Red Bull all around then after Vettel’s World Championship win this weekend. If you are as impatient to get to your resort as Vettel is to get around the hairpin, then Kurumba is the place for you. They are the closest resort island to Male at 3 kilometres away. They also have a fleet of luxury motor yachts (so they are always readily available) to that get you to the welcome pier in 8 minutes. Also one of the most comfortable and plush speedboat transfers you will find.
Kandooma puts the ‘up’ in ‘upscale’.
Aside from a Red Bull infusion (and Vettel is in pole position), a sea plane transfer or a parasailing excursion, the best way to ‘get wings’ in the Maldives is Kandooma’s various decks. The whole aesthetic of the Maldives is ‘low lying’. Maximum of elevation of a few feet and simple structures. Increasingly, resorts are looking to provide new perspectives with higher constructions. Anantara Kihavah, Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru, and Vadoo are just a few of the resorts with rooftop decks to provide a broader view of the spectacular surrounding ocean.
But the highest, outside of Male itself, is Kandooma’s architecture. I’ve already written about its library which itself is location on the upper floor or reception with its own delightful vista over the arrival harbour. The resort is chock full of 2-story villas with decks looking out over the ocean. It also has a rooftop deck over its The Kitchen restaurant. But the literally towering achievement is its rooftop deck (see photo above) to its aptly named ‘The Deck’.
Lori and I sat on the cosy bean bag chairs sipping mojitos watching the sun set over the Indian Ocean. Bottoms up.
Zoiks!
Casting even further back in Maldivian history is Komandoo’s own cultural antiquity – ‘Moussa’s Grave’. Not a lot is known about this character Moussa except that he was from the neighbouring island Hinnavaru and that he must have been fairly important to merit his own memorial stone on his own island. It is now a very unassuming artefact that you will miss if you don’t know where to look for it. But Lori and I had to go check it out during our recent visit. There is special place in my heart for gravesites having spent my childhood waiting for the bus next to one. In fact, my study of that local graveyard and the history of the families resting there earned me a scholarship which paid a big part of my school tuition.
I must say, though, Komandoo is starting to shape up to be like a Scooby-Doo episode. Mysterious gravesite. The management banning ‘pesky kids’ (no under 12s allowed). If the resort gets into some battle over its deed, then I would put my money on the caretaker as the culprit dressed up in traditional Maldivian dress running around scaring the guests.
Speaking of old school and Maldives classics, happy anniversary to Vadoo. 23 years ago this month Vadoo opened introducing the very first Maldivian water villas. The owner imported the concept from Bali. In fact, one of the original villas (see photo above) is preserved as a museum where a variety of cultural artefacts of are displayed (see photo below).
For another glimpse of Maldivian history, check out this fascinating piece, “Maldives: A Place in the Sun” (Thanks @maldives), featured in Eugene, Oregon’s Register-Times stepping back in time to 1972 when…
“About once a month a chartered Air Ceylon twin-engine plane flies the 400 miles to the Maldives from Colombo, Ceylon, with cargo, mail and perhaps a passenger or two. The two-hour flight is out for most visitors though, because the Maldivian ambassador in Colombo will, as he put it, “issue a visa only when accommodations are available, and there are no accommodations.” Since the plane returns as quickly as unloading and loading can be completed, there wouldn’t even be time for sightseeing.”
And finally, a special tribute to a global pioneer who made history that affects all of us – Steve Jobs. The world will miss him. For a stirring video piece that many non-Americans won’t have seen, check out today’s post in my other blog.
Maldives gives you wings. And Maldives Portal gives you all the nuts and bolt and any other tool you need to take flight to Maldivian paradise.
The most comprehensive German website for the Maldives is actually not from Germany, but Austria – www.maldives.at (For those of you who didn’t get the link to the ‘gives you wings’ tagline of Red Bull, Red Bull is the not just the biggest manufacturing company in Austria, but I think it is the biggest manufacturing company share of a country’s GDP of any in the world, not to mention it is by far Austria’s most iconic brand).
