Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Wanderlusting Around: The Maldives - on a budget...sorta
Wanderlusting Around: The Maldives - on a budget...sorta: The Maldives For this summer holiday it was decided that a honeymoon reunion was in order. I was again joining Helmut and Charlott...
The Maldives - on a budget...sorta
The Maldives
For this summer holiday it was decided that a honeymoon reunion was in order. I was again joining Helmut and Charlotte (I believe this is their fourth honeymoon and our second together) as well as Taylor and Renske. The idea was to outdo our last romantic trip to Bali, this time including scuba diving for the two newly certified divers (myself and Charlotte), and also bringing along a fancy drone (compliments of Charlotte and Helmut, but definitely more Charlotte) to catch some more amazing footage. After little debate and looking at way too many pictures that seemed to come right out of a computer screensaver we joined the numerous other honeymooners on a magical trip to the islands of the Maldives!
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| Researching |
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| Researching hard! |
Here are some well researched facts about the Maldives. Republic of Maldives, is a South Asian sovereign state, located in the Indian Ocean, situated in the Arabian Sea. It lies southwest of Sri Lanka and India. The chain of 26 atolls stretches from Ihavandhippolhu Atoll in the north to the Addu City in the south. Comprising a territory spanning roughly 298 square kilometres (115 sq mi), the Maldives is one of the world's most geographically dispersed countries, as well as the smallest Asian country by land area and population, with around 427,756 inhabitants. Malé is the capital and most populated city, traditionally called the "King's Island" for its central location. (Wikipedia).
and now back to me...
The Maldives is a tropical nation in the Indian Ocean composed of 26 ring-shaped atolls, which are made up of more than 1,000 coral islands. It’s known for its beaches, blue lagoons and extensive reefs. The capital, Malé, has a busy fish market, restaurants and shops on the main road, Majeedhee Magu, and 17th-century Hukuru Miskiy (also known as Friday Mosque) made of carved white coral.
Just kidding that was also Wikipedia. But really the rest is me...for the most part.
Out of the roughly 1,000 islands only about 200 are inhabited and in 2009 the government lifted a law that banned guesthouses on the local islands. This proved to be beneficial for the locals as it brought in additional income while providing more affordable travel options for cheapskates like Helmut. The tourism industry in the Maldives is slowly growing (in some places quickly growing) and information on transportation and accommodation is hard to come by. We decided on the 3 islands of Omadhoo, Thinadhoo and Fulidhoo. The reasons behind choosing these were simple. They were some of the farthest and most difficult islands to travel to, which meant less people, more pristine beaches and water (I'm going to be honest with you here, these were the only islands that we could find cheap ferry rides to).
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| 'We're on a boat' |
The first two are known for having beautiful coral house reefs, in other words, you can walk from your room to some of the nicest snorkeling in the world (for free if you're smart enough to bring your own snorkel gear...like this savvy group of travelers). The third island was, as we read, far enough that there weren't too many people and close enough that you could get to the airport with only 2 boats and a taxi. There are so many islands and all of them are different in their own unique way. Feeling pretty good about our choices we booked our flights and accommodation and were off (well, like 2 months later we were off).
Omadhoo Island
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| Our little spot on Omadhoo. This is where the magic happened. |
Most of the research and credit for this island goes to Helmut...although I'm pretty sure he just used google to locate 'the island with the least amount of people', as Helmut does not like other people. Here is a likely reason that there are not a lot travelers on Omadhoo, from our house in Korea we took a taxi to the bus station, then bus to the airport, which took us to Kuala Lumpur (shocker), which transferred us to Male (Maldives), then a taxi to a ferry, followed by another taxi to another ferry (this one was 6 hrs.) to arrive at Omadhoo in which our bags were tossed onto a little 4 wheeler that took us to our guesthouse. Total travel time was 3 days 7 hrs and 14 minutes. I'm just kidding, I have no idea what the total time was with all the time changes and layovers but it was a long long long time. The 6 hour ferry ride wasn't too bad. It was for the most part empty and after 3 island stops we were the last people on it.
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| Omadhoo highway. If you stand in the middle you can see the ocean from all sides |
We stayed at the Kuri Inn which is owned by some dude we never saw, but it is run by Ismail who is The Man in every sense of the word. I could have talked with Ismail for hours, he had a very calming presence and a warm smile and laugh that could put anyone at ease (maybe even Renske). Every morning we would ask him what the weather would be and everyday he would smile and with a chuckle say 'that is a difficult question.' It was technically the off-season in the Maldives which also meant it was the rainy season. It could rain for days or it could rain for a few hours, or it could be sunny and then rain. At times it would be sunny on our island but the next island which was clearly visible was getting hammered with rain. Basically, it was indeed a difficult question.
