Maldives as such
Rest time: December 25.2012 – January 14.2013
Why I decided to write this review. Probably because, having studied the Internet and interviewed a bunch of friends, I practically did not receive an answer to my question - what is the Maldives?
The whole trip was planned in this way: Novosibirsk - Bangkok (1 night) - Colombo (Sri Lanka, Beruwala - 4 nights) - Male (Maafushi Island - 5 nights) - Bangkok (Pattaya - 9 nights) - Novosibirsk. All flights and hotels were booked on various websites. If interested - 22 days, 8 flights, 4 hotels in different countries with breakfast - 172.000 Russian money. Why such a strange route. The fact is that we love Pattaya very much, but it’s not interesting to rest only in Thailand, where we have been for the seventh time. There are many countries. And Bangkok is the gateway to Southeast Asia. We arrive in Bangkok, transfer to another plane and fly to the next country in Southeast Asia.
It remains for us to visit the Philippines and Australia in this region (I mean countries with winter beach holidays), and then we will rest somewhere in Latin America, if, of course, we have enough strength, means and health.
Maldives. What is the Maldives, I understood only after visiting there. Very little information on the Internet. Of the large number of my (traveling around the world) friends and acquaintances in the Maldives, there was only one couple who lived on an island hotel and saw nothing but the beautiful sea. So. What do you want from a vacation in this country.
We flew to the Maldives airport, which is located on a separate island in a 15-minute ferry ride from the capital of the Maldives, the island city of Male. On a speedboat we got to the island of Maafushia and settled in the Fazaa inn hotel on the shores of the Indian Ocean.
The pros of the hotel.
Cozy rooms. It is rather a cottage with five rooms and bathrooms.
Very nice patio with tables under the roof and fans in the ceiling. Simple but delicious breakfasts - scrambled eggs or scrambled eggs, sausages, fruit, tea, coffee or juice. Very friendly, smiling and, I would say, humorous staff, speaking English and, a little bit, Russian.
Lack of TV, refrigerator and safe (there is no safe at all in the hotel). Soap, gel, shampoo - only on the day of settlement. But these are trifles.
But not trifles. By the time we left, we had no cash left. There is no credit card terminal in the hotel itself. We went with the manager to the neighboring Picnik Inn hotel, where we were charged an extra 5.5%, allegedly for servicing the bank.
We went on the first excursion to the island without vegetation. I would say - a kind of bump in the ocean 0.5 meters high, 164 steps long (I measured it myself) and 48 steps wide at low tide. Sand mound. At the peak of the tide - less than half. Baldezhno. We spent the last day of 2012 there.
We stuck an umbrella brought with us and put two tables brought with us with five chairs. In addition to us, there were 15 more people on this hummock from other islands, and maybe from ours. We dined there, brought with us (very opportunely), products, since the fish promised to us for some reason was not caught. Swimming and sunbathing until 5 pm. We were given fins and masks for snorkeling, which is very interesting in the Maldives.
In the evening, at the invitation of one of the local hotel restaurants, we went to meet NG at the buffet for $ 50 per person. Complete divorce. The fish, which, in our opinion, on about. Maafushi don’t know how to cook (just like everything else), some kind of noodles, rice, etc. True, there was a disco with a Filipino DJ (sorry, no Filipinos), we at least sang karaoke there and danced to European music. Nevertheless, we met the new year 2013 and went to the hotel.
It turns out that the day before we got a little burned (although we came from the beach of Sri Lanka) and decided to dedicate this day to getting to know our island and the local population.
Maafushi Island is one bus stop long.
If anyone is interested - for five people of our company: a hotel with breakfasts, a transfer by speed boat ap - Maafushi - ap, three excursions to the islands with a transfer, a tour of Male, three dinners at the hotel cost $ 2100. Naturally, we had other expenses. So, in principle, without denying ourselves anything and without much haggling, my wife and I spent five clean days, including New Year's Eve in the Maldives for $ 1200, without a road. Not great money.
Swimming is not allowed on Maafushi Island. The Maldives is a purely Muslim country with its own customs, laws, etc. One of the three Maldivian prisons is located on our island, with a special contingent of 800 people.
