Crazy about snorkeling!

My 4 year old is absolutely crazy about snorkeling! I never would have imagined after a couple of months on the island that I would see this! The kids obviously get very close to all the staff on the island. This is her snorkeling teacher. Unlike Bali, where the locals do not swim, here the Maldivians are very good swimmers! Nahiz was telling me that even his mum has started swimming on a daily basis - "because it's good exercise for her, you know" he said. A lot of the staff here take a break for a swim around sunset or after work. Most play football though and are very excited about today's draw ( i was told yesterday that today was i very important day! and no it's not because it is also mother's day). 

Meet Nahiz! Pro snorkeler... 

And my little girl is going out to discover the amazing underwater world of the Maldives!... She was very excited because she finally met "Nemo". We have several anemones around the island in the house reef. I think they are happy small things. I am always happy when I see some when I am snorkeling.  If you want to read more about our cute little clownfish, the Amphiprion nigripes, follow this link to Maldivesdivetravel website. 

Our local Nemo - The Maldives Anemone fish

This was 2 days ago. Yesterday she went out again - 45minutes of snorkeling with Nihaz and one of the staff from the dive shop. She told me that A was talking about all the fishes she saw: oriental sweetlips, pufferfish, unicorn fish, etc. Very casually when they came and I asked her what she saw, my little girl replies: "1 turtle and 2 sharks, white tipped reef sharks"; she stops and goes on "and you know mummy, one was very very big". Some of the staff here ask her if she is not afraid and her expression to that is priceless: she simply cannot comprehend that anybody could be afraid of looking at all theses sea creatures. "No, I am a big girl". 

I love our life on our island. Who knows she might end up being Marine biologist.  

Indonesian food fix

One of the things I miss the most about Bali is the food. It is very strange, in the beginning I didn't really enjoy this overload of flavours that comes with the food there. Fish sauce, salt, sugar, kecap manis (local kind of thick black sauce - like oyster sauce or dark thick soja sauce), chili - but by the time we left I simply loved the food. I used to go to a place on Jl Petitenget in Seminyak, called Kolega. Lunch for 2usd, so amazingly good... and spicy!

Tempe (Fried soabeans, corn fritters, baby aubergine with sambal (chili paste), waterspinach, nasi kuning (yellow rice - rice in coconut milk and curcuma) and my favorite you can just see at the bottom: baby squid in ink sauce and chili!)

So, just imagine how happy I got when the Indonesian staff here told me that there is Indonesian restaurants in Male... Salt, the restaurant, is located just next to the fish market, on the 6th floor of the Sonnee building. All taxi drivers know that building apparently! 

The view from the restaurant

Outside the fish market

The chef and owner of Salt is Indonesian. He used to work on one the resort islands here and decided to then open his own place. There is a mix kind of menu and an Indonesia menu. He came out to say hello when he was told he had Balinese visitors (not us but also one of the girls who work here at the resort, whom I met up with in Male). The food is nice: we had tempe with vegetables, ayam goreng (deep fried chicken) and chili kangkung with prawns. He makes the tempe himself and it was my absolute favorite.

Tempe

Ayam Goreng- with a super sambal!!! 

Chili Kangkung

Chili and pickles

They have a Indonesian buffet twice a week at night - I think it's Wednesday and Saturday (not 100% sure on the Saturday). Money wise - one dish is around 90-160mvr, 70mvr for a juice. They also do take away, so we left with a bag full of goodies for the rest of the Indonesian staff... 

Oooh watersports!

One of the big big perks (a part from the seaplane trips obviously and the sunsets and the amazing weather and... and...) are all the water-sports that come with living in this part of the world.

our resort in the background

I had always dreamed one trying para-sailing and it was one of the first things after we arrived on one of hubby's day off. Wow it was as amazing as I thought. though very civilised haha! I thought they were going to drop me in the water or something like that, but no I didn't even get wet. You leave from a small platform at the end of the speed boat and land there as well.

the little platform -- on the way up up!  

The views are stunning, it is so quiet up there. I was just hanging there and enjoying it and taking it all in and just WOW. It is not one of the things that come cheap anywhere in the world so being to do all this for free is just great!

a picture of me :) 

The kids always like it when they come on a speedboat and they were sitting there eating ice cream and watching mummy and daddy flying high up in the air! Well H, being true to himself, feel asleep... He had been so excited about going to the boat that he didn't want to nap.

