Currency:
Maldivian Rufiyaa

Highlights:
Being in paradise

Our Adventure:

Welcome to paradise!!

Our seaplane skimmed the surface of the crystal-clear ocean water and Shaun and I turned to each other and smiled, not needing to say anything, just acknowledging that we had indeed arrived in paradise.

The Republic of Maldives is an island country in the Indian Ocean formed by a double chain of 26 atolls. The atolls of Maldives encompass a territory spread over roughly 90,000 square km, making it one of the most disparate countries in the world. It features 1,192 islets, of which two hundred are inhabited.

Other interesting facts:

• The atolls are composed of coral reefs and sand bars which act as a natural barrier against the sea, forming lagoons (which are mainly responsible for the stunning colours we could see from the sea plane).
• The Maldives have an amazing diversity of sea life, with corals and over 2,000 species of fish.
• Total population = approximately 300,000. Capital (Male) population = approximately 104,000. Number of tourists per year = 600,000. Number of resorts = 89.
• It is the lowest country in the planet (max ground level 2.3 m) which makes it especially vulnerable to the rising levels of sea water caused by global warming. In November 2008, President Mohammed Nasheed announced plans to look into purchasing new land in India, Sri Lanka, and Australia, due to his concerns about global warming and the possibility of much of the islands being inundated with water from rising sea levels. The purchase of land will be made from a fund generated by tourism.
• In 2009, the president pledged to make the Maldives carbon-neutral within a decade by moving to solar and wind power. Most recently, he also held the world's first underwater cabinet meeting on October 17, 2009 to raise awareness of threats from climate change to low-lying nations such as the Maldives.
• In late December 2004, the major tsunami left more than 100 dead, 12,000 displaced, and property damage exceeding $400 million.
• Although governed as an independent Islamic sultanate from 1153 to 1968, the Maldives was a British protectorate from 1887 until 25 July 1965.
• The main religion is Islam.
• The language is called Divehi.
• Maldives is an official finalist of the new Seven Wonders of the World.

It was another interesting journey for us to get here. It started with leaving our Sri Lanka resort at 1 am to drive the few hours to the airport in Colombo. What made this part of the journey even more eventful was that we got stopped in so many military inspection points. We then had a few hours at the airport to kill before our very excited take-off for the Maldives.

When we arrived in Male, Shaun was even more excited as he got to go on a sea plane for the first time - something he has been wanting to do for a long time. It's quite an unsettling experience being in such a small plane and taking off and landing on the water - but so much fun! Plus it awards you great views as you fly so low over the islands. The distance of the resort from Male dictates the need of a sea plane over a speed boat and we especially looked for this when searching for a resort.

We got extremely lucky in our search though as we only started seriously looking at booking a place about a month in advance. And while this may have been more than sufficient for most of the places on our tour, it was not so for Maldives as apparently we managed to choose the busiest week in the whole of the Maldives calendar (besides Christmas). We were so confused by this as we couldn't believe that that many couples would choose to venture to Maldives for Valentine's Day - but finally one of the agents filled us in that it was Chinese New Years so resorts get booked out months in advance. Luckily we managed to secure a last-minute cancellation at Kuredu Island Resort, which had been one of our top choices anyway. And the ironic thing since we arrived - we haven't seen a single Chinese person! Back to being confused!

Kuredu Island Resort is located on the northern end of Lhayiyani Atoll. It's apparently one of the larger resorts in the Maldives but we find that hard to believe as the island seems so small - it takes about 20 min to walk the length of it - and 5 min the breadth! There are actually 3 resorts on the island - Sangu, O and Kuredu - and the cool thing is that we are able to access all the different facilities which means a multitude of bars and restaurants as well as 2 different swimming pools to choose from. We were also surprised by how much there is on offer here in terms of entertainment - in addition to the usual water sports, there are also volleyball, tennis and badminton courts and a games room - plus the island boasts the only golf course in the whole of the Maldives (okay, it's only a 6-hole pitch-and-putt but still- and there is a driving range!). Each night, 3 of the main bars also offer different types of music or entertainment ensuring that they really do cater to everyone. And then there's the food - as if our waistlines really needed it, we get a buffet breakfast and dinner every night - and the food is amazing!

But of course the main appeal of the island is its stunning beauty and marine life. We have been having a hard time deciding on the best beach from tour - but Maldives has stolen that title! It has everything you could possibly want - long stretches of white powdery sand, gently swaying palm trees, calm water that stretches out before you in infinite shades of blue and turquoise… And as if it couldn't get any better than that, just walking along the shore you can see so much marine life. We have been lucky enough to go places where you don't have to go diving to see lots of underwater life as you can see it snorkelling - but we've never been anywhere before here where you can see so much of it just from the shore. On our first walk alone on the beach in front of our bungalow, we saw several sting rays and baby black-tip reef sharks. On later walks, we saw big manta rays and huge brightly-coloured fish from the jetty.

