My
first memory of this place will always be of getting off the plane. As we
queued for the door the warm humid air outside collided with the cool air-conditioned
air inside to generate a curtain of mist at the door, we stepped through the
mist into an earthly paradise. This followed a nine and a half hour flight
direct from Switzerland. Overnight. Istanbul by night was impressive, the
Gulf of Persian was amazing and the sun rising out of India spectacular and
this was "the Cherry on top". The Airport is an island, the capital
Male is the island next door, hell every where in this place is an island.
One of over 2000. This place makes the Venetian fascination with boats look
amateurish.
We moved out through the airport to the "taxi rank", The dock side was clean and the local boat we were loaded onto called a Dhoni took us the last hour and a half of our journey to Lohifushi (which we are told means the island of trees), and there we crash. The total journey has been 15 hrs, we got some disturbed sleep on the plane, but no matter how excited we are we need sleep. Three hours later we're up and out trying to explore everything at once. We're really still kids at heart.
Over the next two weeks we settled into a routine. Wake between eight and nine, breakfast followed by a leisurely walk down to the end of the pier to see if the snorkeling on the house reef was going to be any good (we had to do this because this was monsoon season and visibility could vary), either go back to the bungalow to collect our snorkeling gear before spending the morning in the sea or sun-bathe in the morning and snorkel after lunch. Evenings would see us watching the sunset from the Sunset Bar during happy hour before we got ready for dinner and the evening's entertainment. We snoozed a lot, we ate well, we sun-bathed, we read a lot, we went for walks round the island, we did an awful lot of nothing and we loved every minute.
