Maldivian Beauty

Our trip to Maldives felt too short! Although we had 4 full days and 3 nights, we probably could have stayed there a few days longer :( If we could do it all over again, I probably would have booked a water villa for 2-3 nights and then a beach villa for 2-3 nights to be stay longer and keep costs under control. Adam and I really need a diet when we get back! The food was really good with a lot of variety - far better than any other all inclusive type of place we've ever stayed at including our safari last year. Snorkeling right off the beach or off our water villa was very cool! Since the water was so clear, you could even see some fish on our boardwalk to our villa or from our balcony. The best part was that the area around the island is fairly shallow so you can just stand when you need a break from swimming but still a lot of fishes amongst the reef. There would be highly unlikely encounters with sharks and other scarier sea creatures at that depth which I'm okay with! Diving is supposed to be good here too but I'm a bit freaked out after my first intro dive in Australia and I'm not certified. I was on a wind surfing mission but both days I booked a lesson, there wasn't enough wind so it got cancelled. I guess I'll have to try that on another trip. We had some time to kill after our sea plane and our flight back to KL so we went to Male. Again, in the daylight, nothing remarkable - very populated and apparently very expensive to live with lots of narrow roads and alleyways that are poorly constructed - so different from the resorts! Although Male is the capital of the Maldives, there are also some other inhabited islands that aren't resorts. Apparently, there are a total of 1200 islands organized into 19 atolls or rings of islands. Our resort was only 55 km from the airport but some are over 300 km away. With so many islands, you would think another nearby country would take claim to some of then since they are so beautiful and so many of them! We obviously didn't stay here but check out this photo of one of the hotels! Wow!

Less than a week left of our trip. We just arrived in Langkawi! Will post again in a few days!