Venue: Mathiveri Inn
Cost: $90 per night, pay at the end.
Benefits: Room and full board, access to day trips for additional pay.
Recommendation: Give this one a pass. They're not ready for Western-style commerce yet.
Venue: Casa Mia
Cost: $180 per night, pay at the end.
Benefits: Room and full board, access to day trips for additional pay.
Recommendation: These guys are terrific! Just watch out for the mosquitoes.
Brace yourselves, this is a long one. On the bright side, photos! :D
Getting from Nilandhoo to Mathiveri was a rather arduous affair. We got up at around 4 AM, so that we could have breakfast and take the boat to Maamigili. On the boat, we got to see sunrise, but it was still a rather sea-sickening several-hour-long boat ride. There was a wait at Maamigili before we boarded our flight back to Male at around 11 AM. The flight itself was very short, but the waiting was really annoying.
At Male, we were again met by Latheef, who showed us to lunch, pointed out the ferry, and wandered off to let us do whatever we wanted until it was time to catch our ferry -- another several-hour wait. We took the opportunity to grab some food that wasn't fish (Thai!) and send out postcards.
The ferry from the airport to Male city proper was quick, but then we had to get around to the other side of the island. With our luggage, that was a bit tricky, since the streets were not exactly smooth. Latheef appeared again, and helped us hail a taxi, then followed us on his mo-ped. There were a lot of mo-peds and motorcycles.
We waited on a stone block -- too big for a bench, but not sure what other purpose it's supposed to serve -- next to a coconut stand. We got a pair of coconuts while we waited; they were lovely. I gawked at the graffiti everywhere, the construction -- both in-progress and abandoned, and the ocean and its bizarre sea wall, made of piled concrete "jacks".
The next ferry took us to the island of Rasdhoo, where we were greeted by staff from the inn we were staying. We transferred from the ferry to a speed boat to Mathiveri, our luggage following us magically. By this time, the sun was setting, and we had been up and traveling for something like 14 hours.
At Mathiveri, we were greeted by the innkeeper, Ismael. He led us to the restaurant attached to the inn, Pizza Palace, across the street from the mosque. We chatted for a bit, but finally we were shown to our rooms. After resting and refreshing ourselves, we ventured back out for dinner.
On the first day, we wandered around the island taking photos of its various inhabitants. By far the most populous were the crabs. They were indisputable kings of the sand, their burrows pockmarking the beach with obvious and not-so-obvious holes. The children, on their days off school, ran around the island, racing on foot and on bicycles, leaping off the sea walls and into the shallow waters. The birds and bats mostly kept to themselves, occasionally doing a fly-by or fluttering off indignantly when we got too close. The tiny lizards scampered about, clinging to walls, hiding in foliage, scuttling over the sand. The rats, thankfully, stayed up in the fruit trees and left us well alone. One day at dinner, an enterprising cockroach climbed up my arm, scaring the ever-loving shit -- and a most undignified shriek -- out of me. My husband retaliated by stomping on it after I'd brushed it off my shoulder. Such gallantry!
The third day of our stay, we went on a Manta expedition with one of the other inn guests, a gorgeous Russian lady. We only saw 2 manta, one of which was hilariously and very sadly being chased through the water by about 20 life-jacket wearing snorkelers. After boating around a bit, we gave up and instead went snorkeling on one of the bigger, deeper reefs in the area. It was beautiful. There was an amazing profusion of shapes and colors, and all sorts of fish. My husband even saw a sea turtle! We each dove down to examine an enormous scalloped shell that was about the size of my torso, sitting open and inviting on the reef. I got a terrible sun burn that day, but it was totally worth it.
Eventually, we settled into a routine. We got up -- if we were lucky enough to sleep through the 4 AM prayer -- around 8 or 9 AM. After breakfast (and a prayer), we retreated back to our room to hide from the heat and the sun. We re-emerged at around 1 or 2 PM for lunch (and a prayer), after which we would bide our time until 4 PM. Finally, when the sun dipped low enough that my tender, pale husband could be confident that he wouldn't turn into a lobster crisp, we would venture out and go snorkeling, or roll around on the beach, or otherwise sun ourselves (actually just myself, while my husband continued to hide from the sun). After the outing, we would return to our room, shower, and go have dinner (and a prayer). Some nights, we would go out again after dinner, and walk along the star-lit sea. If you had a flashlight, you could occasionally see baby rays and tiny sharks swimming about in the shallows. They were ridiculously cute!
Despite the restful, idyllic nature of our stay, it was not without frustrations. Mathiveri is a local island, which meant it obeyed Shariah. This meant there was no pork, no alcohol, and no bikinis. For men, this was not a terrible thing, since they could still wander around with just swim trunks on, but for women, it meant we had to swim fully clothed. We chose Mathiveri Inn despite all these restrictions, because on its website, it advertised that there was a small, uninhabited island to which we could swim or wade, on which we would be able to wear bikinis.
