The mission: to spend two weeks travelling around the Maldives for my birthday
The means: improvisation
The reason: for Mark to gain a small understanding of where I've been for the last two years
For full pictures of the adventure, click on the title of this entry.
Part One
22nd May
Mark arrived bright and early to our tiny little island airport and promptly went unnoticed by me as the manager of one of my islands came back in a wheel chair and with a big cut across his nose. Mark was patient and waited until the manager asked me what I was doing there, "My best friend is coming on your flight," I replied cheerfully. "Oh...is that the guy standing next to me?" I looked up and Mark suppressed a laugh and gave a little wave. "Yes, that would be the guy standing right next to you," I said rather sheepishly. So much for a grand welcome.
We arrived by speedboat to the resort and had our welcome ice-cream and then were given the tour of our villa. Neither of us had slept in two days, but the excitement of the holiday was too much for sleeping. Before long we were playing scrabble, drinking wine and ordering room service which we took on our beach deck where we spent much of our days.
The next two days were filled with teaching Mark how to snorkel, wine, the beach, the infinite night sky, the spa, the jacuzzi and -I'm sorry to say- my phone.
You see, nothing in the Maldives is fixed until it is finished. Given the logistics of getting transportation to and from...well, anyplace really it takes a lot of planning and re-planning(and re-planning and re-planning).
Mark was somewhat taken aback at the sheer quantity of phone calls I made and took, although they never lasted more than a minute. They all had the same topics: whether or not people were going to come to my birthday, finalizing our trip to Velavaru resort and our trip to wherever we were going after that. You see, I had planned every one of these things well in advance, but this is Maldives and they had all fallen apart by the 22nd.
The original plan: three nights in Angsana followed by a sea plane to Velavaru where we would spend three nights then take a seaplane back to Male', spend the day and take a domestic plane to Adu (the southernmost atoll) where we would then go to local islands and go camping on an uninhabited island. This Adu portion of our trip was being planned by my good friend Hana. The special flight prices that we were getting because of my employment here were: US$20 return for the seaplane to Velavaru and $138 return to Adu.
Problem number one: two days before our flight to Velavaru, I got a phone call saying that it had been a mistake. If he wasn't staff, that meant that he had to pay the full price of US$250 for the flight. Ouch. That was an expensive blow! With broken looks on our faces, I asked if there were any boats (it's a 15 hour boat ride). I was greeted with silence. "There's a supply Dhoni that leaves tomorrow night but you'd need to get permission to go on it and I don't know when there is a boat back." We gave up and said goodbye to an unplanned $230.
Problem number two: I got a call from Hana, "Willow, the tickets to Adu are expensive...VERY expensive." Apparently the airline decided that since we weren't Maldivian, even though I worked there we'd need to pay more. The return trip was now $260 each. This was a $244 difference overall. I took a deep breath, "Why don't we go someplace else? Is there a boat to anywhere?" "I will ask around and call you back" she said with such a sad resignation in her voice. I know she had worked really hard to plan the trip so far.
Problem number three: I'd planned to have my birthday at another resort, but unless I had enough people to rent a speedboat, it was a no-go. To rent a speedboat costs about $150 minimum and that's the only way to get to another resort. Everyone was so wishy-washy in their responses that I was afraid to rent the speedboat and get stuck paying for the whole thing when everyone canceled at the last minute. Most of my actual birthday was wasted on the phone and the celebrations went from another resort to the airport hotel and were finally downgraded to dinner on the same island we were staying on. Mark was suitably impressed with how incredibly difficult it was to arrange anything, although in the end we had a lovely dinner.
In the end, my birthday was lovely. Mark and I both had massages in the Spa, and dinner was at the restaurant on the deck overlooking the sea. Four friends joined us for dinner and the manager sent over a bottle of champagne. Later a few others joined us and we shared a bottle of Mas La Plana, my favorite wine. After most everyone had said goodnight; Umi, Nuri and Mila were left and I thought it would be funny to show everyone Umi's "off" button. There is a certain spot on her head that if you scratch it softly, causes her eyes to close and her body to go limp and relaxed. Everyone thought it was so funny that we tortured the poor girl for nearly half an hour as we took pictures posing around her while one person was massaging that spot on her head so that she couldn't move.