Weather is changing

The sky was very very dark yesterday. Southwest monsoon is on the way, and that means rainy season is starting. One other thing I have learned from my expat life is how differently people perceive the weather! I have tried to find out by asking staff here how much it is actually going to rain. I get everything: from "it is going to rain everyday non-stop for a whole week" (they have never lived in northern Europe) or "it is just 10-15 minutes per day". Well I guess I have to wait and see. The rain did not come yesterday, well only about 1 minute of it and not more than a few drops. The kids love it when it rains! They can run outside in the swimming gear, jump in the pool or in the sea; they think it's great fun and H, my 2 year old, asks everyday if it's going to rain.

I love the contrast of the colours on this picture, the sea is so clear compared to that somber sky. The boat in the center is the traditional Maldivian boat, called a dhoni. The other typical Maldivian thing on the picture is one of our little friends, the makana on the left. The makana is simply the local grey heron - we have 3 living her with us, I don't think they ever leave the island. They are a common view on resort islands. 

Hospital trips and first lunch in Male

I have had the unfortunate need to fly to Male a few times over the last weeks for doctor visits - first A got fungi in her ears, the right, then a couple of weeks later the left. and then, ouch, i got tooth ache, so i just had to take 3 trips for one tooth! That is definitely the down side of a small island. We have a doctor on site but obviously he is neither ENT or dentist for that matter - but then you get to travel in a sea plane, and that's bonus... even with tooth ache!

View of Male after take off 

Sea plane just landed! sometimes we take off from a platform! 

So if I understood right, this is the chain of events: the resort doctor refers to a specialist at the hospital - we went to ADK hospital. I got a letter with his diagnosis and you can call the hospital for an appointment (and try to get one), otherwise you have to go early early to the hospital and get a token number before they run out... and then you wait. I was lucky enough that our HR guy went got the token so when we arrived to the hospital we were seen after 30 min, for the dentist part he kind of talked his way in and I was seen. The hospital is supposed to be the best in Male. I have to say that both the ENT and the dentist were good. The ENT didn't even prescribe antibiotics for my daughter when I told him I didn't want them! Just drops for the ears. The dentist was definitely on the patient side and treated my tooth well. I think both were from India. Price wise it was of course super cheap compared to European standards; 200mvr (13usd) for a consultation and 650mvr (45usd) for the root canal. I needed to go back on a couple of occasions, the hospital called me the day before to give me the appointment.These rates are for Maldivians and Expats. Tourists apparently pay the double, if i understood well. All in all a positive experience, it wouldn't be my first choice to get treated here, but for something like a tooth where I couldn't really do differently it's ok. 

One of the times we managed even to squeeze in a lunch. My husband needed to go quickly back to work so we had a lunch in a cafe by the jetty where the ferry goes back to the airport. 

Service was ok, food was okish, not super exciting, not horrible either. It's an easy and cool place (as in there is air conditioning!!) to go to if you are coming/going to the airport. I think the Maldives must be the only country where they serve tuna, when you order a portion of fish and chips, thought that was funny; A didn't like though, H eats everything. I had a local dish with dhal, grilled tuna in chili paste (yes again and always) and paratha. I liked mine. The place was clean with quite a lot of people coming to have a drink and take advantage of the free WIFI. 

Fried rice - it was over cooked though, so not very nice.

kids dish - whoops picture is not very clear! 

I think a main dish was about 100 mvr - I paid in US dollar and get change back in half mvr and half usd, don't forget to take your calculator with you. I think the check came with the price both in Dollars and Rufiyaa. 

From Hulhumale to Male

We have a 2 ways of leaving the island if we want to travel to Male, I am fortunate enough to have a fairly easy access to the sea planes, but otherwise we have boats leaving a few times per month - early morning and coming back late afternoon.

So the trip starts with waiting for the sea plane's departure time; we only get that confirmed the evening before and then we wait to see if the plane is on time or not! it is often that the schedule is changed in the morning. It happens also that we transfer by boat to another resort to catch the famous twin-otter. Obviously both kids absolutely love the travelling part of our island life! Don't tell anybody, but so do I...

Sea Plane landing at our resort. Credit for this picture goes to my little 4 year old paparazzi!  

After the awesome 25 minute flight to Male airport, we transfer to the pier where the boats to Male leave from. That happens right in front the departure hall of the International Airport. There are minibuses going from the sea plane terminal to the main airport. It only takes about 5 minutes, well depending if they are closing the road because a plane is landing or not. I was told that before the cars/vans/buses were crossing the runway... until a bus got stuck and there was a plane was landing! I don't know the rest of the story, but I suppose it ended well, but thankfully they decided to build another road that goes behind the runway.

