We arrived in Male late last night after a several hour stop over in Colombo Sri Lanka. We were in Sri Lanka early last year for several weeks and would have liked to have explored more this time but we satisfied ourselves with using the free Internet consoles. It was wierd to land at country’s capital city airport (Male). There were no lights here only the darkened ocean. Reminded me of a totally different reason for no lights – when I dropped into Dhaka Bangladesh at night – major city but almost entirely dark. Once we landed in Male and sped through customs we were quickly whisked away to a small hotel on the island.
The Maldives are certainly one of the more expensive countries to visit because of their isolation in the middle of the ocean and the cost of getting supplies there. There are really no budget accomodations other than sleeping on the beach! This “airport” island looks amazing from the air – its surrounded by dark blue waters and corral and the airport takes up much of the island.
Juding by the size of the breaks off the island surfing would be ideal here, but in talking to our driver apparently there are no budget surf camps are any sort of lodging setup for surfers.
The feel at the airport is a bit like Hawaii – relaxed and casual, people coming and going, except here its truly an International audience. Nice to use the free showers at the airport while in transit. They apparently ran out of space on the island near the end of the runway. The road is right next to the runway but there is a red and green light system for when you can drive depending on when the planes land.
Capital city Male is on a different island, you need to take 10-15 minutes ride on a ferry to go there. Happy holidays 🙂
Yep- thanks 🙂
We took the slow ferry and then also a high speed boat which took like 5 minutes it seemed. Male is easy to get around, but so densely packed!
~ Dave