The trip to Maldives was (a part of) our (official) honeymoon with Louveteau. And, so far, the best trip I have ever made, across all the 53 countries I have visited. I was working on the photos for this post for a long time now: between my business and leisure travels, interesting working hours and other elements of my often hectic life. Every one of them is very special for me, every one contains a bit of sunshine, salty water of a fairy-tale color, a lot of happiness and a little bit that a dream.

So this post is purely emotional. There are maybe two lines of useful information in there. (For a more down-to-earth advice of visiting Maldives, try #travelhacks to Maldives, which I wrote once we came back).

At our sea front villa. Besides insane water colors, Maldives are famous for villas on the water, a type of accommodation very common on the islands and not that popular in other trademark paradise places, like Seychelles

You get fascinated by Maldives as you are approaching them: dozens of islands, some inhabited, some not. Each would have a maximum of one resort, and this island where you would spend most of your time. You will only meet other hotel guests there (and the very friendly members of the staff), which again makes Maldives a very, very special place.

Male, capital of Maldives. All that there is to it.

We went to Maldives for the New Year’s Eve: the best time weather-wise and the worst time from the budget perspective. The bill for the dinner was a third of our entire trip – and it was worth every dollar we spent on it. I could not wish for a more magical beginning of the year. If you could only visit Maldives once in your lifetime, do it around this time: the wishes made in Maldives do come true. Guaranteed.

If you love animals like I do, you have found your paradise. First surprise is bats – they are everywhere and they are active during the day time, contrary to what I believed all my life! (They are very cute, too.) Once you visited Maldives (or Seychelles, for bats’ matter) they will never be something obscure from the biology class books and caves.

The second surprise is sharks. These are babies of white black-tipped shark that I found swimming next to our first accommodation, beach house, on January 1st. They were not afraid of me, I was moderately afraid of them, and for some fantastic peaceful moment we swam together (Louveteau did not share my enthusiasm and retreated back to the safety harbor of our house).

Crabs are everywhere, with the smaller ones living in the sand, and stingrays are often visitors. As we later found out, teenage sharks come to the hotel waters every day at 5 p.m., to be fed something that looked like tuna filet. With meat being thrown in very shallow waters, they come directly at the feeders’ feet (and at your feet, if you are brave). Locals don’t share foreigners’ concerns about sharks. “There is so much food for them in the sea, why would it attack you?” With time, you get relaxed, too, and don’t jump out of the water if you happen to come across one when snorkeling.

That’s it for somehow useful information, then you have just emotions and some more on other Maldives inhabitants.

Every hotel in Maldives offers a set of activities, and going to the deep blue sea to watch dolphins playing at the sunset is one of them. Even though you are not guaranteed to see them, we found plenty. Dolphins were coming at us and swam alongside our boats as if they wanted to spend time together, too. So gorgeous, so intelligent and so free.

Fisherman’s boat in the middle of the ocean – met on our way to watching the dolphins over the sunset

And, of course, the storks. We haven’t seen them until we moved to our villa on the water. There, they would come on the roofs early in the morning, and to drink water from villa’s small private pools. Seeing them so often and close was unbelievable. On the last day, when we were leaving the room with our luggages, a baby stork came to our door to say goodbye. ❤

Storks in Maldives become your frequent guests when you live in a water villa

My idea of a good morning, forever redefined

Aloe recovery gel – something I don’t leave for a sunny vacation without (and it is not an ad)

Corals we found at the sea bank and later left in the ocean – they are forbidden to export from the country and deserve to stay where they we born

One of the wishes we made on the New Year’s night was to come back to Maldives in a few years (and this time to stay at Baros and W). Let’s see if this one comes true.

🙂