A BRIEF MALDIVES TOUR

2016-03-09, 18:44, JASON

BUDGET, STAY: UI INN (HULHUMALE), VENTURO GUESTHOUSE (MAAFUSHI)

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One of those countries that we never thought we'd make it to, but here we are!

Maldives (We only realized halfway through that it's not really called "The Maldives", the name of the country is just plural-sounding, but gets referenced as a singular, which nudges your grammar bone) is an island nation based in the Indian Ocean. We took a cheap Scoot flight there for a weekend getaway. You know, from one island, Singapore, to the next. But, Maldives is unique in that the country is arranged in atolls, or, ring-shaped clusters of islands. Actually, we looked up the etymology for atoll and found out that it comes from Dhivehi -- the spoken language of Maldives -- meaning a small administrative region. Let's see if this shows up on the website: " އަތޮޅު " that's the Dhivehi script (called Taana)

Because there are small clusters of islands arranged in a ring, and each island has its own name, structuring this post is a bit strange. We'll keep to the convention of by-city posts, and so although it looks like we hit up so many cities (four islands!) in Maldives, a lot of the islands you can wander around in a day or less. So, all cities on the "been" page will link to this post. On the front page though, we'll just add a link to this trip, as it doesn't make sense to spam the front. Did you care for any of that? I'll start with some general impressions of the country:

Any time you notice a shallow shelf of water, it can be outside the airport, on an island, at the docks, the water is teal blue, like all the resort pictures show. When you hit deep water, the water is a very deep, deep blue, unlike I've ever seen. The water isn't all super warm where we were, it was mostly a little warmer than cool. As in, you could wake up in the morning, and go for a dip, and not feel like you're freezing any extremeties off. But, the scenery is so impressive. You look out into the vast ocean, at the clear waters and coral sands, and you realize that it's easy to accustom yourself to island life.

Second impression: It's still a heavily Muslim country. That means, if you don't choose to go to the resorts (and, we would recommend this way if you plan on saving money, more on this later), you will be expected to respect local customs. Women, that means no bikinis at the beaches. You have to cover yourself with a shirt, and some long pants. In fact, most of the local women that went to the sea would be fully covered, decked out in either a hijab or a niqab, bathing in the water and just sitting. This was enlightening. It's interesting for me, from an outside perspective, to watch Muslim folk (and, women in particular) get on with their daily lives in traditional wear. As in, you'll see women in hijabs playing soccer or tennis, shooting hoops, going for a swim or dip in the beach, chatting, etc. It's a simple thing that we do, but based on my non-exposure to it, I developed a notion that Muslim folk do not do these things. Or, at least wondered how they go about doing it. The same can be said the desexualization or denormalization of Muslims, a point I have to credit to Jasbir Puar's Terrorist Assemblages. Being around them changes my perspective. I have never been exposed to that in the past, or have lived in areas that the dominant culture bleaches minority ones. Being around strong Muslim communities really opens your eyes to their daily lives. It's not the biggest revelation to myself, but a small challenge to my paradigm. Again, more on this later through our various interactions with them. Men's dresscode at the beach? No speedos. Shirtless is OK, but a moderate pair of swim trunks or soccer shorts is necessary. It seems from tripadvisor and the like that many people complain about this rigid dress code, and so duck away into resorts, and avoid Malé, the capital. That's fine, but don't go spouting how you should be entitled to wearing your beachwear in a foreign country. Although, everyone should still speak goddamn ENGLISH.

The next impressive thing was Dhivehi, the national language. The script is unlike any I've seen before. It's all curly and written like glyphs. If you've seen Tamil or Thai, it looks a little similar but the letters aren't as connected. Google it when you get a chance, it's fascinating. Here's a picture from our journey: 

Lastly, there are Chinese and Russians everywhere. And, a lot of them cannot communicate in English. This leads to some interesting Google Translate conversations, but I wonder what advertising is like in their home countries such that they come to Maldives. Even more so, we realize how lucky we are that we speak English and have privilege to learn other languages. I served as a translator twice on this trip, more on that as you read. Brace yourselves, it's a long one.

