Best of the Maldives: Whiskey – Island Hideaway

Island Hideaway Meeru Bar whiskey

 

 

 

“Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace
As lang's my arm.”

– Robert Burns, Address to a Hagis

 

Scots at heart around the world will be raising a wee dram in honour of ‘Rabbie Burrrns’ tonight. And if you are in the Maldives, then the best place for a Burns Supper is Island Hideaway with its Meeru Bar which boasts “the largest malt whiskey selection in the Indian Ocean.”  Indeed, they serve up 60 different types of whiskey including Macallan 25 Year and Handmade 1976 Vintage Bourbon. The bar manager tells me that Macallan and Glen Moray are the most popular.

If you are having difficulty deciding on which malt to fill your glass with such a baffling array of options, then I suggest the following handy guide – Single Malt Whiskey Flavour Map.

To the health of the women!

Best of the Maldives: Maldivian Experience- Park Hyatt Hadahaa

Maldives flag National Day

Happy National Day!

A celebration of Maldivian independence from Portuguese rule in 1558.  Our recommendation for the resort to celebrate all things Maldivian is Park Hyatt Hadahaa. For starters, they add a bit of an authentic twist to their local island excursion. Most resorts offer day trips to local island which provide a glimpse of daily life through a cursory tour. Perhaps the chance to pick up a more native piece of handicraft. Hadahaa has put a bit more effort into introducing its guests to the Maldivian culture with it ‘Journey to the Maldivian Passions’ with 3 distinct experiences on offer..

  • Identity, Faith and Celebration – Take a journey to an outlying island and explore the Maldives first hand. Your personal guide will accompany you to Kondey or Dhandhoo on our high-powered speedboat and then provide an educational tour on the intricacies of local culture, religion and festivities.
  • Artisans – We visit the source of this unique skill and meet the local artisans in their workshops to glimpse a moment of their life. Incorporating traditional values and skills of the people of the islands, handicrafts of Maldives which combine skilled craftsmanship with artistic techniques.
  • Food and Family – Meet a local host and share a moment in the daily life of a fisherman’s wife and her family devotions, and see them living in coral houses furnished with handicrafts. Discover the simple existence of Maldivians in harmony with nature, learning the women’s daily household chores, how they prepare the unique main meals from scarce wood in the smoky traditional kitchens.

Each take about 3 hours, cost about $200 per person and have a minimum of 2 and maximum of 4 people.

Hadahaa’s interest in the local culture is not relegated to fancy forays, but rather are woven into the entire resort. Just this month they launched a community development initiative called ‘Hadahha Thrive’ which involves the contributions of all of the Maldivian staff…

“Currently more than 55% of the resort’s employees are Maldivian and despite most coming from the nearby islands, the remote location of Hadahaa means nearly all staff live on the island. With this in mind, Park Hyatt has begun to develop a symbiotic relationship with the neighbouring islands and has formed a committee of elected ‘Ambassadors’ to represent the different communities. Through better connectivity, shared knowledge, development of business skills, and encouragement and participation from both sides, Park Hyatt Maldives Hadahaa hopes to create a mutually beneficial programme that inspires sustainable development projects, allows the resort to gather supplies and recruits from nearby islands, and ensures the local communities develop and prosper…Park Hyatt has selected Gemanafushi and Dhandoo as the first communities to take part in the kick-off projects, based on the number of employees from each of these neighbouring islands. The programme will initially focus on improving five key areas – Business Development…Career Development…Hospitality…Environment…Social Awareness”

Finally, at the resort itself, Hadahaa features the distinctive Battuta restaurant (photo below)…

“Here at our signature Maldivian restaurant, we provide our guests with a distinctive and authentic dining experience. Battuta’s delivers guests with a culinary journey that samples local flavours and regional spices…Nestled into the native flora of the island, guests are offered a thoroughly indigenous experience in a beautiful open space cooled by ocean breezes….An open kitchen is central to the restaurant where you can experience the ultimate regional food experience being cooked right in front of your eyes. This restaurant offers food specialties from the Maldives, India and the Middle East.”

