We had a lovely holiday in the middle of January. The whole experience was luxurious, right from the welcoming booth at Male airport, through the seaplane ride, arrival at the resort and then the blissful stay for the next few days. We stayed at one of the “Romantic Pool Water Villa” which has a private pool, and steps leading down into the shallow coral sea right next to it. Ms. Ria was our hostess, and she did a wonderful job of orienting us to the resort right on arrival. Mr. Muaz was our housekeeping support - he was cheerful, knowledgeable and super helpful. I exchanged notes with him on Dhivehi (Maldivian language) music. I played one such song on mouthorgan (harmonica). The link to the video is included. We also commend Shawkat who drove us around in the battery cart. Countless other staff members (whose names I’m afraid I did not note down), including chefs, bartenders, restaurant managers were very professional and courteous. The South Ari Atoll is a long, narrow island of around 2km length. You can walk and cycle around the whole island, and the various restaurants, bars, and activity areas (such as watersports) are nicely spread across. You go through lush greenery – a combination of coconut palms; a variety of orchids grafted on them; and a lot of lovely tropical flora. We saw wonderful sunrises right from our villa, and wonderful sunsets from the Senses Bar. We made it a point to cover all the restaurants and lounges for different meals. The buffet spreads for breakfast and dinner were all very impressive. We had a 2 hour Dolphin-watching cruise on a motorboat. Sadly we didn’t see any dolphins (they can be quite elusive), but we saw some Manta Rays and baby sharks. My wife coined a parody of a famous Marathi song, saying “Disalach nahi disala, mala baghun panyat ghusala” – meaning: “Didn’t see the hero – he dived into the water on seeing me”. The original goes somewhat like “Finally I see my hero; he smiled on seeing me”. The cruise was anyway a nice adventure, with the boat pitching and rolling quite heavily, and we struggling to maintain our foothold on the upper deck. This was like a second honeymoon for us, 35 years after our first Hopefully we will visit again some day.
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