Maldives

I had some basic expectations about the Maldives: blue skies, white clouds, pretty sunsets, and sparking water. I thought we would snorkel, see manta, and see something different. Mother nature had other plans.

I understand that it rains the tropics; it’s the reason why the foliage is lush. I’ve lived in the tropics and know that rain starts and stops. I’ve never experienced continuous gray.

The Maldives airport is on its own island, a bridge-span away from the capitol island of Male. The warm and humid air was pleasant, coming out of Australian winter but the rain was constant. We caught our connecting flight and glimpsed our first atolls.

Dharavandoo

The 3rd image has a blue sky filter.

Dharavandoo was gray and rainy. The completely flat island was 1.5km long and 600m wide so there just wasn’t that much to do. If rangers spotted manta, they would radio the hotel so we could book a trip. In 3 days, no call came. Because of the high winds, rough seas, and rain, there were no excursions available at all.

There was no wifi in the room and bare connectivity in the outdoor common area. We spent 80% of the waking time reading books in the linai. We walked the town and through the jungle but there just wasn’t that much town or jungle to use up more than 30 minutes at a time. The food was meh at best.

The room had cool lights and we got engaged so that was the best part.

A word about being a white girl in a Muslim environment. Although I brought a hijab, it was so hot that I could barely handle the rest of my body being covered. I was constantly paranoid about not covering my head and wondering if I was modest enough. BF said that the Maldives are used to tourists but we stayed in small villages where there were no more than 10 tourists at a time. I was hot and and felt exposed. Because it was a Muslim country, there was no alcohol. This was a long week.

Maalhos

With the rough waters, we weren’t sure if there would be a ferry to our next island or if we could get to it, we would get stranded due to weather. I decided to risk it and we boarded a speed boat to Maalhos. We were greeted by our guesthouse proprietor who offered us the requisite welcome coconut drink. We did our first snorkel with me wearing shorts and a tshirt because we has to walk through the public beach. The coral and fish were fine. We never got the ranger call that mantas had been spotted nor did we get to go on any other excursions due to high surf.

The island was even smaller than Dharavandoo and half of it was jungle so there were even fewer places to walk. The mosquitoes were thick with all the vegetation. There was a severe garbage problem because the garbage boat hadn’t visited for 6 months plus other islands e.g. resort islands dumped their garbage on Dharavandoo. An Italian man staying at the same guesthouse was contracting with the government on basic infrastructure issues such as garbage. He said that the mindset of the locals needed to change so that conservation and recycling was a value. He said that kids learned this in school but at home the attitude of the family was to ignore these ideas saying everything would be fine and not to worry about it.

Our proprietor was social, engaging, and popular on the island. He owned a restaurant where we had amazing food. There was something called brown stick leaf which were small crispy and tasty leaves. I couldn’t get an answer to what plant it was from, but was delicious.

One afternoon we were sitting at the harbor when a flock of women came to sweep the beach and walkways. It was obviously a ritual or community event because there were clip boards and much organization amongst the women. Afterwards, it seemed like everyone with a motorcycle gathered at the harbor to talk and then ride the 600m to the other side of the island. Our major activity was watching the locals.

Himmafushi

We caught a local boat taxi that dropped locals at their resort jobs. At edofushi, we changed to a bigger speed boat that sat about 60 people. Again we were the only tourists. A storm produced very choppy waters and the occasional zero visibility. During the 2 hour trip to Male, maybe 40% puked into bags. I felt sorry for the guy who had to pick up the bags and cleaned the mess if they didn’t get the bag in time. I’m glad I don’t get sea sick.

In Male we had an hour wait for the boat to take us to Himmafushi so we ate pandanus and mangosteen. I seriously needed floss after that!

There was little to do on himmafushi so we waked around or sat in public gathering places. We did get to go snorkeling one day but sea grass was the biggest sight on the swim.

Male

Back to Male for a whole day. After being on tiny islands with few people or vehicles, Male was the big city. We walked and saw meager sights. Sultans park was nice and we had some rare moments of sun. As we meandered back to the harbor, a shop keeper pointed out a black cloud rapidly approaching and said it would arrive shortly and it would be a hard rain. The prediction was correct so we ducked into a vegetable market until it passed.