Far and Away

Living in a posh ski resort in Switzerland, I am used to seeing the rich and the famous wonder around the place in their thick, long fur coats or driving around in their Jaguars, Bentleys, Cadillacs and oversized Porsche SUV’s. I pay no mind to them now, dismissing them as a mild annoyance and good revenue for the village during the high season. They are like … migratory birds really. I’ve seen their “nests” perched up high upon the hills. Grand chalets surrounded by fences upon which “Private” signs hang as decorations. I’ve often times wondered what lies inside those chalets behind the fences and “Private” signs. And today, I got to find out, up close and personal.

Reto’s boss had told us that the owners of Chalet “Bomba” (we call it that for privacy purposes - I don’t want any Richie Richies coming after me with a lawsuit) are getting a new kitchen. That meant the old kitchen had to be taken down and out of there. Mr. Boss said we can have it if we wanted it. Free. Reto had seen it, of course, and knew it was in quite good condition. So, yeah, we wanted it. The way my life has unfolded so far, has taught me not to be too proud for my own good and a free used kitchen in good condition sure beats a brand new one, in excellent condition and ranging between 20,000 and 30,000 CHF. So yeah, we wanted it.

The owners of the chalet are Italian folks who come here for a couple of weeks in a season during which time they enjoy staying in their Chalet “Bomba”. Reto’s company has a contract with those people and Reto has gone over there numerous times to put in floors, walls, doors, ceilings and anything else made out of wood … which is pretty much everything. Mr. Boss called Mr. Owner. Mr. Owner said it’s OK to go ahead and take down the “old” kitchen while they’re not here. Mr. Boss gave us the green light and the key to Chalet “Bomba” and off we went this morning with our tool box and overalls.

Those of you who’ve seen “Far and Away” with Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, just think of the scene where the two break in into a huge mansion one cold, snowy evening. Well, that’s exactly how I felt. Us two, poor little ordinary folk walking in this forbidden place, knowing the owners are away. It was … exciting. The chalet itself is not that big (still I did manage to get lost and Reto had to find me and fetch me back to the kitchen) but its interior was absolutely exquisite. It oozed wealth. It stank of posh, lush and luxury.

I can’t describe what I saw in words, but I did snap some pictures which I will put up on Facebook, where I can restrict the privacy settings so that only my friends can see them. And I do trust that they (my friends) will not call up Mr. Owner and rat us out.

After taking a couple of cupboards down, we took the lift from the main foyer of the house down to the entrée. In the following weeks, Reto will continue the work himself and I will most likely never set foot in Chalet “Bomba” ever again. But at least I did once, and now I don’t have to wonder anymore what lies behind the “Private” signs. I know. It’s … money.

Gambling On TV

My husband has discovered a monster! Last night, while flipping through the channels and playing with the remote control, he accidentally discovered that there were games installed on our TV. I knew that, of course, but I hadn't said anything (not purposefully, believe it or not. It just never came up). He's got Playstation II and the computer, so I figured why would he need to play games on the TV? There is Tetris and some other games and of course, there is......drum roll.....The Slot Machine!

My husband has a bit of a weakness for gambling but as long as it's only on the TV and the slot machine at his brother's house, I don't mind. No, wait, I do mind! He spent over an hour last evening playing the slots superimposed on whatever was on TV. Well, I didn't mind since I was busy on the computer and the phone. And he knew when to quit and we ate dinner in front of the TV together watching "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen".

Renovations

You would notice I've made some "renovations" to the blog. It had been bugging me for a long time and here I fianlly did something about it. Now my long blog entries will only appear longer, lol, but so be it. I like this look much better. It's cleaner and simpler.

Now if I can only figure out why I can't import it to the stupid Facebook? It took me this long to get brave enough to do it and it won't work. Maybe it's for the better :)

Anyways, later gators!

From the Mountains To The Ocean And Back

We're back.

I've been accused before of posting blog entries too long for comfort, and at first, I considered blogging this in two or three parts, but after some thought, it seemed to me that doing it this way would somehow subtract from its effect. It would strip it, if you will, from its beauty and magic which is the true essence of this whole experience, and the true essence of the magnificent islands of the Maldives.