The simply titled ‘Maldives Portal’ is anything, but simple. It is a smorgasbord of information with a pedigree as rich as its pages. It is arguably the first major independent website on Maldives resorts. Certainly the oldest of any that persist to today. It was a major source of information for me when I first started researching my first trip in 1993. It wasn’t the most polished site with stylised graphics and slick interface, but it was chock full invaluable information that was actually useful. Instead of overly contrived pictures of tropical fruits and palm trees, it featured practical shots of the resort infrastructure like the rooms and facilities long before TripAdvisor or Flickr albums came on the scene. They also provided island maps which helped provide a sense of the overall layout. The forest for the trees. Not just of the island itself, but the surrounding waters, lagoons, reefs, etc. It was a major inspiration for me in creating Maldives Complete as I thought that the web needed more practical information on the resorts like the kind of stuff I could find some of on the Maldives.at.
Over the many years, Maldives.at has continued to update and enhance itself. It has added a bit more polish and order, but it still resembles a colourful, packed-to-the-ceiling-bazaar rather than a fussy, posh boutique. What it features in comprehensive information it does lack a bit in resort coverage as it only profiles 34 of the over 100 Maldives resorts. The section ‘All Tourist Resorts’ is, however, a virtually complete table of information with links to ‘Reports’ on nearly half which does provide a more expansive set of resort data.
The two areas where it stands out for its depth are diving information and its own community Forum. While Maldives Complete fatures dive maps of sites nearby to each resorts, Maldives Portal features broader atoll dive maps showing virtually all the dive sites in reach (see below). Unfortunately, the while the Forum rivals TripAvisor’s, it is almost completely in German.
But the shop inventory doesn’t stop there. It has links to key government sites, online webcams, TV, radio, services, companies, and so on. It’s like a giant hardware store of Maldives information where you could just get lost on a Sunday afternoon browsing all of the obscure items and thinking ‘surely, I can use this Maldives Puzzle!”
As Reethi Beech General Manager Peter Gremes wrote me after this week’s piece, “If Vettel wins next Sunday we’ll raise the Austrian flag and serve Red Bull.” Maldeives.at certainly is its own little online resort Red Bull – a powerful jolt of information, worldwide notoriety and German content in an Austrian car.
Happy ‘Tag der Deutschen Einheit’ to my German friends.
Reethi Beach the favourite among not just Germans, but anyone speaking German. Swiss, Austrians. Still, it has an international feel with the remaining nationalities being quite a United Nations of diversity. Even Americans. As highlighted in my piece on Trip Advisor recommendations, it came just behind Villamendoo in the number of mentions on the Maldives TripAdvisor Forum. This Saxon-centric, but eclectic feel stems a lot from its Swiss background (its Sales and Marketing contacts phone through to a Swiss number). German hits you as soon as you arrive from hearing it at the desk to seeing the prevalence of German language collateral in the information racks. For English speakers, this linguistic bias is a bit irrelevant because just about every German I have met has had a pretty fine command of the English language and certainly all the staff speak English.
So here’s a glass of cold pilsner raised to all of the unified Germans celebrating in paradise today. May you not have to spend so much money bailing out the world from economic chaos that you have to cut back on trips to Reethi Beach.
If there is one thing that defines the Maldives, it is water. The country seems primarily aquatic with dots of land for the convenience of the humans in the area. If anything, the Maldives have to contend with too much water especially in the climate change scenario which predicts rising oceans. But so much water doesn’t take away its preciousness.
Celebrating this treasure is this week’s Water Wo/Men event hosted by Six Senses Laamu. The event centres on a number of guest speakers and workshops presented by leading water activists such as the Water Charity, Plant a Fish and Blue Marine Foundation. But rather than just a dry session of self-flagellating lectures, Watermen brings the topic alive with workshops of dazzling water activities like surfing, diving and sailing. Finally, I love how ‘’Splash’ star Darryl Hannah is one of the celebrity guests
“Leading ‘watermen’ – surfers, windsurfers, kite surfers and divers – will be joining renowned conservationists in the Maldives to draw attention to the fragile relationship between man and water in today’s world. The Six Senses Watermen event will mix fun and sport with serious debate on global issues relating to rising sea levels, underwater eco-systems and the basic human right of access to clean drinking water.”