Part Two: Velavaru
Shock number one was the seaplane section of the airport.
The view of the Maldives from above is lovely.
Shock number two (for Mark) was the platform in the ocean next to which the seaplane landed. It was a floating deck of about five meters by three meters and the plane lands next to it, unloads the passengers and baggage and then a boat picks them up and takes them to the resort or to the local islands. I would have gotten a picture but there wasn't a good view.
Velavaru is twice the size of the resorts that I live on and was nearly empty. It's in the process of being completely renovated and when its done, I think it will be better than my current resorts. In the mean time though, it was really inferior to our resorts. The villa we were in, although large, was not impressive. It was hot and the air-con blew out hot air. The first night we slept with all of the windows and doors open, and the second night was so balmy that we slept outside on the sun beds. It was not a restful night. We were so miserable and dehydrated that lifting a glass of water to our mouths became a chore.
Velavaru hasn't got great snorkeling itself, but a friend of mine arranged for us to go to another island that's under development as an exclusive retreat. When finished, it will be set up for only one couple plus an on-island butler couple to take care of the island and to provide all services for the vacationing couple. It had the most beautiful drop-off of any of the islands I've snorkeled. The drop-off was so sheer and deep that much of the coral was unaffected by the warming of El Nino which killed most of the coral in the Maldives. It was truly spectactular. The large and colorful corals were the home of multitudes of brightly colored fish. After snorkeling, Mark and I napped on the beach until it was nearly time to leave.
Another joy of Velavaru pre-upgrading is that everything is significantly cheaper than our other resorts, and they have Magnum ice-cream. (For those of you not from Europe, it's ice-cream on a stick in various flavors and they are perfect on hot afternoons). We had a great time relaxing on Velavaru. We filled our days with wine, fresh watermelon and coconut juices, ice-cream, sun, sand and stars.
The third night we were moved to a nicer villa with a working air-con. This was where learned of problem number four: there wasn't a seat for me on the plane the next day. This hadn't happened before, and staff isn't allowed to stay more than three nights in a row at any given resort...but with no plane to take me away, what to do? We stayed a fourth night. Our extra and final day was glorius. We spent the entire day inside playing scrabble, watching the 3rd season of Friends on my laptop and looking out the window at the beach. Mark was duly grateful for the air-con.
Part Three, Naifaru and Vavvaru
We spent the day in Male and then met Hana and Nail (pronounced Nile)that evening and we piled onto our supply dhoni to the island of Naifaru. We slept on the top deck on top of a sail and were awakened once in the night and again at dawn by a sudden downpour. Soaking wet, we arrived early in the morning.
We had a traditional Maldivian breakfast of spicy tuna and ciappati, walked around the island and then napped. Up at 3pm, we shopped for food for our trip. I had cut myself a few times on the trip and so decided it would be best to update my tetnus shot, so we took a side trip to the island hospital.
It wasn't until nearly sunset that we left in a small fishing boat to an uninhabited island. The ocean was beginning to be rough and as if to wash the salty waves from our soaking clothes, it began to pour with rain as the sunset. With the darkness and heavy rain, it was difficult to find the way into the lagoon of the island without crashing onto the reef. Once there, we unloaded our things onto the beach and made our way in the dark to our camp.
Luckily for us, there was a shelter on this particular island. Also, the guys that brought us thought of everything, including a generator and light. They set everything up for us; even pumping water into buckets and filling the water tank on top of the roof of the toilet (yes, there is an actual toilet...though nobody wanted to use it). So that we could have some (salt)water. They even brough a variety of fish which they grilled in spices for us.
Dinner: Maldivian style barbecue
The local guys are wonders with fish. They can descale a fish in a minute and filet it in the next two. Five minutes later, it's served tender, juicy and piping hot on a plate made of a rather large leaf. We often burned our fingers stripping the meat from the bone.
At the end of the meal I brought out a couple of bottles of bubbles and let the guys play. The tall one was as excited as a little kid and kept catching them on his tongue
Sleeping was the hardest. We were cold and wet, sleeping on wooden sunbeds. The towel both over and under me (as well as the one I used as a pillow) were all damp. At sunrise, the fishermen came over laughing and got us all up. They climbed a tree to get us all coconuts for breakfast then Mark, Hanna and I went fishing.
