The Maldives is a group of about 1200 small coral islands and sandbanks south of India and Sri Lanka (in the Arabian Sea of the Indian Ocean). The Maldives is 2,142 km away from India.
The Maldives is Asia's smallest country by land area and population. There are ~ 500,000 inhabitants and ~145,000 of them live in the capital city, Male. It's the world's lowest lying country with the average height being only 5 feet above sea level! It is at serious risk with the rising sea levels.
Only about 200 islands are inhabited and there are 97 hotel-owned islands that have resorts for tourists. 10 years ago, not a single foreigner was allowed on any of the local islands. Tourism was prohibited except on the super swanky expensive hotel islands accessed by sea plane. Now, the law has changed and you can find guest houses on the local islands. This makes travel to the Maldives affordable for backpackers and people like us! The main language spoken in the Maldives is Dhivehi and it is a country strictly under Islamic law.
Our flight from KL to Male was 4 1/2 hours long and it was at 8:30 am. The time change to the Maldives was 3 hours so we ended up having a full day ahead of us when we arrived! As we were landing, we were about 50 feet above the ground and we still couldn't see any land- just the waves of the Arabian sea! Finally, right before we landed, there was land and a runway! Phewf!
When we got off the plane and through immigration, we walked less than 50 metres straight to a jetty. The planes and the boats were less than 500 metres apart. So neat! We took a speedboat ~70 km to the remote local island of Thoddoo. It lasted 1 1/2 hours and was the bumpiest ride I have ever been on!
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| The speedboats at the airport |
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| Arriving to Thoddoo |
We arrived to Thoddoo and we were transported on a golf cart type thing to our Inn. There are no cars on Thoddoo - only scooters, bikes and small trucks!!!
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| Here's what we found in our room |
Thoddoo is 1km by 2km long. It was pretty clean- except for the plastic water bottles in the water! There are only 1500 inhabitants on Thoddoo with 1 school for all ages and one soccer field. There are maybe 5 restaurants... and 30-40 guest houses (most of which have only 3-4 rooms). Tourism is growing on Thoddoo as 5 years ago there were only ~5 guesthouses on the island. 90% of the tourists are Russian!
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| Our home for the week |
We loved our inn! The food was good and we got HUGE portions. We had fresh juice with breakfast and dinner. We also had fresh fish that tasted so good. I will never want to even touch the fish at home after eating this stuff!
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| Our first dinner- not once did we finish all the food on our plates |
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| Our welcome drink and snack |
Everyone was super nice. We didn't know what to expect on Thoddoo and we were only pleasantly surprised!
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| Magical Thoddoo |
We went to either the beach or on a boat every day! Our host at the inn was Majeed. He took us on many fun adventures - stay tuned for more stories!
Hopefully this little taste of island life has caught your attention - check back soon for new posts on the Maldives - on land and under water - waaayy under water! We really loved Thoddoo!
It does look like paradise!
ReplyDeleteLOVE!! ❤️
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