I love a good map and a creative table so thanks to Paola for spotting this Maldives map table at Crossroads.
Best of the Maldives: Guacamole – Hard Rock
To add some New World spice, Hard Rock’s “Butterfly and the Elephant” restaurant serves up Mexican fare with the widest selection of guacamole I’ve seen:
- Clasico (onions, jalapeno chili, coriander, lime)
- Green (tomatillo, pumpkin seeds, jalapeno chili, lime, coriander)
- Caribbean (mango, pineapple, red onion, tomoato, serrano chili)
- Habanero (“Holy Guacamole, This One Is Not For The Faint Hearted!” roasted habanero chili, coriander, roasted shallots, garlic)
- Crab (chipotle, red onion, jalapeno, jicama, coriander, white crab meat, citrus oil)
- Pineapple (sweet onion, coriander, serrano chili, pineapple, pomegranate seeds)
There is also a tasting platter option for the culinarily adventurous.
Best of the Maldives: Tuk Tuk – Hard Rock
Best of the Maldives: Co-Working – The Crossroads
The remote working revolution, powered by the pandemic lock-down, has transformed the extent to which people can unshackle themselves from the location (and time) constraints of doing their job. Some people have taken advantage of their new found freedom to work in the cozy idyll of a shed at the bottom of their garden. But others have taken the workplace revamp to the extremes extending their Maldives holidays by doing a bit of work abroad.
“Residences” and long-term stays (ie. months) have risen dramatically here. A good Internet connection and a growing standardisation of teleconferencing as the default mode of doing business make this increasingly feasible and appealing. It used to be that face-to-face included was the default and you did teleconferencing when you really had to, but now the situation has flipped).
To further help you whistle while you work, SAii Lagoon has introduced the first ever co-working space in the Maldives:
- “Crossroads Maldives is set to open the Maldives first-ever co-working space in the Maldives located at The Marina at CROSSROADS Maldives..‘Your SPACE’ at CROSSROADS Maldives would be the first of its kind in the Maldives where freelancers, remote workers, start-ups, and other independent professionals can work together in the communal setting. Offering flexible membership levels from hot desk to designated desks and spaces, members would be able to enjoy complimentary return transfers from Malé, free Wi-Fi, secretarial services including printing, scanning, mail delivery, meeting room booking and self-service coffee and tea. Additional benefits include exclusive discounts from the diverse range of dining and shopping outlets at The Marina.”
Other resorts have added enhanced work spaces in the villas (now tagged with the new tag of “Remote Working”), but SAii Lagoon and Hard Rock have introduced a space dedicated to such working in their Crossroad centre. That way one can get some privacy and other business support services for getting some vital work done (hopefully, so you can stay even longer in paradise with all the fires put out at home).
This is a bit of a special topic for me as one of my other websites/blogs has been looking at the concept of remote and flexible working long before it became trendy – Dynamic Work. As it happens, I am posting this piece from another island paradise, the Galapagos, where Lori and I are taking our Maldives-honed diving skills for a different type of diving adventure and our first ever live-aboard experience.
Why have a faux background on your Zoom call, when you can have the real thing?
Best of the Maldives: Kids Club Percussion – Hard Rock
Best of the Maldives: Themes Rooms – Hard Rock
While not every room is so individually appointed, the distinctive décor of Hard Rock’s Rock Star Villa does evoke the spirit of individually decorated rooms that I called out back in 2014 in my 5th instalment of “Haven’t Seen Yet”. The unique design aesthetic evokes world famous artistic hotels like Crazy Bear (UK), Ice Hotel (Sweden) and Atelier sul mare (Italy).
Now they need to just take it to the next step. They should honour a rock star every year with a free visit and the villa the star stays in gets christened the “So-And-So Villa”. Sort of like the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The star would bring a few bits of paraphernalia to contribute to the room décor (in addition to prints of photos and concert posters the resort would have already) and the villa would have the obligatory “So-And-So Slept Here”.
Best of the Maldives: Unicorns – SAii Lagoon
· “Always be yourself. Unless You can be a Unicorn. Then Always be a Unicorn”
Happy Halloween! An occasion where all sorts of mystical creatures emerge. After more than 20 years of visiting the Maldives, I might not have seen a whale shark yet, but I have seen a unicorn. Not just once, but twice. At the Hard Rock and SAii Lagoon’s kids club who host an “awesome Unicorn Party”. Then, later at the main restaurant buffer Unicorn Froot Loops not only provided another encountered with this mystical creature, but also satisfied my American-bred addiction to high-fructose corn-syrup.
Best of the Maldives: Crab Biryani – SAii Lagoon / Hard Rock
Ocean Indian cuisine in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Hard Rock and SAii Lagoon’s Ministry of Crab serves up a true delicacy crab biryani which we thoroughly enjoyed during our visit there:
- “Cooked with 1.5kg of the finest Mud crab from Sri Lanka, this is the largest deshelled crab dish on our menu and preserves the ideologies of the traditional biryani with our own take on it. Each clay pot serves 6, includes 12 eggs and is accompanied with a Fresh Mint Sambol, hand ground on our Miris Gala and the Classic Malay pickle.”
I do love when resorts bring local flavours to luxury ingredients. With this post, I am adding a “Crab” tag so that this crustacean can take its place alongside its culinary crustacean, Lobster.
Best of the Maldives: Snorkel Safety Ring – SAii Lagoon / Hard Rock
One of the appeals of snorkeling and swimming in the Maldives is the mill pond calm waters of the sea stilled by the atoll reef topology. But any body of water, including your bathtub, can be a drowning risk. Not surprisingly, for a country 99% water, the biggest cause of fatality for guests to the country is drowning. Perhaps seduced by the placid feel, people can literally get in over their head. To help reduce the risk of snorkellers getting into trouble (or just to provide a place where they can stop and rest and maybe chat easily with their snorkel buddy), Hard Rock and SAii Lagoon have placed hi-vis floatation rings at the lagoon snorkeling spot (where they have placed a few underwater items to attract fish and provide visual interest in an area which is, and always has been, most sandy shoals.
Best of the Maldives: Terraforming – SAii Lagoon / Hard Rock
The Maldives may not be moving the heavens, but they are moving the earth to provide more opportunities to welcome visitors. For some environmental activists, “terraforming” is as dirty a word as the mounds of dirt it involves. But I am more supportive of the Maldives’ use of terraforming. For a country that is nearly 1000 kilometres long, to reclaim a few kilometres for living or economic purposes seems quite a reasonable trade-off. Especially, if the aquatic regions chosen are more barren sandy lagoon than vibrant reef (and even then, work done with as eco-friendly protocols as possible). The entire Crossroad complex which currently includes Hard Rock and SAii Lagoon were constructed in this manner and eventually 7 more resort “islands” will be developed in the general area. The environmental study that was performed to prepare for this dramatic transformation of the ocean was extensive but nonetheless controversial among sceptics. For those who are accepting of this strategy to building their economy, the engineering scale and sophistication is quite impressive. The YouTube video above provides a taste of what is involved, but actually the History Channel (Asia) did a fully documentary programme on the project (see trailer below) to look out for if you get a chance to watch it.