500 species of fish, from migrating Whales and Dolphin to the local Angelfish and a plethora of reef fish. The wreck of the WW1 SMS Emden provides a focal point for diving opportunities. Both islands are lined with coconut palms – the major export industry.

Cooled by the Trade Winds for about nine months of the year, the climate is pleasant, except for the Monsoon Season early in the year. This idyllic little paradise is perfect for the tourist who seeks natural relaxation or adventures of discovery above and below the ocean.

Comores are sandwiched between northern Mozambique on the East African coast and the large island of Madagascar. As an ancient staging post between Arabia, India and later the European traders the islands were systematically occupied and reoccupied – much like the Mediterranean islands. These beautiful islands today still reflect many cultural and political divisions between East and West.

For the tourist that appreciates and enjoys seeing the cultural diversity, the Comoros and adjacent areas in the Indian Ocean offer a unique experience. Of the four Islands, the French owned Mayotte island is an ‘Overseas Department of France’ and has the best tourist orientated infrastructure and is surrounded by an amazing reef protecting the islands mainland, and is considered to have the world’s largest lagoon.

The other Arabic islands of(Fr)Grand Comore (Ngazidja), Mohele (Mwali), Anjouan (Nzwane), and their many islets have an as yet undeveloped tourism industry because of political instability and have been prone to about 20 ‘take-over’s’ since independence in 1975. Grand Comore has an International Airport at the City Capital of Maroni and a harbor for Trading and sailing ships. The four islands also have one of the highest population densities in Africa, reaching almost a million souls. Languages spoken in the islands are French, Arabic and the local Comorean.

The French Island of Mayotte is topographically diverse, with deep undulating ravines and dormant volcanic peaks and hosts the capital city of Mamoutzou. The smaller adjacent island of Pamanzi and its town of Dzaudze has the best protected port and a military airport. It has three smaller notable islands of, Chissale M’Zamboro, Bandele and Sada, apparently unoccupied. The beaches, mostly in coves are stony and surrounded by lush vegetation. The islands are prone to cyclones in the rainy season and malaria infested yet Mayotte is a haven for the most spectacular diving in the world’s largest lagoon, where sea turtles abound and the humpbacked whales arrive in August and September to calve. Mount Choungui is a popular hiker’s paradise and local transport is by ‘bush taxis’. Languages are French and local Comorian and the Euro is the currency.

The Comoros Islands are for the adventurous and do not appear to have much in sophisticated tourism infrastructure but that could change soon!