We have arrived and are on Day 4 after a 17 hour (business class!!) flight from sfo to Singapore, a missed connection due to delay, a free night in Singapore (at “the nicest hotel I’ve ever been in” per Christian) and then a new flight to male, Maldives followed by a 30 minute seaplane flight to adjacent island and 10 minute speedboat to our island! It is turquoise calm bath water like we’ve never seen and also the nicest collection of naturally occurring seashells we’ve ever found! Not to mention the world’s smallest and cutest sand dollars. There are interesting medium sized fruit bats that at first glance look like birds until you realize they’re bats! We’ve seen a couple a day. Every night we see the smallish crabs come to shore, and all throughout the days and nights there are hermit crabs hanging around in the nicest shells ever. Hahaha. One first night highlight was watching a bird catch a fish after watching the bird watch the fish from the dock for a few minutes, and then catching one, waiting until it wasn’t so squirmy, swallowing, and watching the fish wriggle around in the bird’s long neck! We were mesmerized. Wanted to see the “show” every night but that bird has scampered off to other shores every evening.
Prices here are EXPENSIVE. A bowl of curry runs around $40. A burger probably is cheaper at $34. Bottled water is either $12 (Evian) or $17 (Voss) and is required at meals unless you don’t want water. So, naturally, we are gorging ourselves as much as we can at our included buffet breakfast and basically making it tide us over until dinner. The buffet breakfast is downright delicious. So many fresh fruits (including mangosteen!) and curries, an omelette bar, crepe bar, noodle bar, juice bar, smoothies, granolas, salads, sushi rolls, the list goes on and on. There is a huge Indian influence here in Maldives and there are 520 employees at this Hilton Conrad from 23 countries. They said it’s mostly local Maldivians. They take garbage over to another island every two days. The biggest and only drawback to being on a teeny island run by the hotel is that all our activities and our entire food budget is determined by the hotel. If we are hungry or thirsty we have to go to a hotel restaurant. No mini Marts and certainly no grocery stores or other restaurant options! So that has been a major adjustment but as I mentioned we’ve really capitalized on the breakfast buffet at Atoll Market. lol.
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| A morning swim and a rare shirtless swim moment |
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| Ah the luxury…. |
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| Maldives is formed by tons of these atolls. Coral reef sand makes the sand so white |
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| Snoozin |
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| Bridge connecting the two small islands of the hotel. You can also go by Buggy (golf cart) or boat (slow boat) |
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| We don’t know who Simo is. Hahahah!!! This was awaiting us. And it was Christian’s bday the day prior so we don’t know if that was meant for him. We’re like “maybe Simo means child or teenager in Maldivian or something” |
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| The legs go diagonal into the little slot, on the left here. There was plenty of room to lay flat which was key. |
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| nice hermit crab shells |
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| Bday cake on business class!!! He’s 14!!! |
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| This speedboat went FAST. Was very windy! |
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| Singapore overnighter at the Dusit Thani |
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| We told Olin to run back and leave this money for the hotel cleaners. When I went back to do a final sweep of their room I noticed his note he had left :) |
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| Hotel paths |
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