While this is technically true, let me add the following clarifications: Swimming out to the deserted island means swimming, fully clothed, to a place where you can strip down to your bikini. Following this to its logical conclusion, this means that when you want to return, you'll have to put on your clothing -- usually still sodden, and now covered with sand -- and swim back. Then walk to the inn in your sopping wet, salty and clingy clothes. In case you're wondering, this is very uncomfortable. Wading out to the island, I had originally expected a short, shallow slog through the sea. Nope. Wading out to the island involves about a 1/3 mile walk, through water that got about rib-deep, at low tide. Let me emphasize this: The wading was about 4 feet deep at low tide, and was a third of a mile long. Oh, by the way, in case you missed it, this is wading through the sea. There's a pretty strong ocean current that you'll have to fight the entire way there, all 1/3 mile of it.
The most comfortable and convenient way to get to the island, then, is to ask for a boat. The trickiest part of this is the asking -- you have to find someone who understands enough English, and has enough knowledge of the inn's business, to actually get you that boat. Once that minor hurdle is cleared, you're good to go. For the low, low price of $5 for a 2-minute boat trip, you can get dropped off and picked up whenever you desire, to be specified ahead of time.
The inn itself also left certain things to be desired. Though the room was adequate, it lacked certain Western comforts. There were no windows, the entire room being one completely enclosed concrete box. Thankfully, there was an air conditioner to keep the air moving, and relatively cool. The water was, of course, incredibly sulfurous. Indeed, every time we braved the shower, it stank like the fart of Satan himself. The entire bathroom was, again, the shower, and anytime we washed, the toilet became drenched. At least the water heater worked.
The attached restaurant had 2 employees, a chef and a waiter. Neither man knew English particularly well. They had enough words to say "good morning, sir" and "good evening, ma'am" but they didn't know their own menu. Let me re-emphasize this. Neither the chef, nor the waiter, knew their own menu. In fact, the waiter was so incapable that he refused, on several occasions, to take our orders for anything other than drinks.
In addition to refusing to take our order, referring us instead to the chef, the waiter was laughably awful at setting the table. The poor boy would come with a tray, on which rested 2 place mats, then take several minutes to arrange them on the table. Then he would go back for silverware, taking another several minutes to meticulously set and straighten each individual fork, knife, and spoon. Finally, he would go back and retrieve 2 appetizer plates and 2 folded napkins, and set them with deliberate care in the center of the place mats, taking another few minutes. The whole process took so long, I wanted to scream. What was the point of setting a fork to within a millimeter of its life, when I'm just going to pick it up and shove it into my mouth (preferably with food attached)? And all this, before we can even order water!
When the chef finally arrived to take our orders, he was largely incomprehensible, and failed repeated to grasp the concept that I, an individual human being, might possibly want to order an item that differed from my husband's order! It was as if the concept of individuality had never occurred to him. Every time we requested a dish, he would ask, "Two?" to which we would reply, with mounting frustration, "No, just ONE!" The chef finally got it around day 3 or 4, but by then, I was so fed up with the whole ordeal that I began to dread meal times.
Beyond the difficulty with simple communication, there was the issue of actual service. We would regularly fail to get our order correctly, sometimes even failing to receive what we'd ordered completely. I'm pretty sure that when we left, there were still two plates of cut fruit sitting around somewhere, waiting forlornly for someone to deliver them to our tables. On one occasion, we waited at breakfast, having finished our main course, idly killing time until we got our fruit plates. At last, impatient and fed up, we went to look for the staff. They were gone. Both the chef and the waiter had simply up and left, leaving us to our own devices, without ever checking in or making sure we'd even gotten everything we were expecting.
Terrible service aside, the food wasn't even that good -- their pizza and grilled fish were about the best they had to offer. We took to alternating between fish and pizza, simply to keep ourselves adequately fed and calorically positive. On average, the meals took about 2 hours each, and were absolutely the worst part of our stay.
On the second to last day of our stay, my husband and I could no longer stand the 6 hours of waste and frustration it took to feed ourselves, as well as the other inconveniences and discomforts of staying across the street from the mosque (and its blaring loudspeakers). We moved over to Casa Mia, a resort run by a Brit located a few minutes walk away on the same island, which had its own pool (???), buffet-style cafeteria, and most importantly for me, its own private bikini beach.
We received the impetus to move when, on a cool and rainy day, we decided to explore the foreign resort, and maybe learn to scuba dive. Although the dive itself terrified me, the experience was overall quite positive, and so well executed that I didn't want to go back to the sloppy irregularity of native island service.
The Casa Mia staff moved us over that evening after our dive, and we joined them for a decent buffet dinner. My husband went out to the booze cruise, aboard the Blue Pearl, a 2-mast (+ engine) ship anchored just off-shore and thus (??) not forbidden from possessing alcohol. I was exhausted, so I stayed in and napped, but he had a grand ol' time, drinkin' beer and chatting up a group of German scuba divers who had just come in from Dahab, Egypt (which is apparently an awesome diving location).
The next day, I knew we'd made the right choice when, after breakfast, I tossed off my clothes and went snorkeling in my bikini without a care in the world. After swimming around the reefs and getting my fill of all the pretty fish, I sunned my tummy in the lounge chairs on the beach. The dear husband came to retrieve me when he judged that I had been out long enough to possibly burn myself (I ran out without sunblock), and we went back inside to cool off until lunch. After lunch, I went out again. It's amazing how I never seem to get tired of staring at the little fish. After dinner, we both went out to the booze cruise, lounging on the deck with its cushions and staring off into the night. I nursed my gin & tonic while my husband had more beers, and we shot the shit with the dive staff.
This, the last full day, was probably the best day of our entire vacation.
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