I have the greatest respect for people who walk onto an international flight with a bag of McDonald’s, especially a flight to the Maldives with Emirates at 4am. It shows a certain degree of not giving a damn, and I confess that I was a little jealous of not having the same idea after staying awake for the entire night. Having already spent the previous three days in Dubai, heading to the airport at 1am in the morning is not the same as a connection at the same time of day, and managing whisky and gin intakes before departing for the airport is a fine skill indeed. Not one to complain about being in the Maldives but I knew that our first day would be tough, and so it proved despite passing out on the plane for almost four hours. Something like 99% of the Maldives territory is water and as a result many islands surrounding the capital serve a specific purpose. The airport was itself an island that I have no doubt had been butchered and mutilated into something that could serve its purpose especially considering the capital, Male, has been around a lot longer than aviation; it would be one of life’s great coincidences if an international airport-shaped island was available immediately adjacent to the capital. Up until 2018, the only way to get away from the airport was by speedboat or seaplane. These are still options but there is now a third, traditional taxi that can drive you over the China-Maldives Friendship bridge that connects the airport with Male. We were in the capital with its population of 250,000 people by 11am. The city is about the size of a postage stamp and for what would be a unique day for us, it was extremely hot and humid. An early lunch and a can of coke energised me before our newly assembled group set off on a guided tour of the city seeing the usual array of mosques and markets although my attention was firmly fixed on our 4pm departure.

By 6pm, the sun was setting but hidden by foreboding clouds that were struggling not to rupture over us. Predictably Rut had fallen asleep on the noisy speedboat before we had departed yet unpredictably, I had stayed awake for the entire journey mesmerised by my new noise-cancelling Air pods. I was even rewarded with intermittent flying fish and a brief sighting of a couple of dolphins. Speeding past the islands, it would be easy to believe that the only way to be accommodated in the Maldives is on an island with tentacles of luxury chalets reaching across the reefs, and indeed this has been the case for the majority of the Maldives tourism story. It all looks very romantic, but even from a distance the chalets looked quite close together thus lacking the privacy that I assume is required by honeymooners who are sold the story that you can only have epic sex on your honeymoon or your birthday once rings appear on fingers. There is also a much darker side to these luxury islands. You may think I’m just jealous because I was speeding past luxury to stay on an island with simple guesthouses and no alcohol, but we shall get to that. It’s unusual for me to have read a book about a country I’m travelling to before I’ve visited, if ever at all. I believe it ruins all the surprises of learning while I’m there however, the upside is that for once I can write a few blogs full of facts lifted from someone else’s well researched book (Gatecrashing Paradise by Tom Chesshyre) as I’m terrible at taking notes about what I learn. Up until the last decade the only way to visit the Maldives was to stay on luxury islands, there was no way of travelling freely within the country as it was simply forbidden for foreigners under the guise of protecting local culture. The Maldives is intensely Islamic, equal to that of Saudi Arabia, but with the ability to segregate tourists much easier due to the island nature of the nation. So, while rich tourists sip on the finest wines unaware their thousands of dollars are funnelled straight to corrupt politicians and international hotel chains, the rest of the country is left to worry about democracy and rising sea levels. Although this continues and will no doubt worsen as the airport receives a huge upgrade to accommodate the ever-increasing tide of Russians, Arabs, Chinese, and Western elite, people like myself are now able to visit any island we wish – except the luxury ones of course – and see an altogether more realistic side of the Maldives. Islands new to visitors where guesthouses are quaint and comfortable, alcohol remains forbidden for all, and certain beaches are dedicated for bikinis with the rest of the island requiring dress wear considerate of the local culture. So for some this may not sound like a holiday but luckily for them, there are another 190 countries to choose from.

After an incredible night sleep, our first full day was spent getting straight into snorkelling. Out on the boat we could wear what we wanted yet ironically ended up covered with a rash-top to stop third degree burns from the sun while out on the water. Since hearing a story from the tour leader about having to rescue two clients that nearly drowned after declaring they couldn’t swim but found the water too irresistible not to give it a go, it’s now understandable why he took us for a little training snorkel on our first day. Our group declared their differing buoyancy ability and snorkelling experience and Rut being Rut followed suit by worrying that she couldn’t float all of a sudden. As I sat in the shallows confident that I hadn’t forgotten how to swim or snorkel since three days ago, it took little time for Rut to cruise on over and declare that actually she had the confidence of a fish in water. Regardless of ability, the water really is absolutely irresistible, and it was unlikely that anyone in our group was going to declare themselves unseaworthy. But yet again, despite the incredible beauty of the Maldives, there are hidden wounds. Below the surface of the sea is a scarred and dying world, one that has been destroyed before mass development or tourism. It’s a world drained of colour, the majority of coral bleached lying in a wasteland of skeletons like a scene from Finding Nemo crossed with Terminator. There are outposts of life, and colour is provided by numerous fish insistent on remaining. In fact, it was easy to see some turtles and a few small sharks; to a layman like myself it would be easy to assume everything was normal, but I severely doubt that, doubts that were bolstered by our tour leader confirming the reefs were in decline due to warming seas. We saw more of the same the following day on a nearby sandbar. The trip had already been delayed due to torrential rain but we finally made it out favouring more time in the sea snorkelling than on a cloud infested beach. What does make snorkelling in the Maldives unique and quite incredible is that if you veer too far to the edge of the reef it suddenly disappears into the abyss. As far as I know, the Maldives are the tips of an underwater mountain range, a fact that becomes drastically apparent when snorkelling in depths of two metres that becomes hundreds of metres in no time at all.

There is little worse in the world than someone pulling out a guitar and insisting everyone hear them play. In this case it was one of our guides playing a ukulele as we sat on the beach waiting for our BBQ to be served up one evening. To be fair, it wasn’t so bad, and thankfully interaction with his crowd was not mandatory which allowed me to drift in and out of the moment. On one such ‘out’ moment I turned to see Rut singing out her over-sized heart happy to let go and lose herself in the moment. Meanwhile, I sat thinking about whether to move to Dubai for work and how to two organise two mates to catch up professionally for a kind of cow feeding therapy session before then realising I needed to write all this down on my phone because it could make good blog material. It can be frustrating, yet I envy my novia’s ability to switch off and genuinely enjoy a singalong. I’m no worrier but I always feel like there is something to plan! To support my claim as someone who doesn’t worry we can finish on one of my greatest escapes while on the road to date. During a walking tour of the local island I had sat down to listen to some facts that I have since forgotten, in between, wait for it, giving a flower to Rut that had just fallen off a tree and on my head. Five minutes later, walking down a sandy street a young chap on a mophed pulled up behind the group asking if anyone had lost a phone. Immediately I subconsciously scoffed at the idiot who had lost their phone until I quickly realised, I was the idiot. Deflated, I thanked my knight while reminding myself once again that there are people out there capable of acts of kindness, and potentially I’m only one falling flower away from a miserable day of travelling.