maldives

I will fully admit that I had actually never even heard of the Maldives before we began our life on the road.  I’m sure many well-traveled friends will scoff, but this isn’t somewhere Americanos travel.  At least the Americans I know.  Unless you live in Sri Lanka or Dubai- it isn’t the easiest place to get to and hey, we’ve got the Caribbean and Mexico to explore and neither take multiple flights and a day of travel to get there.

I vaguely remember hearing about a country sinking into the ocean, but if you had held a gun to my head, I wouldn’t have been able to come up with the name “Maldives”.

My ignorance was quickly remedied our first round in India.  The Wife’s colleagues raved about this tiny island chain located in the Indian Ocean.  We actually tried to go there, but it meant sleeping in an airport in Sri Lanka and as I said, it was our first round and the brainwashing of thinking insane lengths should be taken for weekend trips hadn’t quite sunk in yet.

I didn’t have much hope of reaching the Maldives during our time on the road, but I added it to my life list in hopes of going one day- before it sank.

It wasn’t until we were at dinner with a higher-up in Sydney (you know the one who said I can’t help but sound like an asshole) and he mentioned he was going there for the Easter holiday that we realized we could actually get there from Australia on our way to South Africa.  And then our heads burst from excitement. 

Guys- this place is an absolute dream.  Really. 

It starts when you look out the plane’s window and see this…

And then walk outside the airport to see this taxi stand…

We had a quick 10 minute speed boat ride to our resort.  As this was an early anniversary gift (5 years!!) we splurged for an over-the-water bungalow.  

It should maybe be illegal to have this as your backyard…

Highly illegal.

After scraping our jaws off the floor, we freshened up (it was about 1 million degrees outside) and settled in on the back deck for our first Maldivian sunset…

Disgusting, right?

We spent the next two days just soaking up the beauty of it all.  We could snorkel just off our deck and although the coral garden was fairly dismal, the sea life was abundant.  It’s trips like these that I regret not having an underwater camera case.  We tried, mostly in vain, to capture some of the creatures hanging out around our deck...

eagle ray

maybe some type of cuttlefish? 

sharks!

Okay, in truth those reef sharks weren’t under our deck.  They were chowing down on tuna being thrown for them at the beach bar one night.  We did have reef sharks swim by but I never seemed to have my camera ready.  Those things are fast.

This was probably definitely the most beautiful tropical place we’ve ever been.  It was like we were on our own private island and I just kept waiting for Tattoo and Mr. Roarke to come ask me my fantasy.  The thing was, I was already living it.

Pics from the weekend…