Omadhoo is known for having beautiful white beaches with a house reef that is still 80-90% alive. It is sad that it is necessary to add the percentage of reef that is still alive but unfortunately those are the times we live in, it is also something that was taken for granted as we would find out later.
As the Maldives are a 100% Muslim country there are strict rules to abide by, the most disclosed to tourists being: No Alcohol, No Pork and No bikinis (bikinis were allowed at designated tourist beaches referred to as bikini beaches). The beaches on Omadhoo are stunning, as are the turquoise clear waters. It is one of the most amazing places to snorkel. Being the professional tourists...er I mean travelers, it was rare you would spot any of us without a snorkel and dry bag. Anywhere off the island you could find beautiful reef swimming with life and radiating all sorts of colors and shapes. When you swim out to the edge of the reef there is about a 30 ft. drop off and you can eerily peer out into the deep blue. This is where I had my first shark encounter. Not being sure what to expect as far as how deep it was or how strong the current was, I had Helmut follow me in a kayak we had 'borrowed' from the resort next to the beach. Almost as soon as I cleared the massive coral gardens and reached the edge where the crystal clear turquoise meets the darker deeper blue water I looked down to sea a 4 ft. white tip shark turning the corner and looking right up at me. It was fairly clear that I was more scared of him than he was of me as I fumbled with the Go pro trying to figure out how to take a video/photo. I started swimming away from it and it started swimming towards me. After a few seconds it veered off into the blue and I veered off onto the safety of the kayak. Helmut said he knew that I saw something because he heard my breathing dramatically increase as I quickly turned around after clearing the reef. This was only the first day of swimming and snorkeling and we soon became accustomed to seeing sharks, sting rays, eels, turtles and very big fish in general.
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| Snorkeling mission. This face was clearly before I saw the shark. |
Omadhoo is said to have around 800 locals but most have sold their property and moved to Male, Ismail informed us that there were only around 30 families still living on the island. Everyday at 7:30a.m. you could find all the children walking to the only school on the island. While the parents were a little more shy and reserved the children never passed on an opportunity to practice their English and yell hello with a big smile on their faces. I found that out of all the islands we went to Omadhoo had the friendliest people in general, and by far the friendliest children. Often we would be walking and would hear a helloooooooooo from behind a tree or down the street and you would look up to see a group of children following and giggling as they didn't just say hello but said helloooooooooooo.
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| Dropping our Maldivian record album any day now. Clearly I'm vocals, Taylor is drums and Helmut is on the flute. |
Being on a remote local island for 5 days was interesting. There was one other restaurant apart from our Inn. There was one dive shop with one dive master, C.J. who was as cool as a cucumber. If C.J. was any more laid back he would be dead. Everyone on the island knew each other, and after our 5 days on the island it felt like everyone knew us too. Every morning we ate a beautiful buffet breakfast at the Kuri Inn. This consisted of coffee, juice, eggs, toast with jam/butter/nutella, a french toast kind of thing, fruit, and the staple, tuna maroshi (this was the best part of breakfast and my favorite Maldivian dish). Everything was delicious and it was included in the accommodation so you could eat and drink as much as you liked. We normally ate our body weight (and Taylor twice his) so we could skip lunch and spend the days on the beach swimming...essentially working off the massive breakfasts we were eating. Dinners were similar and somehow more delicious. Every night we ate at the Kuri Inn in similar fashion, buffets including the catch of the day (caught by Ismail's half brother, who was also the chef, boat captain for snorkeling trips and I think the spokesperson for all activities on the island) rice, pasta, salad, fruit and dessert. The food options are very limited on this island but the food is exquisite.
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| Breakfast and Dinner spot |
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| Dinner of champions |
Our days on Omadhoo looked like this: my three friends would wake up for the sunrise (god knows what else they did at 5 a.m. but I was sleeping), I would wake up around 7a.m. and sit on our porch and drink coffee and wait for the early risers to return. By this time, Helmut had already been fishing, Charlotte and Taylor had already taken loads of beautiful photos and in some cases had gotten in a workout. We would then head to breakfast where we would meet the only other people staying on the island, a German family that was somewhere between 5 - 7 people (the kids were always running around and kind of looked the same so it was difficult to count), an Italian mother and daughter, and a younger Taiwanese man from England. We would all exchange friendly good mornings and then watch as the 7 German children ravaged the first round of the buffet. After breakfast we would normally head to the bikini beach loaded with our snorkels, Ipod and speaker, books, water, snacks and most importantly hammock. For the next 6 hours we would have the option to swim, snorkel, sleep in the hammock, sleep in a chair, sleep on the sand, listen to music while reading, listen to music while staring at the ocean or play a friendly game of contact (which would inevitably turn unfriendly once Helmet cheated or ruined it). If you looked up the word relaxing in the dictionary you would have seen a picture of us laying around on the beach in Omadhoo.