There were only 2 lines, so after awhile I left it to Hana and Mark while I snorkeled for shellfish. No one could believe how many large ones I got. Once baked, they made quite a meal along with the feast prepared by the guys.
I found an octopus too, but he was too strong and broke the stick the fisherman used to get him out with. ( I guarded him while Hana went to get one of the fishermen because octopus are too difficult to get without experience or hook or anything).
The lunch was beautiful- served in giant clam shells and eaten off of leaves.
Later that day we went fishing. It seems a little much to say that we went fishing when truly we just drifted about a bit in a boat in the sun with lines in the water. We didn't catch anything. I was beginning to think that we were bad luck.
Our final night on the uninhabited island we attempted to make a fire and I cooked some wayfarer's bread in the fire and some baked green tomatos. It was pretty good except for the burnt bits...and Hana and Mark only had a couple of burns each on their hands from messing with the fire.
The final morning, Mark joined me on a Maldivian swing and the tree that it was hanging from broke and fell on his head. It was scary. He jumped on the swing, then I heard the cracking, looked up and the tree was falling. I braced for an impact that never came, looked over and saw Mark pinned under the tree. He'd hurt his back when he landed and had a big raw bruise on his head and another on his shoulder.
After making sure that he was basically ok, I ran to get something to clean the wounds and suddenly realised that we hadn't actually brought any first aid. Not to be undone, I pulled out a bottle of aged rum which I poured on his arm. He let out a terrific yowl and then I realised that I'd just made him smell like a drunken bum. I poured water over the wound to rinse the rum off and decided I ought not to pour rum on his head given that we were on the island with a group of Muslims. I ran back and searched my stuff again, this time I pulled out the conditioning shampoo and ha! I had a bottle of antiseptic mouthwash. I washed the head wound and then poured the Listerine over it to disinfect it. The good news was that the mouthwash covered the smell of the rum and now he smelled minty fresh.
Although Mark was still a bit shaky, we had a good laugh and went back to the group for breakfast. That afternoon, Hana confirmed that Mark and I had seats on a plane from a nearby resort for only $35 each back to Male' instead of having to take the dhoni overnight again. Mark was truly grateful. Given the new plans, we could either stay another night on the uninhabited island or go back to Naifaru. Mark said, "It's up to Willow." I looked at Mark and knew he'd had the more difficult time on the island and replied, "Actually, it's up to you Mark." Mark was silent for a minute and finally blurted out, "I'd really like a shower and clean clothes and I haven't used the toilet in three days and I need a tetnus shot and my back hurts and I'd REALLY like to go back to the main island!!" Hana and I swallowed our laughter and I said, "Well, I guess we should go back."
When Mark stood up I looked at the poor boy. He was completely covered in bug bites, one of his elbows looked like a gang of mosquitos had had a party; he had random patches of sunburns where he hadn't put on sunscreen properly; a sizeable bruise on one shoulder; a cut on his lip where he'd run into a tree in the dark; cuts on his hands from snorkeling, carrying things and tending the fire...he looked like we had beaten him with a stick.
On the way back we thought it would be fun to teach Mark how to steer the boat. Once he had the basics down, suddenly all three of our guides jumped off of the boat and into the water leaving Mark very panicked. They were apparently diving for lobsters. I had the benefit of hearing (in Dhivehi) and understanding the last guide into the water check with Nail that he would take over from Mark if needed, but Mark only knew that everyone in charge of the boat suddenly left and he had no clue what to do. There were a few tense moments as we nearly collided with an oncoming boat which had assumed that the person driving ours knew how to drive, but we missed them (for which all of us were truly grateful).
Once back on the main island, we spent about 6 hours waiting for his turn at the hospital. He got a tetnus shot, x-rays and, neosporin, pain killers and a pain injection. He was alright in the end. The next day he was in pain, but was able to take the small speedboat to the resort where we caught our plane.
The final chapter:
We made it back to Male' just in time to miss our boat back to the resort, but after a few phone calls I was able to get us on another one in about an hour's time. We made it back to our final resort (my home) in time to watch the sunset from the beach in front of our villa. I ordered a lobster dinner, which we shared, and we had a toast to our final night in our little Maldivian adventure.