Our itinerary was this: land into the airport, take the bus to Hulhumale (connected to the airport, same island), go to Malé, the capital and main economic island, then take a local ferry over to Maafushi island, and then a quick day trip to Villimale. I'll split up this entry by island, feel free to follow the links above:

Hulhumale:

After landing at Ibrahim Nasir International Airport, we took a local bus for the price of 20 Rufiyaa (15 Rufiyaa ~ 1 USD) to Hulhumale. It's weird: walking directly out of the airport, you can hear the beach, as the waterfront is just right there. Hulhumale island was built artifically and connected to the airport. We disembarked at some random stop, and started looking for the hotel, obviously walking in the wrong direction initially. As we got in at about 9 p.m., most of the holy, rest day (Friday) was ending, people were happily eating outside. We walked around and finally found our hotel, worried only that the food stalls would close before we got a chance to eat there.

Now, you must be wondering, hotel? Yes, we were crazy enough to actually book a hotel. Only realizing now that you could have done apartment rentals on AirBNB, the one we found that was the cheapest listed happened to be some hotel. No hostels here -- at least not yet. We checked in, and to our surprise, they gave us a beach front view! You could hear the sea right outside. The lady also came in and gave us a glass of tea for refreshments, a towel to wipe our face, etc. Actually, we'd gotten so used to extreme budget traveling that we forgot towels and toothbrushes were included. So anyway, we set our stuf down and decided to hit up the town to get some food.

There was an outdoor market taking place during the weekend in which a bunch of random shops selling food and other trinkets were set up. We walked in and looked around, eventually coming across some tasty looking snacks. This lovely woman started talking to us and telling us about these spicy and sweet Maldivian snacks wrapped up in some corn-huskish thing, so, we bought one spicy and one sweet one (wish I remembered the name). She also wanted us to buy some of their pickled cabbage, but we declined since we didn't wanna blow all our cash out on the first night. Saved the food for later.

Touching on my initial impressions, the lady selling things to us was wearing a naqib. Thorin mentioned in passing how unusual it is that we get to actually interact with Muslims who choose to cover their bodies, saying that it's refreshing to see people proud of their religion and country. I agree. But, I also agree with eating delicious food so we continued our journey. As it is with lots of Asia, some of the best food is found on the street, just ducking in. Going in it without Yelp, seeing what you can find. We walked into a random restaurant that looked alright, and we pointed to some curries, and sat down. YOU GUYS. These curries were like Indian consistency inspired, with a bit of Thai flavor mix. They were all so unique and some of the best curries I've ever had. The best part is that they complement it with some lime, chilli peppers, and onions you can eat on the side, making it an unbeatable combination. As Maldives is practically surrounded by ocean,k their fish cuisine is some of the finest in the world that I've tasted. Just so damn fresh. I was hooked. 

Remember those snacks I was talking about? We unwrapped them and had it. The spicy one tasted almost like minced-pie filling, just a little drier and with a wonderful spicy aftertaste. The sweet one? It tasted as if someone dried out banana bread, and spiced it a bit with raisin flavoring, and turned it into a stick form. It honestly just tasted like some nice bread, with a cookie consistency. Thank you to the Maldivian people for blessing my life with that.

As it got a bit later, we decided to head back and rest for the day ahead. What did we see while walking back? A TV projector being cast, in the middle of a random field, onto a projector screen. Yes, open-source television for the people. And, some people were gathered outside just watching. Maldivian Idol was on, and they were all singing some local songs or whatnot. So random, but hey, some countries offer parks, it looks like Maldives offers T.V.

