Grand Bassin, also called Ganga Talao, is a crater lake about 550 metres up on the central plateau, in the Savanne district, and the most sacred Hindu site in Mauritius. Most days it is quiet: temples along the shore, monkeys on the railings, mist coming off the forest. Once a year, for Maha Shivaratri, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims walk here from all over the island. Which of the two you see depends on when you go.
The statues
You see them long before you park. At the entrance stands Mangal Mahadev, a 33-metre statue of Shiva, 108 feet, inaugurated in 2007 and modelled on the one in Vadodara, India. Facing it is a statue of the goddess Durga, Durga Maa, built to the same height and unveiled in 2017. Both are places of worship as much as landmarks.
The lake
The lake fills an old volcanic crater and is ringed by temples and shrines. Devotees leave flowers, fruit and incense at the water's edge, and on a weekday morning you may share the shore with a handful of families and a priest. Walk the lakeside path slowly; this is the view that takes the time, not the statues.
How to visit respectfully
- Entry and parking are free. Donations are welcome.
- Cover shoulders and knees, and take your shoes off before entering any temple.
- Ask before photographing people at prayer.
- Keep food out of sight. The monkeys are bold, and feeding them makes them bolder.
- Go in the morning. The plateau is noticeably cooler and wetter than the coast, so bring a layer.
Maha Shivaratri: the week it changes
Maha Shivaratri, the great night of Shiva, is a public holiday in Mauritius and one of the largest Hindu pilgrimages outside India. In 2027 it falls on Saturday 6 March by the Hindu calendar; the date becomes official when the government publishes the year's public holidays. For the 2026 festival, on 15 February, the authorities planned for around 350,000 pilgrims.
In the days before, pilgrims dressed in white walk to the lake from every corner of the island, many carrying kanwars: decorated arches of bamboo, flowers and mirrors, some of them enormous. The police set size limits, in 2026 no more than 3 metres high, 2 metres wide and 5.5 metres long, and ban generators on them, and volunteers line the roads with tents handing out water and food. At the lake pilgrims collect holy water to take home, and the night itself is spent in four rounds of prayer.
Visiting that week
You can go, but treat it as what it is: a religious event, not a spectacle.
- Expect slow traffic across the plateau for several days, with police and medical posts along the main pilgrim routes at La Marie, Plaine Sophie and Pétrin, and extra buses running around the clock on the key days.
- If you are driving, give walking pilgrims plenty of room and allow far more time than the map says.
- If you want the lake quiet, go a few weeks before or after.
Getting there and combining it
There is no convenient public bus, so Grand Bassin is a stop on a driving day. From Flic en Flac allow about 45 minutes each way. It combines naturally with the Black River Gorges viewpoint a few minutes further on (see our Black River Gorges walks), with Chamarel and its rum distillery, and with the Bois Chéri tea estate to the south.
Photo: Starts, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