 

Park Hyatt Hadahaa Battuta restaurant

Best of the Maldives: Underwater Art – Soneva Fushi

Soneva Fushi olly and suzy art 1

In the Maldives you can marvel at nature’s artistry through such masterpieces of its coral gardens, and some resorts feature reef regeneration to aid and complement such artistry, but Soneva Fushi showcased underwater art (which is coming up for a benefit exhibit soon in London) as a part of their long term sponsorship of the Blue Marine Foundation…

“Olly and suzi’s manta ray and shark art will be exhibited in 2012 and 30% of the sales will be given to Blue Marine Foundation, a new charity formed by a group of influential individuals, brands and organisations to protect the world’s oceans through the establishment of a global network of marine reserves. Six Senses’ Maldivian resorts – Soneva Fushi, Soneva Gili and recently launched Six Senses Laamu – are sponsoring the foundation for the next three years.”

Soneva Fushi olly and suzy art 2

New Tags

Maldives Complete - tags

Reef-frames are the only things with better labels as I have this week updated the ‘Tags’ used on Maldives Complete. Of course, you can always use Google or the Search facility on the blog to search for text like ‘snorkelling’ or ‘surfing’. But, text search will indiscriminately bring up any mention whatsoever of that word. Tags are used by sites to indicate important topics in the post or page. If you select one of the ‘Tags’ at the bottom of the posts (or in the ‘tag cloud’ – see above – which highlight the most prevalent tags scaled to proportion of their use), then it will bring you all the posts that are focused on that subject.

For a long time, I have had a collection of tags corresponding to the various ‘Best of the Maldives’ categories (eg. Sport, Activity, Service, Online). And over time, those have morphed a bit as certain sub-categories grew big enough to merit their own break out (eg. Surfing, Shopping). For starters this week, I have added another breakout to ‘Activity’ which is ‘Boating’.

But I have also added the following Tags which don’t relate to ‘Best Of’ categories, but rather to my other types of posts…

  • Destination – about the Maldives itself in general (eg. weather, family tips)
  • Industry – about tourism in the Maldives (eg. rating system, tourist numbers)
  • Tour – reviews of my days there when I do personal trips
  • Site – about the Maldives Complete site itself like new features (like this post here)
  • Fun – whimsical stuff that just brings a smile to my face.

Best of the Maldives: Reefscaping Labels – Kandooma

Kandooma reefscaping labels

While for many the downsides of big lagoons are their less dramatic snorkelling and more remote house reef, many resorts now are using Reefscaping to both enhance the snorkelling in the lagoons as well as the aquatic environment overall. In fact, Lori and I have our own frames presented to us by Four Seasons Kuda Huraa (#KH327) and by Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru (#LG729 – which we assembled together at their Marine Discovery Centre).

Now many resorts are getting in on coral reef regeneration – Constance Halaveli, Coco Palm Dhuni Kholu, Waldorf Astoria Maldives, Banyan Tree Madivaru, Baros. But Kandooma led the way and was the first project I covered.

They’ve added a touch with I think both personalises and incentivises this fine initiative – labelling the frames with the donor names (see photo above…’Su’ is no relation). I am involved with a number of charities and in fund raising (especially capital drives), the first question that you ask is ‘what are the naming opportunities?’ American Universities have this down to an art form where just about every light switch has a mini plaque honouring the gift of some patron. Yes, people are generous and do give just for the sake of the cause. But people also have a bit of pride and getting their name (or the name of a loved one) marked indelibly on a place or thing that means something special to them is a huge boost. I also think that the approach adds a certain personality to the Reefscaping project. You can see the diverse people, with names clearly from many different countries and cultures, who have all converged to contribute to making this place of earth even more of an aquatic treasure.

Best of the Maldives: Biggest Lagoon – Chaaya Lagoon Hakuraa Huraa

Chaaya Lagoon Hakuraa Huraa lagoon

To each his own. Many Maldive aficionados focus on the best house reefs as a critical decision criteria. The deep, coral and fish filled features stand in stark contrast to the shallow and sandy lagoons that also permeate the archipelago. Typically, the two are mutually exclusive. The geography of an island that makes for big lagoons tends to make for distant or less prominent house reefs.

