Pina Colada in hand. Swaying palms heavy with yellow fruit. White sand squishing through the toes. Sun kissing the face. A lobster lunch on the table.
De-stressing doesn't get better than this.
It's not difficult to understand the attraction of Mauritius, where the powder-blue sky slides into the gently rippling, crystal-clear, gem-like sea with its varying shades of turquoise.
And with its long-held good name, the tropical island experience doesn't get much better than that at Le Touessrok.
It's here that actress Liv Tyler launched her new perfume last year and, by all accounts, had a decidedly joyful night of partying with a beach braai on one of the hotel's own little private islands, Ilot Mangénie, one so romantic it is used for beach weddings throughout the year.
British head of the Virgin group, Richard Branson, and French film star Gerard Depardieu are also among those who have visited Le Touessrok, happily forking out anything between R75 000 and R130 000 a day, depending on season, to hire one of the three heavenly villas.
Each villa comes with its own chef and butlers who alternate in shifts. Each has its own infinity pool with in-built jacuzzi, as well as gardens with outdoor waterfall showers, stone bathtubs, separate entrances, a golf cart and all mod cons.
The villas offer three large super-luxury bedrooms furnished in cool, contemporary interpretations of Mauritian style.
The attraction of the hotel and its heavenly surrounds is such that one regular guest, an Italian pasta-producer with mountains of cash, returns annually, for up to a month at a time.
He calls Le Touessrok his home from home and has even arranged for his rooms to be decorated in his own choice of furniture - which the hotel staff are happy to do, stowing it away each year when he leaves and ensuring it's all neatly in place, just as the tycoon likes it, when he returns the following year.
And some staff admit there are bright smiles when the man does return as his mountains of luggage (up to 84 suitcases for him and his wife at last count) often contain gifts for hotel staff who have now become longtime friends.
Sun Resorts's flagship hotel, a 50-minute drive from the airport of the Indian Ocean island's capital, Port Louis, Le Touessrok literally means "everything is rock" in French.
It is set on a unique site with the mainland hotel, its two private islands and a championship, 18-hole golf course on an island serviced by a team of dedicated professionals.
The exclusive, almost home-style hotel of the beginning - which attracted celebs like legendary singer Jacques Brel, and guests who were starting to discover paradise-island Mauritius - gave way to Le Touessrok in 1978.
It was seen as a dream hotel offering the possibility to its lucky guests of enjoying the private islands of Ilot Mangénie and Ile aux Cerfs.
Le Touessrok also marvelled guests with a choice of delicate and traditional seafood, and over the years its reputation grew, as the hotel developed and expanded.
Villa guests at Le Touessrok are indulged to the nth degree. Conde Naste Traveller magazine reports how British socialite Tara Palmer-Tomkinson variously ordered her villa butlers to organise a private fireworks display and join her in a game of indoor soccer using a watermelon for a ball.
Le Touessrok's PR manager, Karen Joorun, tells of a client who preferred goat's milk to cow's. A nanny goat was duly dispatched to the resort for a daily milking.
Joorun also chats about another Le Touessrok client who asked his butler to arrange a personal "barachois" (shallow lagoon) for which he and his team had to trap shoals of fish with small nets and bed linen.
The guest then insisted on netting his own fish, which he managed with the butler's help, before releasing them afterwards.
It's all in a day (or night's) work for the staff at Le Touessrok.
Adds Joorun: "Some of our butlers have known guests for three generations, from grandparents to grandchildren. They all come to Le Touessrok to get married or celebrate their anniversaries."
There's a butler for every eight guests in the deluxe rooms while the villas have their own.
Ninety-eight suites are on the hotel's Frangipani Island, 37 deluxe and 32 junior suites in its Hibiscus Wing, 31 deluxe rooms in the Coral Wing. All rooms have ocean views, expresso machines, flat-screen television sets, Dolby surround sound DVD players, cordless phones and free Internet connection.
After a day of bathing in the sun and sea, one can visit a variety of restaurants. Overlooking the Trou d'Eau Douce is the sprawling Three Nine Eight restaurant, a culinary event in itself: nine different kitchens on three levels, with "live" open kitchens. It offers a wide variety of cuisine in a buffet format.
For Indian fine dining, one simply has to visit the elegant, circular Safron restaurant overlooking the hotel pool stage, where nightly entertainment varies from dance and fashion shows to jazz bands.
With a more informal atmosphere, the beach-based Barlen's, a few steps away from the hotel gym and heated outdoor pool with in-built jacuzzi, serves good lunches and dinners with stunning views of the blue lagoon.
Le Touessrok also offers nine treatment and relaxation rooms at its plush Givenchy spa. Open from 8.30am to 8.30pm, it incorporates the heated pool and fitness centre.
For those seeking alternative exercise, four illuminated tennis courts are available, as is the fine golf course on Ile aux Cerfs island and, also nearby, big game fishing, scuba diving and horse riding.
On the glorious Ile aux Cerfs, accessed by a short boat trip, Le Touessrok offers complimentary use of canoes, kayaks, laser sailing dinghies, sailing boats, pedal boats, glass-bottom boats, snorkelling, windsurfing and water-skiing.
