Magical Maldives

Caution :  Photo heavy long post.   Don't tell me I didn't warn you 👩

Maldives is a travel destination for honey mooners and the newly weds and by those standards, J and I were 25 years late. Actually, as I key in this I am laughing out loud (LOL). 

On our 25th Anniversary

The 25th anniversary plan was to spend a week of laid back time, doing absolutely nothing but just unwinding. More for J than me, he has been a workaholic all his life, been there for everyone in his family and mine, physically, emotionally and otherwise, literally spinning around all these years and a break was becoming a necessity. So our pit stop after Srilanka was Maldives, Hulhumale to be specific and then to an Island resort where we planned to just laze around.

Just outside the Male Airport

Maldives always conjures up pristine beaches, white sand beaches, beach villas in the sea, exotic food and a mesmerizing skyline in our minds and Maldives didn’t ever disappoint us. The various shades of blue, that I have never seen in my life all these years ( and that’s quite considerable number of years, considering my age). The shades of blue that I have seen only in my paint palette was alive in the wild nature at Maldives – Teal, Aquamarine, baby blue, Turquoise, Electric blue, Blue green, Navy blue, Prussian and Royal blue and much more when the sky and sea merge. Such vibrant colors, Maldives makes anyone feel like they are in a make-believe world. 

Male is the capital city of the Republic of Maldives, which itself consists of around 1200 islands, divided into multiple groups of islands called atolls located in the Indian Ocean. Tiniest country in the world, the capital is just 5.8 square kilometers. We could cover the entire Male city in less than half an hour with ample time to look around, by foot. That’s how small that place is. Maldives also imports every damn stuff from other countries primarily from India and Srilanka except fish, including their workforce. Their primary source of revenue is from the tourists and they should be doing well as their currency is atleast four times the value of ours. 

At the park in Hulhumale

The Male airport, Valena international airport is one island by itself and is connected by a man made road to Male city and another man made island called Hulhumale, where we stayed on arrival. Hulhumale is smaller than Male city and most working class people, including the expats from various countries live here. It just took an hour to go around Hulhumale, which has a nice beach, a good park, few eateries and a football ground. Easily just as big as one of the societies or condominiums in India. 

Old Friday Mosque - The oldest Coral
Stone structure in Male

On the day tour that we took up, to cover Male, we saw the presidents house, which was a small villa, the Police headquarters, Grand Mosque, Sultan Park, the fish market (smaller than a department store here), the vegetable market and another tiny mosque called the Hukuru Miskiy mosque, which is also known as the ‘Old Friday Mosque’ and it is one of the oldest and most famous places in the Maldives. It was built in 1658 by Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar. The structure is made up of coral stone and has peculiar and unique architecture and is honored as one of the World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. In fact, to me this Mosque looked almost like a temple in Kerala. All this in half an hour by foot and the guide told us, we are done with Male and you can now go to the ferry that will take you to the Island resort. 

The ferries and boats are the main mode of transport here. Westerners dominated amongst the tourists adding up to 80 percent of the people we saw and the remaining were Asians. Indians much rarer. Just a irrelevant statistic for you folks.

So, did we relax? That was the best part of this mile-stone vacation as we kept calling it. We had picked up snorkeling equipment from India, given the fact that J may not like to put in something used by others in his mouth, and we both geared for snorkeling. I had my collection of books in my Kindle, and a book that I literally stole from Dennu’s stack. “24 hours” a thriller by Greg Iles and I was also reading Viktor Frankl’s Mans search for Meaning. Have never read like this continuously without a care in the world, since my teenage and before marriage years. Greg is a fantastic story teller and I found it difficult to leave the book down. My gratitude journal accompanied me and I wrote in it from the serene beaches. A bliss that I never even knew existed. I finished Greg Iles by the time we got back. 

It took us around 25 minutes by speedboat from Male city to reach our place of stay, that we had finalized after all the research and Paradise Island resort welcomed us with all its charm and both J and me were allured by it. This place is a literal paradise and we knew why it’s a honeymoon destination, when we set foot there. And both of us have concluded that Maldives is the best place of earth, we have visited together so far. Ahem.

Paradise Island resort at Night

In local language it is called Lankanfinolhu Island and has nothing but the resort. That’s how most islands in Maldives are, owned by the resorts. It’s a scenic Island, luxurious and though there are around 500 villas of varying grades, since its pretty spacious, we rarely found anyone photo bombing or any crowd at all. Many times especially in the early mornings, during our strolls, I have felt we were the only ones in the island. The beach is pristine and I never wanted to stay indoors except when I went to sleep. 

Paradise Island Resort 

The sand which probably is the residue of all the coral is a fine powder here on the beaches and its soft unto touch. I played with it like a little child. The fine sand was almost like the rice powder which I use to make Puttu, ( steamed cylinders of white rice powder) back home – sigh! What a comparison! Walking on the beach barefoot on soft white sand, was nothing short of magic. I even did my early morning jogging ritual. The villas were spacious with every facility a five star resort would offer, with open to sky bathing areas along with closed ones too. 

So what did we do there which turned this trip magical? Let me list a few for you 

Snorkeling 

We went with a professional for a snorkeling trip and we started with practice for an hour. J enticed the crew with his ocean swimming skills and jumped straight into the ocean without even a life jacket and swam to the sand bank where we were scheduled to take our snorkeling lessons. I needed a life jacket and a bit of goading to jump in to the water, but I managed my fears, like a lady 😊 This was the first snorkeling experience for both of us, and J took to it like a fish to the water. I needed an Instructor to guide me and hold my hands, until the sheer beauty of ocean outdid my fear and much later I realized, the instructor had let go of my hands. He took almost an hour for practice session which was by itself awesome. The water was crystal clear, the coral reefs were white in color and against them the fishes so bright and colorful. I kept saying WOW, and my voice would be muffled through the equipment. I guess my eyes have never opened this wide, ever before, looking at all the beauty, ocean had to offer. We were spoilt for choice with all the sea life there.