But not everyone is all house reef obsessed. With Olympic-class pedalos on hand, a nice big lagoon to cruise around in can be a good thing. As CastawayGR noted on the Trip Advisor Forum post “Looking for the perfect turquoise lagoon in Maldives” –

“I was wondering if anyone can help me find an island surrounded by the best turquoise lagoon…What I am looking for is a really small almost desert romantic getaway with white beaches and turquoise water for as far as my eyes can see.”

And Suzan3 echoed in the post “Biggest Lagoons” –

“You’re after what I’m after, except I’m not a fan or snorkelling, nor am I of coral reefs. I want a resort that has crystal clear waters all round…”

Lagoons don’t just have aesthetic appeal. They are great havens of aquarium-like snorkelling. Maybe not as dramatic as house reef drop-offs, but you still see a variety of small fish especially in scattered coral droppings as well as the occasional ray stirring up the sand looking for food and the ubiquitous mini reef sharks. Great for young kids to explore snorkelling for the first time. It was also a great way for my 80 year old mother-in-law to feel comfortable enough to try snorkelling (even though she was in 2 feet of water, she still had a life jacket on, a floatation noodle and my wife standing at her side to help her – see photo below). But she loved seeing the smattering of colourful tropical fish that scampered by her.

In theta posts, a few suggestions were offered for the biggest lagoon and I had some of my own guesses. But for something so common in the Maldives, I had to turn to the real expert, Seven Holiday’s Adrian Neville. He took time out from writing his latest update to his essential guide “Resorts of the Maldives” to pen the follow guest post for me which is a veritable ‘Lagoon Guide’ for the biggest and bluest in the Maldives…

“First of all, we need to be a bit clearer about what constitutes ‘biggest’. Let’s assume that we are looking at the total area of the lagoon – the length and the width. We are not looking at ‘volume’ as we are looking for shallow lagoons rather than deep ones. You can look for the biggest lagoon with a single resort in, but that’s a bit precious. As long as the next resort island is not too near, I’d say you’re going to be happy. (And of the ones below, only Fun Island and Olhuveli are way too close. Though Reethi Rah is a touch too close to Summer Island for a Six Star, as Four Seasons Kuda Huraa is to Huraa, the inhabited island)…

 

  • Velassaru [ed. one of my nominees] does have a large and attractive lagoon 7 kms long, but just across the atoll is Taj Exotica…
  • Taj Exotica has a lagoon that is twice the length at 14 kms.
  • Meeru has a 14 kms lagoon which is also wide on one side.
  • Reethi Rah [ed. a lagoon cited in the TA post], I must say, is a non-starter. The length of the lagoon is 5 kms and little in the way of width.
  • LUX* (formerly Diva) has a length of 11 kms and is wide to one end.
  • Gangehi’s is 9kms long and wide too.
  • Kuramathi has a curving lagoon of 18kms length and looking into the interior of Rasdhoo Atoll it is shallow for much of the area.
  • Sun Island and Holiday Island share a lagoon 18 kms long.
  • Fun Island, Olhuveli and Rihiveli share a lagoon some 20kms in length.
  • Amari Addu sits in a lagoon that bends 20kms around the NE corner of Addu Atoll at the southernmost end of the country.
  • Equator Village is at the tip of the 25 kms lagoon that runs up to Hithadu.
  • Chaaya Lagoon Hakuraa Huraa has the biggest lagoon I measured. It was 33kms in Meemu Atoll. It is also wide and shallow around those two resorts. (3 more resorts are planned further down the lagoon).

Those are the current active resorts, but there are some notables to mention of resorts not on line…

  • The proposed resort on Maafushi island in Dhaalu sits in a 26kms lagoon.
  • The two proposed resorts just off the end of Gan island in Laamu share a 30kms long lagoon.
  • If Hudhufushi ever gets finished, in the relatively northern atoll of Llaviyani, it will have a lagoon of 32kms length and a wide, shallow area adjacent.

