Maldives was heaven for my eyes
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| Virgin Ocean at Maldives |
The combination of white sand beach,
mesmerizing sunset and sunrise, silent lagoons, vast corals and romantic
over-water bungalows can be found at the heavenly place on earth known as
‘Maldives’.
I wish to travel maximum during my life and
till now I am done with few places however Maldives is one country, I can
vouch. As soon as I landed, I felt the place was pampering with it bouquet of
services.
The country is divided into two parts: On
road and Islands. While the on-road part is the capital Male (total of 4 km, I
guess) and the rest is all islands. And over those islands, the beautiful
resorts and hotels have come up. I found Maldives extremely expensive which I
believe is the reason that it is maintained in hygiene and facilities.
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| White Sand Beach |
The resort ferry's you from airport to the
island. Hospitality of
the staff is great.These resorts usually have 2-3 islands and to add a feather in their
cap, one resort would only be a stay area for guests, one would be dining & lounge
and another would be for sports activity. The fact that for every meal I had an
option to go to another island really fancied me. The ocean was as clear as it
could get with visibility of jelly fish or star fish upto 100%.
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| Sting Ray (fish) inside the clear ocean |
Even the stay had two options – Room on the
white sand and room over water. Imagining that I could use a staircase and get
into the ocean from my room had hijacked my mind and therefore I decided to go
for over-water bungalow. The bungalow was beautiful and well maintained with
basic hygiene and even modern facilities. The best part was the balcony; you
could sit there for hours and stare at the vast ocean right below you with the
view of flora and fauna. And since those rooms were built on lagoons, the water
was shallow and allowed even the non-swimmers to enter.
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| View from the room |
The food is just awesome. Since Maldives
has no industry of its own except fishery and tourism, they import everything
from water to fruits to food items. And that was the reason that exotic, non
seasonal fruits were easily available on the breakfast menu. You name the dish
and you had it on your table and getting vegetarian meal is not a problem at
all. It is just that even the basic margarita pizza was 47 dollars, which means
even gulping down the food would burn a hole in the pocket. And of-course, sea
food is the specialty.
Next turn was water-sports. Maldives has
been the best location for scuba dive because it rich, vast and untouched
corals on the sea bed. And I was all game for it. One hour of training, small
test and we were ready for going 11mtrs below the seal level. And to our luck,
we found a big sea turtle just passing by us. We had taken an underwater camera
from Kodak and it leaked, though we managed taking few pictures. We also saw
loads of species of fishes, there houses in the corals – It was a completely different
world underwater. And remembering it after two years still brings the same line
which I said at that time “There exists a different life here altogether which
one cannot feel unless seen”
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| Para-sailing |
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| Submarine taking us to the seabed |
Maldives has vast offerings under water
sports – Water scooter, parasailing, snorkelling, dolphin sightseeing, surfing,
Banana riding and Glass Bottom Boats.
Well each of the sports were pinching as it could get because one has to
shell at-least 250 dollars for scuba dive alone and 70 dollars at-least for
other activities each. Sad but it is the best one could get!
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| Islands in Maldives |
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| Sun setting in the sea |
I stayed for four days in Anantara Resorts
and it was an awesome experience. There are many other resorts which my friends
have stayed in such as Taj, W retreat and Hyatt.
Fifth day was in the city for souvenir
shopping. Male is very cheap compared to the resorts. Two roads and you will
have all the shops on it and even the city is all on it. One can cover the city
in 3 hours which includes dining also, haha. You can shop for red coral beads
and showpieces of the fauna. In-fact coconut wind-chimes are also popular.
So that wraps up my experience in Maldives.
I had guts to do the adventure sports and I wish that readers of this blog will
try their hands with Scuba.
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