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| The #1 hotspot in Omadhoo...as shown by Charlotte |
We did two activities on this island. The first was scuba diving. Charlotte and I had planned on diving at least once on every island so this was our first opportunity. C.J. being the laid back cucumber that he is was very non descriptive in his explanations and requirements to go diving so we basically just told him we were in for whatever it is he wanted to do. This turned out to be a little refresher course as neither Charlotte nor I had been diving in over a year and then a 45 minute dive around some of the coolest coral reefs I've ever seen. It was only 4 of us (2 dive masters and Charlotte and I) so it made for a very chilled, low key dive. You never had to worry about getting kicked in the face or accidentally swimming into the person next to you (cough cough...Thailand). The untouched coral creates these incredible homes for the local fish and wildlife that have chosen one of the best places in the world to live (in my opinion...but I think C.J. would agree, as he sort of agreed with everything).
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| Scuba buddies fo life! |
The other activity we chose was "snorkeling" with the manta rays. This was incredible for a few reasons. #1 you got to swim about 20ft. above massive manta rays that soared through the water with ease and were quite literally just gentle swimming giants. #2 in order to swim above these gentle giants our speedboat tossed a rope over the back and towed us around the ocean. More accurately, we held onto dear life while hoping our limbs remained attached and swimsuits remained covering the essentials while the boat raced ahead of all the poor fools who didn't have a personal towboat to relocate them as needed. #3 this all cost $85 per person. The boat ride to the manta rays was only about 20 minutes, the navy seal training (a.k.a being dragged behind a boat) was around 20 minutes and I'm quite sure the mantas didn't see any of the funds so it was a little on the expensive side. However, it was certainly memorable.
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| Mantas and Navy Seal training all in one |
The whole island of Omadhoo was memorable, the friendly people and children, the amazing food, the amazing snorkeling, beautiful beaches and crystal clear water...with that said, of everything that Omadhoo had to offer, I will most certainly miss Ismail the most.
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| #Ismail |
Thinadhoo Island
Our next inhabited island stop was Thinadhoo, in part because this was the closest to resort living we were ever going to get. Also because it is known for having an exceptional house reef (similar to Omadhoo). Our travel day consisted of an hour speedboat ride from Omadhoo to the main island of Male (where we originally landed), then a taxi to the other side of the island where we had to catch another ferry. This ferry ride was much shorter at only 5.5 hrs (and only cost $3.50). The nice thing about traveling during the off season is that everything is much much cheaper. We ended up staying at the Plumeria hotel which was very classy (by our standards). Upon our arrival we were offered fruit juice and an introduction video to the island (okay that part was a little weird but the free juice was very nice). Rooms came equipped with robes, slippers, coffee and Discovery channel...BOOM! I'm not one that condones spending vacation time laying around a hotel room and watching T.V. but I did look forward to 11 p.m. every night so that we could return to the rooms with our white bathrobes and watch an episode of Naked and Afraid. I was more excited about the Naked and Afraid and I'm certain Taylor was more excited about the white bathrobes.
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| Easy ladies...these men are spoken for. |
The Pulmeria hotel seems to own about half the island. Our first night we chose to eat at the hotel which was serving a buffet dinner on the beach, which for our table later turned into dinner in the ocean. We chose the table closest to the water which was an incredible dinner experience. As we feasted on a wonderful assortment of fish, salad, fruit, tropical juices, we would catch a glimpse of a small shark or sting ray swim by. At times they would be no further than 10 feet away as we ate. Later as the tide was rising they got a lot closer and when the hotel employees came running over to move our table we politely refused enjoying the bizarre yet exciting (and wet) dining experience.
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| Ocean buffet...in the ocean buffet |
Every morning we had an amazing buffet breakfast (which included omelet and pancake stations) and then headed to the beach for snorkeling, reading, listening to sweet tunes and just relaxing. After our sunset snorkel (which hands down was always the best snorkel of the day) we would retire to the ping pong arena for what turned out to be a 5 day long tournament. The final standings were as follows: Champion of the island Brendan (obviously), 2nd place Taylor, 3rd place Charlotte although it was close between her and Renske. Last place by a mile and an embarrassment to his country of South Africa was Helmut. We are all a little worse at ping pong for having to play with you. After ping pong there was a nightly feeding of sting rays and sharks from the beach. This was a strange activity that nobody really figured out or truly understood. I think they just took the fish scraps from dinner and chucked them into the sea which attracted about 20 sting rays and a few sharks (sometimes fairly big ones). Not really sure how we all felt about it but we always ended up at the feeding spot and exchanged confused looks for about 10 minutes before heading off for dinner.