The crew then sailed off to deep sea and our actual snorkeling happened there. Until I snorkeled in the deep seas of Maldives, hadn’t remotely thought that the ocean is such a magical place. We saw millions of fishes, with vibrant colors and the scenes down below in the ocean were completely out of the world. The colours were nothing close to anything that I have set my eyes on, in planet earth. We had gone at the peak season, ( it was a coincidence as our anniversary falls in January) and the visibility was excellent and the marine life that we saw was so diverse. TLC and the national geography channels that we watched all these years, didn’t do any justice to what we saw in the ocean bed, such was the abundance of fish. 

Snorkeling in Shallow waters at Cinnamon resort 

Corals, Colorful eels with tiger print on them, schools of Manta Rays, graceful and disciplined, such huge and large fishes showing us that they are the gentlest of the creatures, bright colored clownfish, parrotfish, Lionfishes, Angelfishes and snappers and many others that I couldn’t identify made it an unforgettable experience. J swam away from us for sometime, in the opposite direction and realized that there were really huge fishes including sharks and so he got back. I also saw a few scuba divers down below and watched them for a while. They were touching the corals and taking pictures 

My fears overtaken by the beauty of the ocean, I could remove the equipment once in a while and talk to the trainer and ask him questions about the marine life. All of the remaining days in the resort, J would go into the seas for Snorkeling, I would remain close to the shore and snorkel and put our equipment to good use. 

Kayaking

Enjoying the kayak ride

This is a seated water sport which allows you to paddle across the open sea. The paddles are double sided with a blade on each side and I figured out J is pretty good at paddling in the sea. He could paddle to the deep sea, hassling even the instructor, but yes the views were breathtaking. The only instruction I got from J was “Vincy, sit still”. I should have joined the paddling, but ladies do get some concessions you see, especially if you do not know how to do it. The best was since J was around, I was brave in the waters. 

Dolphin cruise 

Tamed Dolphins are a sight to watch in water shows hosted in many countries and though we have watched plenty of them, cruising along with Dolphins in the wild and in their habitat was a first time for us. Luckily for us the crew told us the previous day, they couldn’t spot a single Dolphin and to our surprise, we had 10 to 12 of them showing off their graceful swimming skills cruising along with us for more than 20 minutes. The best part of this cruise was the moment they go underwater, the crew clapped hands and whistled and they would come up and swim with us. The crew were equally surprised and called us lucky to have seen so many of them and for pretty long time. 

Shark feeding 

Sharp at 7.00 pm everyday, sharks of varying sizes, some probably as big as me or even bigger, come near the patio of Farumathi restaurant, one of the 5 restaurants in the resort. Since we knew about this schedule, we were there much earlier and we saw some lone fellas, floating around the patio, which was 15 feet above the sea water. Since the water was clear we could see them coming from near and far. Looks like the sharkies know the schedule too, at 7.00 pm, an employee starts feeding them with fish and there is a riot of these fellows for the food. At least around 50 of them, falling over each other for the food, while the guests from around the world gaped in astonishment, cranking their cameras and mobiles to capture the rare scenes. 

Manta ray feeding 

Hulhangu Bar is near the lobby and entrance of Paradise and it faces the entry way of the resort. It is on the shores of this bar, in the evening, with flood lights et all, you get to feed Manta Ray fishes. Manta is a Spanish word for Cloak or shawl. Now you get the connection? These come so close to the shore and an employee feeds them with fish pieces and they timidly eat out of your hand. If you are brave enough, that is. We both fed them, multiple times and I also patted some fellas. They seem to actually like it. Its nice the resort has these activities that keep the guests engaged. 

Hammock in the sea 

This was heaven

Paradise has set up a hammock in the sea ( yes there was one installed in the sea water). You can swim up or walk up, ( you know what I would have done – I actually danced up) to that hammock and lie there peacefully for as long as you want, provided it is free. There is someone there most of the time, and you may have to wait up in the shore for it to be free. The little movements of sea water would rock you in the hammock and make you feel that you are gently travelling in the sea, only to wake up to find you are in the same place. Again a dreamy feeling. 

Island hopping – Cinnamon Island 

Cinnamon Dhonveli resort at a glance

One of the things we did in Maldives hop to another Island, called Cinnamon Island. Bur after Paradise, Cinnamon failed to impress us. It was smaller, the shoreline was not as smooth as paradise – too many corals on the shore that would poke the feet, though the food and hospitality was awesome in this place. They had continental, Italian, Japanese and have lost count of their counters now. I tried a special fish noodles that had oysters, shell fish and baby octopus. I should admit that I am not adventurous with food and had to get a earful for J, for wasting the food. The dish was spicy and tasty, but I couldn’t put up with the chewiness of the fish. We both snorkeled here too, yes we carried our equipment. 

Photo shoot at the Sand bank 

This one beats all our experiences as the crew helps with a photo shoot. The boat rides up into a sand bank which would be 200 square meters of sand bump in the middle of the sea and since it is a photo shoot, I should let the pictures do the talking. Shouldn’t I?

Never in my wildest imagination did I think I would do something like this ! 

There’s a lot more that we did. In our own pace that is.  For example, we ate like there was no tomorrow. With the varied cuisines available around the clock, I am sure I have put on few pounds of flesh easily. And also, I read, I wrote, I dreamed, I walked barefoot, and looked at J snorkeling at a distance for hours together from the glistening white sands of Paradise. It was all nothing short of a dream come true. 

A milestone marked in Exhilaration.