Next morning, we woke up bright and early because we wanted to catch some of the breakfast at the hotel. Great stuff. Along with your staple cereals, breads, and coffee/tea, they also had roshi (kind of like a Maldivian prata, or Maldivian naan) along with some tuna. They always mix the tuna with some lime, salt, and other stuff, but however they reach the end product, it's super good. Beats the canned stuff anyday. We met the owner -- a lovely Slovene gentleman who married a Maldivian woman. He was just chatting to us about living in Maldives and his experiences, a good local perspective. He was kind enough to offer a map to us of Hulhumale and we were off exploring.

As far as islands go, there's not much to do. I mean, it's pretty small, reclaimed land. Plus, I have to remind myself that the island can't just be one large resort, it's actually peoples' livelihoods we're talking about here. As a result, there wasn't much to see per se, but there were a lot of local, cultural spots. The first is of course, the beach. You can walk right out on the eastern shore and encounter blue waters -- the ones from the advertisements. It stretches along the eastern end of the island. The water is a moderate temperature, still cold enough to feel that it's a bit cold, but warm enough to just get in. When you walk down the main street all the way to the northern end, you hit the barbecue pits. This is really cool. They are essentially open-source barbecue pits for locals (I imagine tourists too) to just cook what you caught that day for food. Apparently, after about 5 or 6, many locals will just gather there and have a full on barbecue and social with their friends. Wish we could have joined. The best part is that the view you have is of the next island they are artificially building.

Muslim countries should expect a few mosques, and Maldives is no exception. The mosque style here is all very open-air scheme, and modern. There aren't these architecturally grand mosques, they are places to worship. However, it's interesting that they'll do physical things like planting trees, surrounding a garden, etc. to make the mosque in a more 'homely' space. Much of Hulhumale is being constructed and so some parts get a bit dusty or loud, but never around a mosque. There are about three mosques that we saw: one that looked like someone's house, one that maintained the more traditional dome shape, and one that looked like an office building. All with their own cute minerets. 

Walked around some more. Walked by a local primary school painted in some bright blue color (similar to the water). But, seeing as we wanted to go to Maafushi, we had to take a ferry to Malé first and then go down to Villingilli terminal to pick up a ferry. Overall impression of Hulhumale? It's like U.C. Davis if it were located near a beach. A lot of the apartment homes that are put up resemble college dorms. The housing units are still under construction quite a bit and so in a few years, this island will probably look very different.

Malé:

We were in Malé twice. In from Hulhumale in the morning for a quick trip, then back the next day as we were catching our flight back to Singapore. I'll just lump it all into here for consistency sake. There's a lot to say.

When we get in, we take a cab to the Villingilli terminal which is exactly on the opposite side of the island. We pick up our ferry tickets for the day to Maafushi and so are set to wander around, find some food, and then catch the ferry later. Malé itself? It's the capital city. It's rough, it's urban, but not in the same way say Bangkok or Manila is. It's the most crowded island in the Maldives, but it maintains still an island charm about it. The streets are all decked out in different colors, brightly painted, and there are motorscooters buzzing around everywhere. There are no traffic lights that are in operation, although they're there. It's almost easier for traffic to function if people just weaved through. There are small roads interjecting the island so that it's rare to walk down the same one twice. This is in contrast to the main road that bisects the island and runs from east to west.

The best thing about Malé is the access to options for food. We walk back from the southwest of the island back north, near the ferry port, where there are a lot of food options. We pass by the open fish market. It's an open-air concrete building, very industrial. Kind of typical 'fishing town' style if that makes sense. The catch of the day is lying around: on the floor, in trays, everywhere. The entire fish market is covered with a thin, puddle layer of fish juice on the floor. All this is accompanying the fresh smell of fish in the air. You go over to another aisle and the guys are gutting the fish and preparing them in the market. Of all the outdoor markets that I've seen, this is the best seafood one. Fish heads, bodies, everywhere, pure rawness. Making us hungry. So, Thorin and I walk upstairs and duck into a random restaurant that some Maldivian folk point us in the direction of. This is hands down the best meal we had in Malé. We ate a bunch of curry, local breads, and also rice, coupled with the lime and chillis, and it was pure heaven. The best part was that the entire bill came out quite cheaply as well. I'm telling you, Maldivians know how to do a good fish dish. It's so perfectly tender, and their curries are sub-LIME.

