Maldives, here I come!!
The holiday I was planning was long overdue. My choice of Maldives was for rather subtle reasons. Maldives is known to be a expensive place to go on a vacation. The country is multi-currency, so the dollar is as good as the local currency, with a slight depreciation. It is chiefly known for water sports and everything related to the deep blue sea, and I am not particularly attracted to anything that has to do with water. Even the water sports in Maldives are much pricier that those available in other South East Asian nations such as Thailand, Malaysia or Singapore. The whole idea of a vacation for those who came to Maldives was to go diving, snorkel, surfing, boating, hot air ballooning or simply lie on the beach twiddling their toes. I was averse to sun bathing and I didn't know how to swim, so all of the above was not so appealing.
Kerala and South India in general have a deep link with Maldives, of which even the Maldivians are sometimes unaware. The cooking is similar to Kerala food with lots of coconut and spices. The local health insurer in Maldives prefers to refer Maldivian patients to private or government hospitals in Trivandrum, Kerala's capital. So Trivandrum has a whole bunch of hospitals/ eateries and shops catering specifically to Maldivians, attracted by their dollars of course. On some hotel sign boards in Trivandrum particularly near the government medical college, you can see the strange Maldivian Divehi script that looks like some cryptic secret code very much unlike Arabic, Sinhalese or any Indian language.
The Maldivians I saw in Trivandrum, mostly women with their tight fitting libas, while keeping their head and shoulder covered, piqued my curiosity. I decided that it would be to Maldives that I would be going, the nearest tourist spot from Trivandrum, though it was a country on its own.
Something which particularly caught my attention was that Maldives was a 100% Muslim country and followed strict Sharia laws - women including tourists had to keep head, shoulders and legs covered, alcohol was banned in any form, bringing any religious object into the county was punishable by death and crime in general was non-existent. That made it unappealing I guess to a lot of foreign tourists who would rather go to Phuket or Bangkok at much cheaper rates and indulge in the sins of pleasure. Those who came to Maldives were obviously into serious water sports, never mind the cost. So I thought with liquor and skimpy clothes out of question, this would be the ideal place to holiday, suiting my preferences. I would be proved very much wrong though, on my actual visit.
Preparing for the visit was hectic. The country has a visa on arrival policy for almost all countries, though you need to have a certain amount of cash on you to show that the country is going to benefit from your visit, you need international health insurance as usual, and you need to prove that you have confirmed hotel bookings for your stay, though on my actual visit I found that no immigration officer actually verified any of these.
So not to be caught on the wrong footing preparations for my trip to Maldives was hectic. I hastily bought international health insurance, stocked up on e-cigarette supplies, booked a couple of hotels through booking.com and converted quite a lot of rupees into dollar at the Forex, which was quite cumbersome as India had just undergone demonetisation and paper dollars were hard to come by.
I burnt my fingers several times while booking hotels on booking.com. I always booked lodges - run by locals and much cheaper instead of the expensive resorts, though they were usually a bit away from tourist hot spots and near local settlements, near a Maldivian town or village.
After booking a lodge at rather cheap rates, at times I got a rude reminder that to actually get there you would have to fly all the way from Male, the capital, or take a speed boat ride lasting several hours that would surely burn a hole in your pocket. Sea planes were of course out of the question!
So after booking, cancelling and re-booking I finally had some sort of itinerary ready. I also researched the net to probe the cheapest deals, Maldivian culture and social behaviour as well as the best places to visit at not so expensive rates.
Maldives here I come!
I had with me the flight ticket from Trivandrum to Male, the health insurance, confirmed hotel bookings on three islands and one Maldivian Airlines ticket to another island from Male, as well as a couple of hundred dollars in cash.
When I told some of my friends about my Maldivian trip, they were not too enthusiastic about it. Most of them were under the impression that Maldives was part of India, and why the hell did I have to convert to dollars and get international health insurance. Even when I informed my credit card company, they were incredulous saying Maldives was definitely part of India, and I would not need to activate my international credit card!
Kerala and South India in general have a deep link with Maldives, of which even the Maldivians are sometimes unaware. The cooking is similar to Kerala food with lots of coconut and spices. The local health insurer in Maldives prefers to refer Maldivian patients to private or government hospitals in Trivandrum, Kerala's capital. So Trivandrum has a whole bunch of hospitals/ eateries and shops catering specifically to Maldivians, attracted by their dollars of course. On some hotel sign boards in Trivandrum particularly near the government medical college, you can see the strange Maldivian Divehi script that looks like some cryptic secret code very much unlike Arabic, Sinhalese or any Indian language.
The Maldivians I saw in Trivandrum, mostly women with their tight fitting libas, while keeping their head and shoulder covered, piqued my curiosity. I decided that it would be to Maldives that I would be going, the nearest tourist spot from Trivandrum, though it was a country on its own.
Something which particularly caught my attention was that Maldives was a 100% Muslim country and followed strict Sharia laws - women including tourists had to keep head, shoulders and legs covered, alcohol was banned in any form, bringing any religious object into the county was punishable by death and crime in general was non-existent. That made it unappealing I guess to a lot of foreign tourists who would rather go to Phuket or Bangkok at much cheaper rates and indulge in the sins of pleasure. Those who came to Maldives were obviously into serious water sports, never mind the cost. So I thought with liquor and skimpy clothes out of question, this would be the ideal place to holiday, suiting my preferences. I would be proved very much wrong though, on my actual visit.
Preparing for the visit was hectic. The country has a visa on arrival policy for almost all countries, though you need to have a certain amount of cash on you to show that the country is going to benefit from your visit, you need international health insurance as usual, and you need to prove that you have confirmed hotel bookings for your stay, though on my actual visit I found that no immigration officer actually verified any of these.
So not to be caught on the wrong footing preparations for my trip to Maldives was hectic. I hastily bought international health insurance, stocked up on e-cigarette supplies, booked a couple of hotels through booking.com and converted quite a lot of rupees into dollar at the Forex, which was quite cumbersome as India had just undergone demonetisation and paper dollars were hard to come by.
I burnt my fingers several times while booking hotels on booking.com. I always booked lodges - run by locals and much cheaper instead of the expensive resorts, though they were usually a bit away from tourist hot spots and near local settlements, near a Maldivian town or village.
After booking a lodge at rather cheap rates, at times I got a rude reminder that to actually get there you would have to fly all the way from Male, the capital, or take a speed boat ride lasting several hours that would surely burn a hole in your pocket. Sea planes were of course out of the question!
So after booking, cancelling and re-booking I finally had some sort of itinerary ready. I also researched the net to probe the cheapest deals, Maldivian culture and social behaviour as well as the best places to visit at not so expensive rates.
Maldives here I come!
I had with me the flight ticket from Trivandrum to Male, the health insurance, confirmed hotel bookings on three islands and one Maldivian Airlines ticket to another island from Male, as well as a couple of hundred dollars in cash.
When I told some of my friends about my Maldivian trip, they were not too enthusiastic about it. Most of them were under the impression that Maldives was part of India, and why the hell did I have to convert to dollars and get international health insurance. Even when I informed my credit card company, they were incredulous saying Maldives was definitely part of India, and I would not need to activate my international credit card!
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