Hi once again Steemit community & new found Steemit friends!
I am back and I would like to share our Holiday to the Maldives from this year - January 2017. My wife and I never did get the chance to have a proper honeymoon due to work commitments and after taking almost a year off from work in 2016, we decided that it would be an awesome time to have the honeymoon we never had back in 2011. I have always wanted to visit the Maldives and when I showed my wife the images of the cabins on the water and the crystal clear waters and pure white sandy beaches, she was immediately sold on the idea.
While I was looking at the flights and hotels my budget quickly blew out, originally wanting to see what was available and at what price, I ended up spending hours on different travel and hotel sites trying to find the best deal. Now I didn’t go with the smallest budget, I also definitely didn’t go for the high end hotels – I guess somewhere in the low to middle range is where we ended up. As you can see from our photos, it was magic regardless of the amount we spent.
It all started with a long flight from Melbourne to Abu Dhabi, we went this route strictly for our Etihad Guest member tier miles and it wasn’t the shortest route at all. As we literally flew over the Maldives on our commute to Abu Dhabi. Ah well, the things we do for air miles and lounge access. After arriving in United Arab Emirates @ Abu Dhabi, we had a brief stop-over and enjoyed the lounge, then continued on to our destination Male.
For those who don’t know, Male is the capital of the Maldives and is a densely populated 5.8km2 (2.2 sq mi) island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, south-west of Sri Lanka. Male has a population of over 133,000 people! The Maldives comprises of around 26 ring-shaped atolls, which are made up of over 1,000 coral islands.
Okay, back to the landing! Whilst flying over the islands on the way into Male, I was trying to imagine exactly where they were planning to put our aircraft down as all the islands were quite small which no area for a runway. After getting a sore neck from my awe of the view through the plane windows, I notice Male , with its tall buildings climbing out from the ocean, a real city in the middle of the indian ocean. Then the airport on a close by island, as you can see from the photo, there is little room for pilot error!
And we land at Velana Airport – Male. We swiftly make it through customs and then someone from our hotel is waiting for us and ushers us onto a waiting speed boat. The speedboat only takes around 5 minutes between the small islands and we are on the main Male island. It is so much busier than you would expect, a car arrives and we head around 50 metres to our hotel.
So a little bit of background as to why we stayed on Male for 2 nights. This is quite funny and some of you may laugh at me. I originally believed it would be a good opportunity to get some cheap alcohol to take to our resort island in our suitcase as I had read that the prices on the resort island for alcoholic beverages were extremely high. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t research that it is an Islamic Island and therefore alcohol was nowhere to be found! Brilliant for my liver, but disappointing for me, because it was such amazing beer weather.
Here are some photos of our hotel on Male (Hotel Jen Malé), it had a great gym, nice rooftop pool and bar (with mocktails) and extremely helpful staff. We managed to find an awesome little hidden Bangladesh restaurant on the first night where we ended up eating like Kings for under $10 USD, this is almost unheard of on Male and we weren’t actually looking for a cheap meal, it just turned out that way.
We explored Male and looked through a lot of tourist shops and market places that contained mainly overpriced souvenirs geared towards people like us. I personally found Male to be dirty, polluted and overpopulated. The traffic was so busy, I actually felt like I was in a massive metropolis. In fact Male is one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
The next leg of our journey would take us to the Holiday Inn Resort on Kandooma Fushi Island. The Hotel quoted us approximately $458 USD for a shared return speedboat transfers from Male to the resort and back to the hotel or $549 for a private speedboat per way ($1098 USD return).
We could have opted for speedboat or seaplane
We opted for local ferry - classy huh?
An evening in Male
Being a natural bargain seeker, I ended up finding a method of getting to the island for only $63 USD return. How you may ask? Well we caught a local ferry from Male port to an Island called Guraidhoo which was right next to the resort island and arranged a private boat to pick us up and drop us back!
http://www.atolltransfer.com/311-guraidhoo-male - for budget local ferries.
Whilst waiting for the local ferry we found a fantastic café where we enjoyed a nice meal prior to departure. (Pan seared Tuna with beetroot and avocado)
After purchasing the local ferry tickets, it took approximately 2 hours to get to the neighbouring island of Guraidhoo. The slow nature of the boat also allowed us to really take in the scenery of all the passing islands. The speedboat takes approximately 45 minutes. So we believed, especially due to us staying for around 9 days at the resort that the local ferry was perfectly satisfactory
When we arrived at Guraidhoo port , we noticed our Holiday Inn speedboat waiting for us. We were helped with our luggage onto the little boat and sped off towards the resort.
On arrival, it was as if we just found paradise, an extremely surreal experience. We were helped off the boat and escorted to the front foyer by electric golf buggy. Arrival drinks and welcoming staff made this a good first introduction. We got our room keys and were driven to our Beach House in the golf buggy.
The Beach house was great and when we entered, the temperature and everything was perfect. We quickly set our bags down and started to explore the island.
we found the gym which was located right near our room. This was perfect as we had full board and buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner each day – so we definitely needed a morning workout to help burn some calories!
A look around the island
We walked the perimeter of the island and couldn’t stop taking photos, the water was crystal clear, the islands in the distance from every angle, it was just breath-taking. Then we found the pool! An amazing infinity pool that appeared to just merge into the sea in front, continuing into an endless aqua blue ocean with a beautiful palm trees frame.
Here are some activities we did while we also found a lot of time to sit back and relax and take in all the fresh air and sunshine.
We snorkelled
We consumed food
We worked out
We watched sunsets (sorry , I like-like sunsets apparently)
We took a swim with sea turtles
Kayaked
And lots more.
So that is our experience from the Maldives, thank you for taking the time to join us through our journey. I sincerely hope it wasn't like looking at your relatives boring holiday photos and if it was, well, i hope it made you feel like you were with family ^^
We will definitely go back to the Maldives one day. It was an amazing experience and I believe that regardless of your budget, you will have a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Just remember to always shop around as there are bargains waiting to be uncovered.
Any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.
Kandooma Holiday Inn isn’t in the high price range at around $500-$1000 USD per night with full board, check out some other places below that I found. This is the price range you could expect when travelling to the Maldives. Please note that there is usually 22% tax on all services including accommodation, food, drink and activities.
(10% Service Charge and 12% GST Tax)
You can check out some Kandooma Holiday Inn promo videos here:
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Until next time