We then walk outside to another hangar-ish building, and upon walking inside we see it's a massive fruit market. There are bananas hanging from their original stalks (is that how they're grown?) and all kinds of various tropical fruits around. Had it not been for that lunch earlier, we would have bought some, but we had a cruise to catch. In any case, all of the fruits looked extremely fresh. Even better was the air when you walked in. Transitioning from fish, the entire hangar smelled like a fruit cocktail. 

Anyway, as we were a bit in a rush, we decided to head back to the ferry to catch our ride to Maafushi -- read Maafushi now --

Did you read Maafushi, or are you reading by island? OK, when we got back from Maafushi and the awesome speedroad ride back, we decided to hit up the few tourist spots left in Malé. This included: Independence Square, Sultan Park, Friday Mosque, another islamic center mosque, and the Malé beach. With exception from the beach, all of these sites are within 5 minutes walking distance of each other, making it a super easy place to do your tourist sightseeing. Again, in the same way that Malé is a 'newer' city in terms of architecture, these mosques looked mosqueish, but to nowhere the grandeur of these other Muslim countries. Still, they hold their own. Independence Square is mainly where all the protests break out in Maldives. Closeby is the National Defense building, watching over the park. Smart move. Maldives tends to be a tumultuous area in terms of conflict. They had an attempted anti-government overthrow just last year in November, but the state of emergency has lifted. You would never have known or felt this if you didn't read about it prior.

Anyway, after getting back and then doing some of the sightseeing, we realized we were only an hour in, so we decided to take another ferry to Villimale, which is the nearest main island to Malé. Ferries run frequently enough for a day trip to work, and, only last for about 10 minutes. Makes a good nap time. When we got back, all we did was wander around to the Malé public beach, which was full of locals just enjoying a guarded off area for some swimming. There was a small recreation area around and some locals were playing volleyball, basketball, or skateboarding. It reminded me a bit of Santa Monica, you know, without all the weed, but just urban expression.

Getting dark, we pop again into a local café and get a small bite to eat. Felt like we were eating the whole time this trip, which we prob were. Upon walking to pick up the airport taxi, this Chinese woman asks me, "Hello, are you CHINESE?" And, she doesn't ask if I speak it, she asks straight up if I am. I say no, sorry, but I can speak it. And she goes on to insist that I am Chinese. Identity politics aside, I get what she means. It's interesting that people from a big country almost expect you to speak their language, even though Chinese language is hardly lingua franca these days. You get this with English traveling privilege, where everyone is expected to speak some kind of English to function in the world. However, seeing this magnify in the Chinasphere, having the lady ask if I was Chinese and not just spoke the language, made me have a bit of faith in humanity. Maybe we're not all that different. The Chinese really are the Americans of East Asia. They're a bit loud, they're a bit boisterous, but they seriously can't help just being themselves. Anyway, she asked me when the public ferry was and looked completely lost, so I guided them to it. She wanted me to walk with them and grabbed my arm and started rushing. She even then said, "Sorry, but, can you hurry up a bit we're in a rush" as if she were doing me the favor. I just ignore her, seeing as her husband is like two paces behind me, with Thorin just really confused as to what's going on. I help them get their tickets, and they say their xiexies, and they even say it to Thorin in the manner you would if someone didn't understand your language, "XIE. XIEEEEEEEEE." She continues to talk through to Thorin in Chinese, as if that somehow would make him understand. We talk about the sitch a bit, then laugh about it. "That was interesting?" Anyway, from here, we depart to the airport, and then take our flight home.

Maafushi:

If you do any Google search, Maafushi always comes up now. We were told by locals that 5 years ago it was virtually Maldivian culture. But, now that they've hit the web, they're becoming a booming tourist island for those on a budget. I think we caught it mid development, whre there were still some cheap options, but not by any means very cheap.

