Maldives - A place of relaxation

Maldives…

It has been a tiring year, so why don’t we take few days off from our work life and go to a place of relaxation. Yes, that’s when we decided to head to Maldives.

We boarded our flight from Cochin International Airport and within 2 hours we were on top of the beautiful islands of Maldives. It was raining heavily when we reached Male and the flight took some time to land. Flight hovered in the sky for a while and it gives us some time to get a clear view of the beautiful islands.

 The view from the flight was breathtaking. The islands together looked like a painting. Yes, it’s is called Mala – dweep, which is nothing but Necklace islands. It was as if someone colored the surrounding of islands with Greenish blue. Only the shallow sea surrounding the island was colored in Greenish blue and the rest of the sea was dark blue.

We landed at Male airport and went directly to our resorts counter. There were few more people to join us, so we waited for them. We then took a sim and called back home to inform that we have landed safely. We then started off in a speed boat to the island resort. The journey in speed boat was superb. It felt like a roller coaster ride. After 45 mins through sea, we reached our resort. We understood that there was a time difference of 30 mins from India and Maldives.

Pier at Fun Island Resort

We reached Fun Island Resort around 3:00 PM. The most attracting part was the Pier in front of the resort. The view from there to the resort and from the resort to the sea was simply breath taking. We were hosted with a welcome drink. We were then escorted to our room – Room no 122. The room was very close to the beach. We were able to hear the sweet sounds of waves in the beach.

We took rest and after freshening up, headed towards the beach. The view was terrific. We walked through the beach shores. We could see lots of different types of sea shells and crabs. We then took some photos. The sun set at the beach was one of the best.

Maldivian
Sea shore

We came back to the reception of the resort, where Wi-Fi was available. We surfed for a while and then headed towards the food court. We had booked for 3 time buffet for us. We had a lavish dinner which included a soup, main course involving Indian and European dishes, fruits and desserts. We sat for a while near the beach and came back to our room. We talked for a while, we had our laptop with us, and we spend some time watching ‘FRIENDS’ and then slept off.

Next day morning we got up around 8.30 am. We had a very good breakfast and continued to explore our island resort. We roamed around the island, and from all spots of the island the view was terrific. We could see another island near by – which was called Robinson Island. Soon it started raining; rain kind of changed our plans for the day. We had some indoor games arranged and we played table tennis and caroms for a while.

We met few Indian couple out there who had come there for their honey moon. One of them was a Keralite. While roaming around, we had a special feeling of a joy whenever we met an Indian.  There was lot of activities planned in the resort. We both were dying to do an underwater surfing and snorkeling. We enquired and found that it would require 1 week training before we are allowed to do. We were there for 4 days, and a day had already passed, we understood that we won’t be able to do underwater diving this time.

One of the activities planned for the day was dolphin safari which costed 25$ per person. We readily decided to go for the safari. The trip was planned at 3.30 pm. We then went for lunch – which had an exquisite choice of food items. After a pretty heavy lunch, we then headed to the room, for a small nap. By 3 we were ready and headed towards the reception. Another Indian couple, an Indian family and a Chinese family were also part of the dolphin safari ride.

Dolphins

We were taken to a different end of the resort where a small boat was waiting for us. We on boarded it and were taken to the deep sea. After 45 mins or so in the deep blue sea, there were no signs of Dolphin. We felt a bit sad.  Our sadness was emboldened when the boat driver informed us that, if we don’t see any dolphin half of the amount would be refunded. We travelled 5 more minutes into the sea, when we spotted the 1^st dolphin. Everyone was excited. For most of us, it was the first experience of watching a live dolphin. Initially we saw 3 dolphins. Every few minutes they would do a small leap, everyone had their cameras flashing. Our boat slowed down, so that we were all had good view of the dolphins, soon we could see many a dolphins. After few minutes, we could see another boat near us, these boat drivers managed to drive in such a way that dolphins were clearly visible for the passengers of both the boats.

After a wonderful 1 hour with one of the most majestic creatures in the sea, we headed back. All were pretty happy. One of the passengers even had a comment that the dolphins which we saw were bigger than the ones which he had seen at trincomalee in Sri Lanka. We returned to the resort after another hour. We took rest, refreshed and then headed towards the food court. After a very good dinner, we sat at the reception. There was a scheduled program of crab race. We waited for some time, but after the scheduled time also the event didn’t start off.  We got bored and we returned back to our room. We watched ‘FRIENDS’ for a while and slept off.

Next day morning, we had planned to go to a nearby Robinson island. A couple of other island inmates joined us. This time around, we were taken to a different end of the resort and were taken in a small boat and after a 10 minute journey we reached Robinson Island. There wasn’t anything spectacular about that island. We roamed around and explored the island. We saw a ray fish. I swam through the beach for a while. Soon the mid-day sun started pouring on us. We took rest in a shady area. Soon the boat came back to pick us back. We returned back by 12.30 to our island resort. We took bath and then headed straight for lunch.

After a very good feast, we headed back to our room. We had a very good mid-day sleep and then by evening we headed to the beach shores. We walked through the pier sat there for a while, watched the sun set, soon couple of other inmates also joined us. We took lot of photos. I took another swim through the beach side. By 7 pm we headed back to our room. We took bath, and went straight to the food court. We had a pretty nice dinner. We then went to the reception. We could see bunch sea turtles in a small pool. We then headed to a small souvenir shop near by the reception.  We brought few souvenirs and then headed to our room.

View from air craft

 Next day morning we got up by 7.30 am and started to do our packing. We had our flight by 02.45 PM. We took bath, had our breakfast and then took rest for a while. Then by 11.30 am we headed to the reception, we bid farewell to the resort coordinators and then got into the speed boat. After a terrific 45 mins in the speed boat, we reached the airport by12.15 Pm. We did a small shopping for the family and friends at the airport. By 2 pm we had done our security check and were waiting near the flight entrance gate. By 02.30 we got into the flight, took few aerial photos of the airport. We reached back at Cochin by 6 pm. We both had a gala of time and felt very refreshed after the trip. We were saddened by the fact that trip had come to a halt, we both vowed to make our next trip even more amazing.