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| The stingray and shark feeding |
Charlotte and I ended up doing 3 dives on this island. The dive shop was the cool place to be, always blaring music from the speakers and lounging around chatting up anyone that walked by. We were instantly drawn to the shop by Isaac's lovely rendition of 'I will always love you'. At the time there weren't many other people on the island so we were arranging dives that would just be for us (always a nice benefit). Our first dive was at 6 a.m. (which meant 4:50 a.m. wake up and 5:15 departure) which included a 45 minute sunrise cruise to the dive spot.
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| Sunrise on the way to our dive |
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| Such beautiful coral, so many fish, so many sharks, such a great dive |
The highlight of this island (besides being table tennis royalty) was the third and final dive. This was a night dive with sharks. Again it was only 4 divers with the rest of the group snorkeling above us. This was an insane dive because #1 it is night time and #2 because you are surrounded by sharks and sting rays. They are close enough that you get slapped by their tails and fins, it was a very crazy experience. The biggest sharks were nurse sharks, which are pretty harmless (still big at around 6ft), but we were also surrounded by white tip and black tip sharks which have bigger and sharper teeth but seemed to keep a distance. Every time Charlotte and I looked at each other we had to keep ourselves from laughing. I think she was laughing at the fact my eyes were so big they were popping out of my mask, and I was laughing because she was sitting on a shark for most of the time and at one point was basically wearing a stingray as a hat...amazing.
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| Helmut and his spirit animal |
The first half of our time on Thinadhoo was very quiet and we pretty much owned the island. The second half was also very nice but must have been the start of the Italian summer vacation because we were quickly outnumbered by very tan and very round Italian tourists. Despite the sudden increase in the island's population there was nothing more relaxing than floating above the house reef and enjoying the massive amounts of coral and marine life, it always felt like it was just us anytime we went for a group snorkel.
It was definitely sad to be leaving this island, in part because we only had one island left of our journey and in part because we were moving closer to the main island which meant more people and slightly less pristine beaches. Next stop was Fulidhoo!
Fulidhoo Island
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| Team Maldives |
We stayed at the La Perla and were once again greeted by our host as we were getting off the ferry. Only this time he looked a little shocked to see 5 of us and immediately told us he was expecting 2 people and that the other 2 rooms were full. This was a problem as there are only 40 rooms on the entire island (this number increases to 150 by next year!). Our concerned host explained that the other 2 rooms would be available at 3p.m as the other guests were leaving. Soooooooo there wasn't really a problem at all and he really just caused us to worry for no reason...which he continued to do for the entire stay (no need to get into that too much). Since our rooms weren't ready our host took us for a walk around the island (it's a short walk...15 mins tops). It is easy to see how much this place will change in just a short time. There was construction everywhere and it was mostly guesthouses. There was even a new dive shop that Charlotte and I desperately attempted to be the first divers at. They never did open while we were there, chatted with the dive master Simba (can't remember his real name but Simba seemed fitting) who was really cool but never managed to get electricity at the shop (maybe it's better we weren't the first divers). The island is much more touristy than the other islands we visited. More people, more shops and sadly more rubbish. The bikini beach here was also a bit smaller with more people but not overwhelming populated. In the past we had been the only one's on the beach so now that there were 6 or 7 other people it felt like a lot, but looking back on it that is not so bad. Sadly there was no house reef and the break was pretty serious so you were better off trying to get in a surf rather than a snorkel.
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| Maldivian hammock |
The days on Fulidhoo were a bit different than the previous islands. We were brought a delicious homemade breakfast every morning by our host. We had Maldivian breakfast everyday which is called mas huni, composed of tuna, onion, coconut and chili. Everything is chopped up real nice and then served with fresh baked roshi flatbread, juice and coffee. It was an amazing breakfast. We then packed up for the day and headed to the bikini beach. Since the snorkeling wasn't great we typically laid around reading, chatting, playing games and then going for a dip to cool off. Around lunch time we'd venture off for some noodles and coffee and then head back to the beach. After catching the sunset we would retire back to our guesthouse which was our two rooms and a friendly Norwegian couple occupying the third room. Our little commune was cozy and not far from the ocean so it was great for us (minus the mosquitoes which were a constant battle). Since we were all in alcohol detox (not exactly by choice) most nights consisted of playing card games and listening to music.
