We are off for some recovery time in the Maldives, so the blog will likely be a bit shorter this week. As such, we had to catch an early flight this morning to Malé, which is the capital of the Maldives which incidentally is the smallest and second least populous of all the countries is Asia. It consists of 26 atolls that straddle the equator and is home to around 550,000 people. Malé is the capital and the most populated city. The Maldives has an average ground-level elevation of 1.5 metres above sea level, making it the world’s lowest-lying country.
We are staying in a resort at the northern end of the country and it was a bit of a process to get here. We caught a 70 minute flight from Colombo to Malé and then had to find the representative from the resort who helped up get our boarding passes for the seaplane transfer to the resort which talk about an hour.
They seem to like airport busses here as we had to get on one from our arriving plane to the terminal and then another one to the seaplane terminal. The seaplane terminal is much newer than the commercial terminal. Importantly, the whole process is actually a well-oiled machine to distribute an estimated 1.8 million tourists last year.
As we left Malé we noticed that there is some pretty severe plastic bottle pollution, but as we flew further away could see the classic Maldives Islands with their blue lagoons even though today was a rainy day and there was no blue sky to reflect the water’ colours. Here’s some shots from the seaplane.
Once we arrived, we were welcomed by some of the staff and our personal concierge introduced herself. Her name is Olga and she comes from Russia. She is conscientious and speaks english well. We have noted that there are quite a few Russians staying her, so bilingual staff are helpful. There also a healthy proportion of Australians here as well.
Once checked in we had some lunch at one of the restaurants. Deb had a King Crab Pizza while I had Chicken Cordon Bleu. It was very pleasant sitting in the sun watching the world go by.
While it was absolutely pouring in Malé, here on the island the sun was out. That changed around 3pm when a storm rolled in and it rained solidly for the next 3-4 hours. This gave us time to organise our room, notwithstanding the fact that some of our clothes got quite wet in our suitcases. The room is spacious, well appointed and has a glass floor so you can see the fish underneath the apartments which is a nice touch.
We mostly stayed indoors for the afternoon, apart from braving the rain to go to the ‘free ice cream hour’. Anyone who knows us well will know that the mention of ice cream (free or otherwise) must be investigated. Dinner tonight was at the buffet restaurant where there were so many things to sample from roast meats, seafood and chicken casseroles, sushi, a good range of fish and a great selection of salads. By the time we finished eating the resort band had started, so our table got a bit loud. They were quite good, but thankfully can not be heard beyond the venue.
We’ll be hoping for some decent weather in the morning so we can investigate the resort a little more thoroughly and get a few more views like this.
Until tomorrow
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