Travel with Indigo

After an uneventful eight-day crossing of the Bay of Bengal, Indigo arrived at the capital of the Maldives Islands, the colorful city of Male’.  Among the most geologically unusual of countries, the Maldives are a constellation of some 1190 islands and islets, more if you count those visible only at low tide, spread within 26 enormous coral atolls.  Other countries, like French Polynesia, have atolls but none to my knowledge also have an abundance of small islands lying within their protective ring.

Male‘, with a population of  85,000 almost entirely indigenous people, all Muslim, is shoehorned  into an island just over a mile long and a half-mile wide making it one of the most densely populated places on earth. But for protecting seawalls, much like the dikes around New Orleans, the first floors of most of its tall, thin colorful buildings would be awash.

It’s the first city I’ve ever visited, and I firmly hope the last, that has no bars, a deficiency of no small importance. There are bars so called but these serve no alcoholic beverages and so fail the first test by which discerning men judge the social amenities offered by a city.

It’s the sort of lamentable thing that inevitably occurs when men go about praying all day. A little prayer I have no quarrel with. It’s unlikely to do much harm and so long as it’s not taken overly seriously may even have some salutary benefits. The same though may be said of a zesty bit of restorative. Taken in moderation, there’s hardly anything in life that is more conducive to the agreeable manner, that more readily and pleasurably expels the vexations of a day, or that inspires the mind to greater attainments. So important is it to the continued advancement of the human condition that any country so foolish as to ban the spirits altogether would find itself stricken from Phil’s List of civilized societies. On this point I am resolute.

To their everlasting credit, Maldivians, revealing themselves to be a conciliatory people (and, a cynic would add, a people eager to fleece the pockets of imbibing tourists) have reached what seems to me in the great scheme of life to be a fair compromise on the issue thus retaining for their country a prized entry on Phil’s List. Of the 91 resorts licensed in the country, all are allowed to serve alcoholic refreshment to their guests.

My faith in the Maldives thusly restored, I took a seaplane from Male’ to a remote, one-acre island a half hour’s flight west and there spent a few nights at what was billed as a five-star but was more accurately a three- or perhaps on its best day a four-star establishment, called W Resort and Spa. I had one of those over-the-water bungalows that are all the rage there and in Polynesia and a deck out back of it from which I could gaze at the sea life below. An hour of this sort of thing is about all a sane man can endure. After that you begin wondering just why it was that you came here and what it is exactly that you’re supposed to do.

Here I have touched upon the primary disadvantage to the active man of a Maldives resort. You cannot simply walk or take a car down the street to other more promising entertainments. You’re stuck on the reservation. Even if you could un-stick yourself, your only alternative is another, no doubt nearly identical resort at which you will in any event be unwelcomed, or the abstemious town of Male‘, neither an especially inspiriting choice.  So I whiled away my time at W Resort working feverishly at every diversion the place offered hoping to fend off the earlier stages of lunacy. The plane taking me back to Indigo arrived only barely in time.

As we were leaving the Maldives on our way to Mumbai, we decided at the last minute to anchor overnight at one of its northernmost and thus most remote island groups. Here we found a tiny uninhabited island, where we set up our usual beach picnic camp and proceeded to make a fine day of it.

Just as we were pulling up stakes at day’s end, we noticed unusual commotion in the water just off the beach. Upon inspection in the tender, it turned out that a pod of four giant manta rays, or possibly devil rays, were busy feeding on the plankton that we had noticed earlier was visibly clouding the surrounding seas. The crew grabbed their snorkel gear and hopped in with the beasts while I remained in the tender and followed the rays around as they scooped up dinner. Unwary and intent on dining fully, they hardly minded our presence. One swam just under the tender’s bow so near I could have reached out and petted it had I the mind to do so.

With this thrilling experience behind us and after a bit more exploration in the tender of a few local islands, we set out for Bombay, India.