June 1997 - Republic of Maldives Vacation In June 1997 we took a family vacation to the Maldives. The Republic of Maldives or Dhivehi Rajje', (the land of the Dhivehi people) is an island nation located in the Indian Ocean. Its closest neighbors are India and Sri Lanka. The Laccadives lie to the North and the Chagos Group to the South. The primary reason for visiting the Maldives is to scuba dive and enjoy the underwater marine life.
The 26 coralline atolls that form the Maldives archipelago are situated on top of a volcanic ridge 960 kilometers in length, which runs from north to south. The only break in this natural barrier occurs only towards the south, where the One an Half Degree Channel and the Equatorial Channel allow safe passage through the archipelago. Almost all the atolls are enclosed by a coral reef which is considered to be some of the most abundant in marine life and beautiful in the whole world.
The approximately 1190 islands that make up the Maldives are small and low lying with the highest barely three meters above mean sea level. Although some larger atolls are approximately fifty kilometers long and thirty kilometers wide no individual island is longer than eight kilometers. There are no rivers or mountains in the Maldives. |
|  | | Map of Maldives Islands |
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|  History |  The written history of the Maldives begins with the country's Buddhist monarch embracing Islam in 1153 AD. It is however, believed that the Maldives archipelago was originally settled by fishermen from neighboring India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka), shipwrecked sailors, and other ancient travelers in the Indian Ocean. According to legend, a prince from Serendib (identified as Sri Lanka), named Koimala Kaloa, and his bride were becalmed in the Maldives and stayed on to rule the country.
Although the country managed to preserve its independence for the most part of its long history, lying at the crossroads of the ancient sea trade routes, the Maldives was influenced by sailors and travelers from countries on the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. Mopla pirates from the Malabar Coast incessantly harassed the country. In the 16th century, the Portuguese subjugated and ruled the islands for 15 years (1558-73), before being forced to flee by Muhammad Thakurufaanu Al-A'zam.
The Maldives was a British protectorate from 1887 to 1965. Following independence from Britain in 1965, the sultanate continued till November 11, 1968, when it was abolished and replaced by a republic. |
| Where we stayed |  During our visit we stayed at the Lohifushi Island Resort which is located approximately 19km from the capital of Male (about a 30 minute boat ride) on the east side of the Male atoll. Each island in the Maldives only includes one resort so you are a captive market while staying at the resort. As such we opted for an all-inclusive meal package which included breakfast, lunch and dinner. Being so close to India and Sri Lanka the meals were heavily geared towards curries, particularly vegetable curries. We like curry dishes but by the end of the week we were all pretty tired of curry. The food was good but fairly basic. Most meals were served buffet style so quantity wasn't a problem.
The resort had recently been overhauled prior to our visit so the room and facilities were in fairly good condition. We had a beach front villa which was very comfortable.
Being that Anette and I would be diving most days we needed a babysitter to look after Kimberly while we scuba dived. Prior to booking our trip we verified that the resort had babysitters that could watch Kimberly during our daytime diving. We naturally assumed that the babysitters would be female because of our stereotype of females being more naturally inclined for such tasks. Upon arriving at the resort we found out that all staff were male except for the one female telephone operator. Because of concerns over cultural dilution most of the Maldive citizens live on isolated islands away from the tourism and the resorts employ workers from Sri Lanka (during our stay at Lohifushi most workers were from Sri Lanka). In addition, it was explained to us that being a heavily Islamic country females do not generally mingle with non-family males, particularly foreign tourists. Which gets back to my original point of Kimberly being looked after by a male babysitter. Initially we weren't sure how well this would work out but soon found that the male babysitter was actually very good with young children and kept Kimberly occupied and happy during our time away scuba diving.
The resort appears to cater to European tourist, and during our stay there seemed to be a heavy concentration of German tourists, although we ran across a few Swedes and Brits also.
Overall we were pleased with the resort and would not hesitate staying here again. |
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| Climate |  The climate is warm and humid with the temperature ranging between 24°C and 33°C throughout the year. The relatively high humidity is tempered by the constant sea breeze which helps to keep the air moving. There are two monsoons in the Maldives; Iruvai, the northeast monsoon and Hulhangu, the southwest monsoon. The northeast monsoon lasts roughly from November to April and the climate is generally dry. The southwest monsoon lasts roughly from May to October with rough seas, heavy winds and showers. |
| Vegetation |  The tropical vegetation comprises coconut palms, breadfruit trees, dense tropical scrub and shrubs. The soil is sandy and highly alkaline, and a deficiency in nitrogen, potash, and iron severely limits agricultural potential. Therefore only ten percent of the land is cultivated, mostly with taro, bananas, coconuts, and other fruit. |
| Language |  The first known language spoken in the country was called ‘Ellu', which is an archaic form of Singhalese spoken in Sri Lanka. The language used in the Maldives today, is called Dhivehi. Spoken only in the Maldives, Dhivehi belongs to the Indo-European family of languages. It has numerous loanwords from Tamil, Malayalam, Singhalese, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Portuguese and English.
Although there are dialect differences between the atolls, more pronounced in the four southernmost atolls, Dhivehi is spoken throughout the country. The traditional script, Thaana, is written from right to left. This locally invented script contains twenty-four letters. English is used widely in commerce and increasingly as the medium of instruction in schools. |
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| Trip Videos |  Unfortunately we have no still photos from this trip. However, we have two videos which we have posted below. The first video is an underwater video of Anette and Bill diving which was taken by the resort's professional photographer. When we first had this video taken we were really impressed by the video picture quality and the marine life capture by the videographer that took this video. However, after subsequently getting into the hobby of underwater videos in 2002 I now realize that the video picture quality isn't all that great and the variety of marine life captured isn't all that expansive either. Part of the difference can be attributable to the equipment which existed in 1997. In any event the video makes for enjoyable viewing. Note that certain marine life was not seen during our trip (in particular the whale shark as it was not the season during our visit and the manta rays) as the videographer added these from some stock footage that he had from previous dives. The second video (video to the right) includes topside footage of the resort and some of our family moments. |
| | | | Concluding Comments |  We really enjoyed our visit to the Maldives. The resort was comfortable and the diving was fantastic. Since our visit the Maldives have experienced coral bleaching and some ill effects from the Tsunami in December 2004, as such, we are uncertain if the diving is as good as we enjoyed in 1997 or if the resort is still as well maintained and comfortable as during our visit. As such take our opinions and comments with this in mind. |
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| Last Publish Date - Thursday, February 02, 2012 | Copyright © 2012. All rights reserved. William Deertz - www.wdeertz.net |
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