 

And finally. It’s notable that it is the southern atolls where the lagoons are large. In the north, the atolls are more ‘split up’. The country actually slopes in height from the north down to the south, so the northern islands are as it were propped higher and so the large lagoons have not formed or have worn away. Well, that was fun and diverting. I’m not quite up to drawing a definitive conclusion though.”

While Adrian won’t claim it definitive, I’ll go with his call Chaaya Lagoon Hakuraa Hura.

Filitheyo lagoon snorkeling

Best of the Maldives: Pedalo – Kuredu

Kuredu pedalo

Photo courtesy of DJ Stotty.

At Kuredu’s sporty island, even the leisure boating will get you skinny.

The Maldives don’t have many resorts for a long run or bike ride (outside Gan), but there is boundless ocean. Not your English seaside, tired old pedalo but the Cadillac of puddle pedalling with a broad white canopy. They rent for $20 for 1 hour or $35 for 2 hours.

Spinning with the spinner dolphins

Best of the Maldives: Skinniest – Jumeirah Vittaveli

Jumeirah Vittaveli skinny

 

With so many tempting treats to savour, my wife Lori has decided that she needs to shed a few of the pounds that she brought back with her from our last Maldives trip. She’s started the ‘Rice Diet’ whose first phase includes eating nothing but rice and fruit and she lost 4 pounds in 4 days.

If skinny is your thing, then Jumeirah Vittaveli has the smallest waistline of all. It even has an hourglass figure (see map above).

Some visitors (us included) like the smaller islands for the charm of a pre-sunset (or whenever) circumnavigational stroll. But, if you want to get from sunset to sunrise side in the fewest footsteps possible, then skinny is the trick.

This post was inspired by our stay at the Four Seasons Kuda Huraa where we took one wrong turn and were on the opposite side of the island in seconds. But checking out Maldives Complete’s exhaustive list of lengths and widths, Vittaveli came up with the literally narrow victory at 70 metres across at its shortest point.

[image credit: Jumeirah Vittaveli] 

Best of the Maldives: Fruit Service – Palm Beach

Palm Beach fruit station

For the ‘healthy sweet’ option, Palm Beach is not only has a fruit smoothie bar (like the W Retreat), but they also have a fruit station at their breakfast café. Or as our Italian au pair used to say…“froo-itt”.

The have an exceptional array of fruit on offer, but most importantly they have a server who peels and cuts it for you fresh in front of you. Many resorts have a number of ‘made to order’ stations (the ‘Egg Station’ being the classic at any resort around the world), but even the ‘custom everything’ W Retreat doesn’t have a fruit station like this. Because they have so much less wastage than pre-prepared fruit, they can offer an incredible range. And you don’t have to worry that what you are being served was cut several days ago and just in and out of cold storage since.

Best of the Maldives: Spontaneous Sweets – W Retreat

W Retreat sweet spot

Talk about ‘hitting the spot’.

For those who don’t want to go far at all for their refreshment, then the W Retreat’s ‘Sweet Spots’ are the place for you. Dotted around the tiny resort are small unmanned stations where you can help yourself to a fresh towel, sun lotion, and drinks like iced coffee. But best of all…free ice creams – Magnums, Soleros, Cornettos, vanilla and strawberry ice cream tubs.

It’s not like there is far to go anywhere in the island. If you were on the complete opposite side of the island, the apex of the further point away from the restaurant, then it might take you 5 minutes to get there. But such is the extremes of indolence inspired by the soporific Maldives, that the W has astutely catered for. Completely in keeping with their ‘Whatever/Whenever’ service ethos.

Speaking of ‘Sweet Spots’ and ‘resort strengths’, I have to share a piece from my friend Mike Pegg, who is one of the UK’s top executive coaches who has written a number of books on exploiting one’s strengths, Mike Pegg – “3 Tips for Hitting the Sweet Spot.”

 

W Retreat swet spot frig