15.09.18 - 21.09.18 Maldives

At some point at the beginning of our trip, we decided to treat ourselves to a little luxury and booked ourselves 4 nights on a small island in the Maldives, which is only 700km away from Sri Lanka. We were always looking forward to it and couldn't really believe that we were actually going there. And then the time had finally come...

To avoid falling into typical tourism, we booked two nights in the capital city of Male at the beginning to experience at least a touch of the 'real' Maldives. Male is 2.9 times 1.3km in size and is home to nearly 100,000 inhabitants. Accordingly, the city is densely built and lively, with scooters filling the small alleys. It felt very similar to a city in Sri Lanka, except that the religion is obviously different. Islam is the state religion, which is evident not only through the numerous mosques and the veiled women but also through various laws. For example, alcohol and pork are banned on the 200 local islands. We circled the small island and admired the few sights, with the bustling markets once again being the most enjoyable and impressive, especially the clear water around the island, which was not even clouded by the harbor, that was very promising.

Most visitors to the Maldives don't experience any of this. Most are picked up directly from the airport island by their resort. Only just under 100 of the total of 1196 islands in the Maldives are used for tourism purposes, and it seems that the laws of the Maldives do not apply there. After our second night in Male, it was time for us to experience the other side of the Maldives.

We were picked up at the harbor at 8:30 am by speedboat and, after picking up two retired Tyroleans at the airport, we raced to Makunudu Island in just under an hour, which was to be our home for 4 nights. The clock was simply moved forward by an hour there to give the guests more daylight... Time is so relative. As we now know, the island is a so-called barefoot island, which is supposed to be a contrast to the mega luxury islands. There are 36 beach bungalows arranged around the mini island, each with private beach access with loungers and chairs and right in front of it is the super clear, light turquoise sea. Everything around is overgrown, little chickens run around everywhere, and a kind of stork always visits when there is food somewhere. The bungalows are really, really beautiful, and we have never had such a great bed before. Dudu, our room boy, also came up with nice decorations for our bed. There is also a restaurant, a bar, a spa, and a water sports center where everyone gets free snorkeling equipment to explore the house reef around the island, where we could observe the colorful fish, some of which can grow to huge sizes. The little sharks that swim around the jetty and the two stingrays that suddenly appeared were also great. Since we found a great offer, we enjoyed all-inclusive service (finally being able to drink alcohol without worrying about the budget) and were able to take a small catamaran tour and relax with a massage. And since food was served every few hours, the days went by quickly and boredom didn't come up at all.

Yes, the food... Eating out is not always easy for a vegan, so we announced this in advance and relied on them to come up with something great for Lea. Well, that didn't really work out. They didn't plan ahead or come up with anything, they wanted us to come up with spontaneous ideas of what they could cook... somewhat disappointing for a restaurant that presents itself very fancy and shows a certain degree of creativity. Until the end, they managed to provide fresh coconut milk for cereal for breakfast and a vegetable curry, so that the Indian/Sri Lankan part of breakfast was edible. There was always something to find on the lunch buffets, but they never made anything special. That was sometimes frustrating because with some dishes they could have just left something out that was on top... They also didn't manage to come up with vegan desserts, so Lea was simply served fresh fruit every time while the others had at least 7 different things to choose from. To be fair, it must also be said that the culinary offering in general was not outstanding and after seeing the offerings at the markets in Male, we expected something more exciting. Enough complaining, it wasn't that bad, but it did put a damper on the perfect island experience.

We are completely inexperienced with this type of vacation and are still somewhat clumsy at times. We had to google how to handle tipping and were not prepared for smaller amounts and preferred to carry our backpacks to the boat ourselves so that we didn't have to give a $10 tip.

In any case, our little detour into the world of luxury was worth it, even though it's good for us to leave after 4 nights and not stay for 14 days like many do here. We're just a little different...