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| BFF's |
We had two special nights out on this island. The first was a trip to the pier to hand feed the stingrays. It became clear that these islands use the heavy population of stingrays as major tourist traps...and once again we took the bait. Unlike the previous island where they tossed a load of food into the water and people watched as they swam by, this time we were given fish and walked into the water to feed them. I'm a little bit ashamed to say it was pretty cool. The stingrays would swim right up to you and hover over your hand so they could swallow up the fish. They looked like aliens when their heads would come out of the water often staring you right in the eyes. A few times my hand went right up into their mouth, a very strange feeling, like a strong suction cup made of sandpaper. They certainly weren't afraid of people and it's probably not the best thing to be doing, hand feeding these guys from the shore but it made for an interesting experience.
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| Feeding the aliens |
I have no shame about our second night out (maybe a little). Before we get into that it's worth noting how this prime opportunity was bestowed upon us. Every morning one of the managers at the guesthouse would make and bring breakfast, he was always very kind but very quiet and barely said a word or even attempted to converse. However, once the sun went down a strange thing would happen. His eyes would widen to small saucer size and he would want nothing more than to chat us up and show us pictures of anything and everything on his phone. One evening, which happened to be the day before Charlotte's birthday our big eyed friend was helping us sort out our boat ride to the airport the following Saturday. This conversation lasted around 2 hours, went in about 100 different directions and then circled around at least 50 times. I'm not sure what in the world goes on when the moon comes up in Fuldihoo but there is something peculiar going on there! Finally around 10 p.m. we figured out our transportation home and then our host made the mistake of informing us that there is a way we can get a hold of some booze! Whow...big mistake my bug-eyed man. Apparently, in order to avoid breaking the law a boat docs about 300 ft. off the island and serves beer and alcohol to all the despicable tourists who can't handle having a vacation without boozing it up. I personally was enjoying the booze free holiday and thought it was a healthy little bonus. My travel companions on the other hand...wow! You would have thought the man had just offered us free accommodation for the week. I attempted to plead with the group that we didn't need alcohol to have a good time and that it was getting late so we should get some sleep. These booze hounds weren't having it! We were going on that boat and we were going now! I only followed because it was going to be Charlotte's birthday in a few hours. Our host was a little caught off guard from all the excitement and didn't realize he now had to find us a boat to take us to the boat, as well as wake up the crew on the beer boat so that we could all get sauced! err I mean served.
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| Helmut's 'I don't like boats face' |
Our man had to make a few phone calls (and a little pleading I'm sure) and before we knew it we were on a 1 minute boat ride to the bar boat. We didn't realize that our driver just sat on the boat waiting for us to finish. We also didn't realize (or conveniently forgot) that Helmut gets seasick very easily. Easily in the sense that he ordered a drink and then had to immediately leave back to land. This was very unfortunate for Helmut, however, very fortunate for myself and Taylor who were now able to take advantage of the 2 for 1 special. The gin and tonics were not the tastiest drinks ever made, Charlotte and Renske said their drinks were probably the worst drinks they've ever had, but beggars can't be choosy, and at this point we were beggars and not choosy! We were the only one's on the boat. Sitting on the roof looking up at the stars, the moon and all the poor saps with no alcohol back on the island.
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| Starry night |
Sadly our trip was coming to an end. We had to see Renske off the next day which was Friday to ensure she caught her Saturday morning flight. It was a tearful goodbye for everyone but I did catch a little twinkle in Resnke's eye when a young handsome Maldivian fellow also boarded the small speedboat heading to the main island (you can catch that story on Renske's blog). The rest of us left the next day by ferry, which was followed by another ferry (on this second ferry a baby threw up on me, I can't really get into it in more details because it still makes me want to vomit). We then took a flight to Bangkok which took us to Seoul and then bus to Cheongju and then a taxi to home...phew.
All in all it was an amazing trip with an amazing group of people. I've always thought one of the best parts about traveling are the people you meet. On this trip we certainly met some great people (Ismail and Issac especially). Most of the people were very friendly and I'll always remember the smiling little children being very excited to say hello to us. But one of the best parts of this trip was getting to better know the people I was traveling with. Some had known each other since University, while others had been friends anywhere from 4 years to only meeting for the first time on this trip. I couldn't have asked for a better travel group! Thanks very much everyone for being such great people and making this such an amazing and memorable trip!
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| Thanks crew! |
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| This one kind of speaks for itself |
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