Getting in is cheap by local ferry. When you arrive, it looks like a small island without much going on. And, after walking around for a bit, there really isn't much. It's all very low rise; none of the hotels really span past 5 or 6 stories, at least not that we could tell. There is construction and concrete façades everywhere, skeletons of future hotels to be built. Along the dock where you land, there are various diving schools, snorkeling excursions, or other travel packages, for you to participate in incase you want that experience. There are even connections to resort hotels nearby.

Upon arriving to the hotel, a Chinese man was trying to get a reservation for the hotel but obviously couldn't get through. So, I step in, ask if he needs help, and then he happily chimes in and begins talking about what he wants translated. Turns out, the guy at the counter thought that his name was a certain "Diego" that had a reservation, and that the Chinese man had prepaid and was claiming the room. First, kudos to Mr. Maldives for not associating a name with a nation, but I mean, a Chinese man named Diego is a bit of a stretch, I'm still waitin for that one eh. I sort it out, and turns out the Chinese guy didn't have a reservation and was just showing up for a place to stay. The staff tell me there's no more room (it's a fucking small island man), and he says, "Ok, well can you ask him to show me around to some other hotels so that I can get a room?" God - don't shoot the messenger, that's all that's going through my head. The Maldivian man agrees.

But that's not the end of it, Maldives man said, wait, a room has opened up, for 100 USD in total. I tell the Chinese man, and he flatly refuses, saying, "No. I want him to show me to the other ones." So what do I do? I bargain it for him. I get it down to 90 USD in total and get this guy a deal. He gladly budges, and he has a place to stay. All throughout the translation process, he keeps interrupting me while I'm trying to translate. I'm just trying to get through to Mr. Maldives and Chinese man keeps cutting me off! No one steals this diva's spotlight. On the car ride over to our hotel, since it was located in a separate bit, the Chinese guy keeps interrupting me for me to translate our conversation between Mr. Maldives, Thorin, and me into Chinese for him. It pretty much starts into a lot of talking over each other and one of the weirder convos I've had. Anyway, not to dwell, although I fear I've already, on the topic.

The point I want to say is this. I find it lucky that I speak languages well enough to translate, and could probably get myself a job here on the atolls. Second, I'm not highlighting Chinese rudeness. Don't get all "I hate the Chinese" on me.. that's been done, and it doesn't look good on anyone. I'm highlighting from these two experiences with Chinese folk -- another one happened on Malé on the way to the ferry terminal, and depending on which order you read this in you may or may not have come across it -- that the Chinese are just so unapologetically themselves. You have to admire that. Some people call it rude, but I call it just being themselves without a care. Another time, we saw a group of four Chinese women, probably mid-40s, on Maafushi, asking a local man to take a picture with him and his baby. One woman even goes so far as to try to hold the baby and take a picture of it, unabashed. I love it. I love how they embrace humanity and don't have hide or have qualms about how they feel, at least not the traditional Western barriers. I love how the women travel in a group, no men, and embrace being on the island and show a strong sisterhood, coupled together with their bright loud summer dresses. In a country of 1 billion people, you have to make yourself heard. They're just getting shit done and working it; I give them props for that.

So, after getting in, translating, and checking in, we decide to walk around a bit and catch the remaining sun that is still shining. Turns out, this island is beautiful at sunset. 

The hotel we stayed at faced the beach, but seeing as it was already getting dark, we decided on that the next mornin. The hotel had a 6 USD buffet that consisted mostly of Western food, with some local fish caught for the day. They grilled that shit up and served it, and it was really good. The pasta and stuff? Well, you can get that mostly everywhere. However, what we did notice was an apparent lack of restaurants on the island -- local ones. Most of the beachfront has buffets charged by the local hotels, but we didn't look at the menus since we didn't have the budget to really shell out. We would be too sad otherwise had we seen what we missed out on. We did, however, come across another one of those public TV viewing places like we saw in Hulhumale. Maldives -- proud supporters still of open source TV.