The pier, view from the boat

Back to our trip. We bought our tickets from a little booth, for the price of 10MVR (Maldivian Rufiyaa - 1USD = 15MVR) per person we went from Hulhumale, the airport island to Male. It is possible to pay is dollars as well, i guess the price in $1. For that matter, in absolutely all shops, restaurants they take US$. 

The ticket booth

our boat

and the inside

The crossing takes about 10 minutes, it goes very slowly - the kids thought it was much fun! They leave about every 15 minutes. We were the first on board, but 5 minutes after it was buzzing with locals, tourists, expats from all over the world and full of luggage and noodle boxes as well.

A boat crossing

View of Male from the sea

And finally here is a picture of the pier in Male as well as the booth where we bought the ticket to go in the other direction. 

Remote island life with small kids

When we told our families and friends we were moving to the Maldives, there were 2 questions that came up: what about you? what about the kids? - well to be honest i'd rather be on a small island in the "middle of nowhere" than to end up in a big polluted and busy-busy city with 2 small kids who don't really need to go to school! There are also a couple of things I have learned since we started being expats over 4 years ago:

- Always take the positives of where we are and don't waste time on the negative stuff - if there is nothing to do about it, leave it - if I can change it, I do my best to do so. Yes I am on a small tiny tiny island, but hey I can actually learn how to kite surf, sail a catamaran and to scuba dive with the most amazing scenery.

See what I mean?? ;)

- The second thing I learned was to always put things into perspective.... what I mean is when I was pregnant with our biggest one, living in the UK, we visited Dubai to see if we could move there - and to be honest I did not like it very much - no soul, no culture, only malls, big roads, lots of cars etc. Then we moved to Jordan - not a lot of shopping (at that time, it is much better now), lots of roads with no lights but holes in (maybe that has improved as well!!). We then went to Dubai and of course after having been in Amman for a few months I could have easily moved to Dubai! All a question of perspective.

- With the kids, I have learned that if I don't make a problem out of it, well it's likely not really to be a big problem for them either - so we prepared for our move with them, talking about the Maldives, looking at pictures, telling them what was going to change... and they adapted quite fast to their new surroundings. Of course A talks about her friends, her school, and H about his nanny and his toys which are still not here. H is younger than A was when we moved to Bali and he is actually very aware of this move (2yrs, 7months).

I think there is a lot of positives for the kids to be out here: healthy lifestyle - full of sunshine, running around outside, water, sand, turtles and sharks, boats, kayaks and paddling boards - people from the whole world - both staff and guests. Good food. I home-school our biggest one, thing I really enjoy - doing science projects on the beach, learning to read and doing maths at home, playing football or doing yoga, oh and swimming as well of course. No stress about going-to-bed-times or waking-up-times, it's a holiday everyday! living at our own pace, trying to get as much out of every day. Finally the island is their size, nothing is too far away - okay we don't have roads and cars - but we have buggies and even a tractor.

I plan our day according to the kids - we always have a morning walk and swimming: sometimes we hunt for crabs on the beach - sometimes for turtles in the kayak. we go snorkelling, my girl with her kit and the small one on my back. we go for a boat ride and ice cream! always a sunset walk and a play on the beach and in between all that we try to squeeze in some house work for the mummy, some home-schooling for A and a nap for my little boy. dinner time, play time, and finally bed time. long days but filled with laughter and lots of discoveries.

I love it as much today as 4 weeks ago when we first arrived. I am sure it is not for everybody though - and many guests come, enjoy their time but are happy to leave again; others come back and back to get the serenity you only can find on an island this size, far away from the craziness of our world.

Time for change

Every 2 years or so Hubby calls me from work and says something like "what do you think about moving to...". Well that call came a couple of months ago and the sentence ended by "the Maldives".

WOW, now that was unexpected - Malaysia, Singapore, stay in Indonesia etc., yes - but the Maldives? I certainly didn't think about it, not even dream about it. Am I happy? Yes. Excited? Much!

Now I haven't been blogging for some time because I felt that our last location, Bali, did not really need my amateurish blogging! but the Maldives might be something else. I used to blog on Bibs Babs Bobs in Amman and I really enjoyed. I just hope that on my little island in the Indian Ocean I will find enough to blog about....

my last shot of Bali

So we packed up the house and said good bye to beautiful and mysterious Bali for a new adventure in another paradise.

And you know what? the blue water, the white sand, the colour of the sky? well it's all true! this is what we woke up to on our first morning in the Maldives... before getting ready for the sea plane and the flight to our little island in the North Ari Atoll.

our first sunrise! - absolutely amazing 

and one of my first in the Maldives! an early morning walk.

Welcome to our new life in the Maldives!