There are eight cars on the island (including two trucks and a police jeep) and about 30 motorcycles. There are probably 10 hotels. Two beaches where tourists swim, who are periodically escorted out by the local police. According to the Russian compatriots we met, local aborigines pour broken glass on the beaches so that tourists do not swim. I don’t know, most likely - horror stories, but we didn’t swim on the island and, knowing where we were going, we weren’t going to. In general, Russians in the Maldives, and especially on about. Little maafushi.
We sail on a boat to an uninhabited, but ennobled island ($ 12 entrance without "TEKS"). Everything is very well maintained. Shower, bathroom. Impressive. They promised to make grilled fish, but we, having experience (suddenly they won’t be caught again), refused, we bought Brazilian legs and chicken fillet in the shop of our village the day before, which I personally fried on a grill on this island. We spent the whole day swimming and sunbathing there.
Let's go to the island hotel.
An island in the ocean with one Fihalhohi 4* hotel. Everyone there calls such islands "Resort". This is a feature of the tourism industry in the Maldives. On the island itself there is a hotel with restaurants, bars, showers, bathrooms. Peacocks, herons roam, speaking (in English) parrots fly, crabs, geckos and all kinds of evil spirits run. To each such island, a kind of overpass is attached on stilts from separate bungalows in a row, along which there is a boardwalk. Presumably - the farther into the ocean - the more expensive. I myself reached the farthest - you get tired of walking. Each bungalow has its own number, and on the beach, numbered with your number, there are sun loungers. In short - everything is decorous, solid, expensive, but ...longing. What to do there for two weeks. Beer at the bar: $5 - 0.3 l; whiskey: $150 (180) - 0.5 l.
At 14:00 we rent our rooms, board a speedboat and sail to the city-island of Male.
The manager of our hotel, a Maldivian named Ibrahim, gives us a rather interesting walking tour of the capital with visits to local attractions (which are not there) and the fish market. While waiting for the plane, after saying goodbye to Ibrahim, we walked around the city of Male and had dinner at some local canteen (for ordinary Maldivians) five of us for 400 rubles quite tolerably and, I would say, tastier than in the restaurants of our village on Maafushi. Then they sailed on the ferry to the island-airport and left the Maldives at 02:0.05 January 2013.
Alcohol in the Maldives is a separate story. Huge posters hang in Colombo ap - alcohol cannot be imported into the Maldives categorically. In ap Male, all alcohol is confiscated at customs, both from hand luggage and from luggage checked in before the flight, translucent of it, including beer and champagne. They say that they give it back when they return. Don't know. Maafushi sells only nasty non-alcoholic beer.
But we are Russians. We will not enter into the mind - NG without alcohol. Personally, I brought a liter of whiskey in 0.5 liter bottles from Sri Lankan Cola.
And a little more negativity. Any service in the Maldives, whether it's a boat trip, a meal in a restaurant, and anything else is subject to some kind of incomprehensible Maldivian tax in the amount of “not understanding how many percent”, called the word “TEKS”. That is, be sure that if you agreed on a price of $40 per person for a trip to the above-mentioned bump, then for five people you will give not $200, but a little more, well, for example, $230-$240, as you agree . And so in everything.
This is rather the negative part of the holiday. And positive: the Maldives is a fairy tale. I have never seen such a beach holiday anywhere. Soft, enveloping water. The cleanest, transparent sea and very, very white sand. The only sea I have seen where diving and snorkeling is interesting, after the Red Sea.
All photographs of the Maldives in magazines do not convey the beauty of the sea with sand that you see with your own eyes. It's something. The water is blue, like in pools with blue tiles, and the bottom is white sand. And palm trees, palm trees...It's a pity, at one time, I was not able to spend my honeymoon there. Believe me, I have something to compare. Maldives. There are a lot of them. Most have hotels. One island, one hotel. There are islands where all the Maldivian garbage is taken. Three airports, including an international one bearing the name of some Ibrahim, are also located on separate islands. Islands where chickens, cows are bred, islands with local people in villages like ours. Nothing but palm trees grows in the Maldives. EVERYTHING is imported. Well, maybe some fruits or vegetables grow. Not sure. I will not lie. The Maldives does not produce anything and, in my opinion, the entire economy is based on tourism.
And, nevertheless, the beaches, the sea and some unearthly beauty of the Maldives forgive them everything. And we left the Maldives, despite the shortcomings listed, with sadness. I don't know if we will ever visit them again. Unlikely. There are many countries on our ball, and life is so short.
