Another travel post... we went to Maldives last month to celebrate Mom and Dad's 40th wedding anniversary. We (me and my brother) wanted something close by since nobody was interested in flying long distance, and Maldives seemed like the best option. But searching for a nice resort was quite time consuming, cause Maldives is a collection of numerous islands and tourism and fishing dominate their economy. So resorts are everywhere, some islands contain only the resort with no sign of local life or villages. And the pictures of these high end resorts are amazing, cabins right in the middle of still blue waters and perfect landscapes everywhere. It was manicured nature, clipped here and nipped there to make it picture perfect. I was slowly growing desperate, I didn't want to go to any of these places... somehow they seemed to lack soul, that earthy charm was not coming through. So I delegated the search to my sister, I was behind her night and day to find a nice resort that didn't seem stuck up like the Apple brand. So after a lot of searching, we came across Aveyla Manta Village which seemed like a great place, the pictures too gave off this nice down-to-earth vibe. So I emailed them and they were quick to respond to any questions I had, we finally decided on this place and booked our rooms after a lot of emailing.
The capital of Maldives, Malé (pronounced Mah-lay), is about an hour and fifteen minutes flight from Trivandrum. After landing in Malé we had to take a 20 minutes domestic flight to Dharavandhoo island where the resort Aveyla is located. Driving through the island you see small nondescript houses with the particular hammock styled swings hanging from trees. Aveyla, which means 'Ancient' in the Maldivian language, is architecturally beautiful and has a cute little reading nook, the rooms are clean and spacious and the few standard dishes they have are quite nice.We stayed here four days and most of the time we were in the ocean rolling around in the white sand, playing in the turquoise waters, going for long walks on the beach, sitting in the sea immersed swings and checking out the village. I can see how we evolved from the ocean, there's this inexplainable affinity to the ocean... she always seems to beckon us back in. The beach had a deserted island feel to it, there were hardly any folks around and since nature was the primal landscape artist here.... the beach had all kinds of beautiful decaying stuff lying around. There were dead tree trunks stretching into the ocean and they made this trip even more memorable cause of all the scrambling and climbing I was doing. To get on the higher branches, my brother would kneel down and I would climb on his knee, up his shoulder and then get onto a high bark. It was pretty hilarious, most of the time we would topple over into the water, but once we got on top it was pretty cool... the scrapes and cuts were worth it all, not to mention the awesome picture opportunities. Just walking on the beach was like a treasure hunt, with a lot of beautiful ocean junk lying around; we came back with a bag full of it. On our last day on the island, it was thundering, lightening and sheets of water were hitting the ocean while waves were crashing the shore and the wind was whistling through everything... it was nature's grand orchestra biding us adieu.
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