For folks interested in exploring the topic of water ecology further, I recommend the documentary Flow which is sort of a ‘Inconvenient Truth’ for water.
For those with weaker sea legs, you don’t have to go on the high seas or undersea to have a window to Maldivian marine life.
In fact, just this week the topic of glass floors came up on the Trip Advisor Forum. A couple of posters dismissed them as just gimmicks. But I actually applaud them. They are fun in their own right to see sea life from your very room. The whole allure of the Maldives is the gorgeous ocean and it seems a shame to ‘leave it’ when you close your villa door coming inside for the night or some other reason during the day.
Many times, water villas are built in shallow, sandy lagoons and so there is not the most fish life to see. I always wish that if a resort is going to invest in a glass floor feature, that they make sure it is over some coral cropping that will attract some colourful fish to actually look at. And if there is not a coral cropping handy, then invest in a SeaMarc regeneration frame to start some.
But even where there are few fish, the simple window over the water can have a dramatic feng shui effect over the villa. The light comes into the villa with the characteristically aquatic dappling which brings a bit of the playful spirit of the sea inside.
Sometimes these glass floors are rather modest little portals which nonetheless provide that stylish design touch. But, the most dramatic glass floor I have found in the Maldives is Velassaru’s Water Suite which measures an expansive 138 square feet. I used to live in a room that was smaller than that.
If you fancy an under-the-sea exploration or just a fun adventure to fill out a Male excursion, consider booking a trip on the Whale Submarine. Okay, it’s not a particular feature of Traders Hotel per se, but Traders is both the closest (one block away departing from Jetty 1) and the most tourist ready hotel in Male.
Its web site describes the vessel…
“If you have never been on a submarine this is your chance to go and dive in one of the most advanced passenger submarines in the world…This is your chance, whether you are young or old, able or disable, to visit the underwater world without getting wet, while enjoying the sensation of diving in a submarine…Whale Submarine is designed and constructed in Karlsrhue, Germany under the strict regulations of the American Bureau of Shipping and Bureau Veritas and is capable of carrying 50 passengers to a dive depth of 150 meters. Whale submarine is currently the world’s deep diving largest tourist submarine in existence. So far this submarine has performed more than 2000 dives safely. The cabin of the submarine is fully air-conditioned and has a normal atmospheric pressure and thus you breath normal air. Therefore you are safe to fly just after a dive. Whale Submarine has redundant safety features to ensure the safest, most comfortable ride, and is operated by a fully trained and certified team of French and local pilots. Whale Submarine carries enough oxygen, water and food supplies to support all passengers and crew for 100 hours.”
Dive, captain, dive!
If windows over the ocean is not good enough for you, how about windows under the ocean?
You can go diving in the crystal clear colourful waters of the Maldives without a scuba course or even holding your breath. Conrad Maldives Rangali features a Nemo submersible.
“Built in Germany by Nemo Tauchtouristik, the Nemo N100 submarine can dive to 30 metres and seats three people: two passengers and a trained pilot. Looking like something from a futuristic space cartoon, the submarine is bright orange with white stripes, characteristic of a clown fish (“Nemo” in the Disney film) with three acrylic glass ‘pods’ sticking out of the top offering the submariners 360-degree views of the underwater world they’re passing through. With the submarine’s arrival in late February, Conrad Maldives Rangali Island is the only resort to offer its own daily submarine tours to its guests, naturally subject to weather conditions. The price for one dive is US$495 for two people, or US$280 for one person.”
Our family went on a submersible in Mauritius and it was great fun. It is a great activity for young children to both as a unique ride in its own right as well as a way to expose them to undersea marvels before they can snorkel or snorkel easily in deeper water.
10,000 micro-leagues under the sea.