As the island is small and walkable in 1 hour, the most exciting thing to do is the beach. There are clear, shallow waters with a shelf that extends out maybe 150 meters, and all along that it is bright blue water. Again, as it is a local island, you are expected to respect local customs in beachwear, but there is even a shelved-off "bikini beach" for foreigners to bare their flesh and fat out for the Maldives to see. When you walk behind the barrier, it's just a bunch of white folk tanning and swimming. Since there's not that much beach land to begin with, the bikini beach -- as it's growing in popularity -- felt a bit crowded. You can walk across the whole beach in about 2-3 minutes, and most of the water is crowded with people. On the other side of the island that our hotel faced was the local beach. Again, watching Muslim women bathe (not in that creepy way, but as an observation...) and enjoy themselves at the beach is something I've never seen. They just soak in there and gossip, I guess?

Back at the hostel for the night, we got to talk to one of the speedboat operators that drove from Maafushi back to Malé island, who grew up on Maafushi. He gave us an idea of how the landscape has changed within the past 5 years and how most of the industry is changing. It's interesting to talk to peoples' experiences growing up on a once-small island turned tourist. He was saying how there were initial resistances or tarnishing of local community identity, but I say as a whole Maafushi has done quite well. They're not all drunkards in bikinis, like the English in Ibiza.

The next day we started afresh. Got up at sunrise. I gotta mention the beach. We went there for sunrise just to observe and go for a little bath. It's heaven. You're not doing anything, nothing's on your mind, you're just existing and embracing it. 

We went to our hotel to have breakfast and they offered us some more roshi and tuna, and we still were not sick of the food. Every time it's so damn good. We sat on a the beach for a good hour or so, and even dipped in the water and just sat and chatted. The waves are all relaxing and calming. Upon entering the city, we saw a bunch of people, children and parents, probably the entire population of Maafushi, going to school. Kids were being sent to the local primary school, and parents were dropping this off. This was comforting and cute, watching kids go to school on a local island to learn for the day. You'll get the occasional stare since you're a foreigner, and the occasional wave, but that's expected. You're just a foreign face. Stay in school, kids. Keep doing the good work that needs to be done.

Before we left the island, we stopped by this Suzy's bakery where they had baked some local stuff infused with European flavors. We met the shop owner's daughter who was a lovely girl from Malé, and wanted to study fine arts. However, she opened up the shop with her mother, and they made some of the best veggie samosas and tuna paninos on the island. It was nice chatting with her -- interested in fine arts, wanted to go to school outside someday, but a true-blue Maldivian. It's experiences like that that really stick with you.

Anyway, it felt like we spent a lifetime on Maafushi by the time we left but it had been less than a day. The man we chatted to the night before operated a speedboat, and we paid him to take us back to Malé. There aren't many times that I can say that I was cruising down a speedboat in the Indian Ocean. It was pretty baller. I'm glad we stayed a little extra longer on Maafushi to pick up some of that island lyfe. OK, from here, you can jump back to the second half of Male

Villimale:

OK. We did this one on the tail end of our trip. Made it back to Malé from Maafushi, then took a quick trip. There is nothing on this island in terms of tourism, just a small beach that looks out to Malé. A lot of it is residential and we saw a lot of people just chilling around. As we were tired, we just sat on the beach, looked out, and then drank some Coca Cola, and then bounced back. It was a cheap fare anyway.

The place itself had infrastructure, but was still just a small local town. Probably what most of the other islands look like before tourism goes in. I will say though, the view of Malé from this island is pretty cool. It's a cathartic experience: realizing you're out of the city staring back at you, and you've temporarily escaped the chaos. Here's the few pics we took here:

And so, that wraps up our trip. What turns out to be a 2 day trip ends up being so much more than that. I feel like I can't even get it all out. Writer's constipation. Go on then, enjoy the Maldives. Just avoid any political unrest. 

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