Our bungalow is adorable too - it has a basic beach bungalow appeal from the outside but inside there's a gorgeous 4-poster bed and a deck out front with our own loungers. But what really makes it so unusual is that the bathroom is outside -nothing quite like an outdoor shower! We also decided to 'budget' and went for the garden bungalow but even though we are not right on the beach, we are still only a few steps away and the 'garden' is also really beautiful - a series of trees in the sand, abundant with bird life. Also, the island is covered in sand - I know that sounds strange but I mean this literally - all the walkways, restaurants, etc. all have sand bottoms so you don't even have to wear shoes here at all - such a bonus!

We have dedicated this week to relaxation - and relaxation would be proud of how much we have engaged in it! Our days consist of a wonderful routine of sleeping in (don't worry Dad - I still go for the early morning swim), eating, lazing by the pool, swimming in the pool and beach - of course swiftly followed up by more eating, sleeping - you get the idea. And if we're really pushing it, we stay up to enjoy the nightly entertainment.

Some of the other activities we have enjoyed to interrupt this routine are:

• Celebrating Valentine's Day. We are so lucky to have been celebrating our first Valentine's Day as a married couple (plus 18 years from when we first got together!) in one of the most beautiful places in the world. We started off the day with a dive - our favourite activity - and then chilled for the rest of the day until sunset where we found an awesome spot on the beach and settled in with our bottle of champagne and fruit basket that the hotel had kindly given us as a honeymoon gift (yes we are still milking the honeymoon ploy). It was a beautiful sunset and we shared it with two couples who got married on the beach that day and a couple who got engaged in front of everyone (cheesy but fun to watch!). After dinner that evening, we found out that our good friends Paddy and Ilse got engaged - which just completed the wonderful evening for us!

• Diving. Diving in Maldives is widely recognized as being the best in the world so you can imagine how much we were looking forward to this! The dive center here is the most organized we have seen - which is both a good and a bad thing. We are used to the casual dive centers where you joke around with the dread-lock-haired instructors and then go for a dive. Not so here - you have to do a compulsory orientation session and dive (where they make you do skills again like mask-filling and pretending you run out of air - 2 of my things I hated most in my course and hated again now as I swallowed so much sea water during the regulator skill!). And as if that's not enough, you have to do a single boat dive before they let you do a 2-tank dive (which I suspect is more of a cheeky money-making thing). So we didn't get to dive as much we would have liked as it is really expensive but we did get to have 2 awesome dives:
○ House Reef - this was the orientation dive just off the end of the jetty. It was like being in an aquarium though as we were surrounded by loads of beautiful fish and corals. We also got to see our first wreck under water - a ship that apparently sank about 10 years ago during El Nino.
○ Latheef Reef - an awesome dive! It was supposed to be one of the 'easy' dives meaning only a little current but as soon as we got down there was some crazy current which made for some cool drifting but more importantly, more fish. It was a wall dive (similar to Ras Mohammed in Egypt) so really deep and had a series of caves. In the first cave, we saw a giant Napolean Wrasse fish which is our favourite and which we have only seen once before in Egypt so we were stoked! We also got to see 3 turtles (including the biggest one we've seen to date) and lots of other gorgeous fish.

• Snorkelling. It's not the best snorkelling we've done in terms of multitude of fish but it is the best in terms of size of fish. I didn't think that parrotfish this big even existed!! Plus there are loads of turtles here - we are so used to them swimming away as soon as they see you but here, they are very chilled to let you swim alongside them - always a favourite experience of mine.

• Sunset watching. It's great when the biggest decisions you have to make each day are which pool to go to and where to watch the sunset. There are several great spots to watch the sunset so we've been to a different spot each night - from a boat (the sunset cruise was also a gift from the hotel and we were lucky enough to see several dolphins), on the beach and the sand bar just off the beach, from the end of the jetty (where there's a lovely tea house) and from the Sangu Bar with the most comfortable chairs ever.

• Golf. Both of us have been suffering from golf withdrawal symptoms this tour so we were really excited when we heard that our resort had the only golf course in Maldives. It was only a 6-hole pitch and putt course but was still good fun! Shaun also took part in a golf chipping contest over the pool one night and narrowly missed making it to the final round.

• Badminton. It took us a while to figure out the rules but once we did, it was a lot of fun especially since one of us took a beating (I'll let you figure out who that was ;).

• Massage. We got a free welcome massage from the hotel. Alas, it was only 15 minutes but it was still heavenly in their fancy spa and we debated indulging further but it's hard to pay regular prices for a massage when you've gotten used to only having to pay a few dollars!

Our photos from paradise are below:
Day 1 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=390407&id=713415257&l=26e2062028
Day 2 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=390412&id=713415257&l=cfeadce34d
Day 3 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=390419&id=713415257&l=4e562e863f
Day 4 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=390422&id=713415257&l=d86d4c1236
Day 5 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=390426&id=713415257&l=f0b830b0d8
Day 6 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=390431&id=713415257&l=4852764321

You can also see what we are up to via the Kuredu Island Live Cam:
http://www.kuredu.com/community/kuredu-island-livecam.aspx

We were very sad to leave the Maldives but it was raining on our last day at least which made it a little easier. Plus we plan to return one day to discover more of those amazing islands and dive sites!

Dhanee (goodbye) from the Maldives,
Lara + Leise