Stupendous Man

Its been a while since I have blogged; and the feeling is a bit different now. When you have your other half looking by your shoulders as you type the post, something strike you. You could possibly be doing better things than writing, but at the same time the need to do something you love (eg writing) overcomes you. Hence here am I after a week of coming back to states, back to blogging. Expect fewer posts than before (not that I was too regular anyways hehe!), but I definitely will be speaking a lot.

I truly wanted (or still want to!) to write a wedding diaries like Patrix did, but I think with each passing week I am beginning to forget details. Nonetheless, I will come to those diaries sooner than later. What I did want to write about was a special place we honeymooned - Maldives. And the place we spent nearly eight amazing days: Anantara. Which really means Endless Waters.

I had settled on Maldives a good three months before our wedding, and more or less decided on Anantara as it was fitting in my budget as well as provided all the activities I wanted to do. Opinions on the resort were more or less positive, and it being a five star I was expecting a certain level of service. I had carefully avoided any resort that were owned by American or European companies as I find them boring. Anantara, owned by Thai company gave me a exotic feeling that I was looking for and hence it was my choice for the place.

Maldives, a small nation of nearly 1000 islands is just by India. When I say just by India, it really is, just an hour and half hour plane ride from Bangalore. But the sheer beauty of this place is quite unparalleled. I had read in quite a few places that photos don’t do enough justice to this country, and as I look back at the photographs, I and my other half both agree. Photos barely convey the true beauty of this place. Barely.

However none of this verbose text is going to make an impact unless I include some photos from the place. Here are they interspersed with our comments on place.

Maldives is made up of a lot of small islands like one above. This was taken when we left Maldives as we were too busy going “wow” while landing

We had initially booked the “Sunset over water suite” at Anantara. However by mistake Anantara put us on the “Sunrise” side of the island. Basically sunrise meant you could get a sunrise view and sunset meant well, sunset view. Obviously none of us was going to get up that early for viewing sunrises, and sunset over sea is always more exciting IMHO, so we had booked that. Nonetheless, the above pic was taken right outside our suite.

Note the water color - its green and clear. Maldives is one of the flattest places on earth, and the earth barely rises above sea level. Hence in most islands you can actually walk in sea for quite a distance.

In fact you could just walk to this island in water. We kayaked our way there though. In between the walks, don’t be surprised to find a sting ray or two quietly slipping by. This island is the same one that can be seen at a distance in the photograph above.

This was the entrance to Water villas. The sunrise side was on the right, while sunset on the left. We were moved to the sunset suite on the second day. To make up for their mistake, Anantara offered us a dolphin cruise and a half day island discovery (including snorkeling) trip for free. I couldn’t complain much

This was the view from our bed from the sunset over water villa. This photo was taken from the bed. Can’t say I had any complains about being in such a suite. It was simply amazing. The sunset side of the islands opened to ocean. While you could see some islands on the sunrise side of the island, the sunset side provided nothing but water view.

The sunrise side of the island had a sandbank with hammock. This sandbank submerged completely during high tides and was totally out of water during low tides. It was a beautiful sand bank, and needless to say a great picture spot.

On our way to snorkeling trip we stopped by a Maldivian fisherman village. Fish is a huge export of Maldives and as expected we did see fishermen fishing. Note the water colors.

We also visited Male, which is supposed to the smallest capital city in the world. Its barely a 2×2 kilometer island and houses all the important administrative offices. As expected, tourism is nearly 80% of Maldivian economy. Fish is another.

Incidentally, my wife’s birthday also came through our stay there. I had planned a surprise for her, which the Anantara management nearly ruined but sending a cake to our room three days early! To make up for their mistake they upgraded our next 3 days to their sister island Naladhu, which is a six star resort.

Needless to say, I had absolutely zilch complaints against the room we were put in. It was a sprawling beach villa which opened to the ocean and had a hot-tub, swimming pool, relaxing beds, steam room and a huge bedroom - all in one cottage, just for us, exclusive and very very private. There was simply no say no to this room.

View of Jhoola at night. This Jhoola was ocean facing. Needless to say the joy of sitting and relaxing on it while watching the waves come by was beautiful. At night even if you had your door closed you could still hears the waves splashing, especially during high tides.

At numerous places on the island there were these beach chair-bed which were placed to sit and relax. Photos don’t quite convey the experience of sitting by the beach, watching the sun go down with a glass of watermelon juice in your hands. Anantara staff were attentive and absolutely ready to do anything. They were friendly, smiling and ready to please you anytime you asked them. We were absolutely delighted by their service.

This photo marked the end our honeymoon as we left the resort. We had one final scare while taking the boat ride back to Male. At some point in the sea, there seemed to be a really big high tide going on. The waves were high, choppy and very scary. The boatman stopped the boat thrice to let the way carry the boat before starting his engines again. For a moment or two the thought of Tsunami crossed my mind, but luckily this was a short lived scare and we made it to Male safely.

At the start of the trip I was in two minds about Maldives and Anantara. At the end of it all, we were both sure that we had the most amazing time of our lives. Something that we both will cherish forever - it was an experience like no other and I am sure it will be hard to match. We can’t tell you how many people came to us looking at the pics asking us details about this place so as to plan their vacation. I think a part of this experience also goes to staff and management at Anantara too.

Not only was the resort beautiful, but their service and pampering was way beyond anything we’d experienced. Though we really haven’t been to any other resorts there (and they have some which are even bigger and better it seems!), we were very happy at our selection and island. If there is one place we’d recommend hands down to anybody to go, it would be to these endless waters. Anantara.

We so can’t wait to get there again.

PS: Please respect the copyright on these photos and ask me before you use them. Thank you