Having said that, here we go.


The smell of coffee drifted up my nose slowly bringing me out of the shallow, unsatisfying sleep I had finally managed to achieve after hours of tossing and turning this way and that, trying to find the impossible comfortable position in an uncomfortably cramped airplane seat. The clinking of trays and trolleys and the muffled, incoherent drone of people's voices followed the scent of the coffee and managed to bring me to a semi-complete state of wakeness. My head was fuzzy and I felt slightly dizzy and disoriented and definitely like I hadn't gotten nearly enough sleep. The flight attendant didn't seem to notice or care, placing the breakfast tray on the folding table in front of me. The coffee tasted horrible, like all airplane coffee, but did the trick. I was wide awake and suddenly full of excitement. Where are we now? How long till we land? What time is it?

I took a look out the window. Nothing. Only sky. I looked at the monitors suspended from the top of the plane. Local time at destination: 06:45. Estimated time of arrival: 09:30. 2 hours 45 minutes. Great.

We began our descend about thirty minutes before landing. Gradually, the ocean appeared literally out of the blue underneath us. The outside temperature began rising. -30 C, -17 C, 0 C. The plane dipped to the right to make a turn before lining up for landing and that's when they came into sight - the islands of the Maldives. The passengers gave out a unified "Woah!" and the cameras began flashing. I was so taken with the sight that I failed to notice how close the ocean had come up to us. As I looked down, the plane seemed to hover a few measly meters above the blue water. It looked as if the plane was landing in the ocean. Before I had time to panic, the wheels found solid ground (as solid as a coral can be) and the engines reversed wildly to bring the machine to a much gentler stop than I had anticipated.

We were there. Male International Airport. It should be called Male International Airstrip, because that is what it actually is. One, way too short and way too narrow, landing strip in the middle of the Indian Ocean, completely surrounded by water on all sides. It's pure miracle that the huge trans-oceanic airplanes even find it on their radar monitors. But they do and we were there.

A wave of suffocating heat and humidity hit me like a ton of bricks as we walked out of the airplane. There was no connecting corridor leading directly into the Airport so we had to walk a few short minutes from the plane into the cool, air-conditioned interior of Male International. A new stamp in my passport and our holiday had officially begun. The smell of curry and spice clung in the hot, stale air as we walked out of the airport and were met by our travel guide who promptly showed us to the boat which would take us to our island of Embudu situated in the South Male Atol. Forty five minutes later, we stepped out of the boat and into Paradise.

The islands of the Maldives are influenced by their closest neighbours, India and Sri Lanka, but they are independent in all aspects of life. Religiously, they are strictly Islamic however. There was a mosk on our island for the local people who worked and lived there to be able to perform their daily prayers. There were no Maldivian women working on any of the islands on any of the resorts. Of the hundred and forty employed on our resort, only half were native Maldivian, the other half was a mix including Indian, Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi and European. Of the hundred and forty employees on our resort, four were women. Two worked in the bar and two in the spa. All four were Sri Lankan.

The Maldives are truly different than any other tropical place I have visited, including Fiji. I know the term has been way too overused to describe any and every tropical island but what we saw was truly Paradise. The turquoise waters were crystal clear and warm (27 C - 29 C), the sand was white and clean with only the bare minimum of the usual sea shells and sea weed which litter the beaches, and that only following the retreat of the waters after highest tide.

The first day welcomed us with a nice and painful sunburn before we remembered how close we were to the equator and our 30 SPF sunblock was quickly replaced by its superior (and much more efficient) 50 SPF cousin. But the sun doesn't shine every day, even in Paradise and we did see our share of nasty tropical island weather. I thought I knew what a torrential downpour meant before I went to the Maldives. I was wrong. Because we were on a very small island in the middle of a very big ocean with the closes mainland (if you can call the Island of Sri Lanka main land) miles away, we were actually experiencing "ocean weather", a.k.a. same as if we were on a ship in the middle of the ocean - scorching sun some days, threatening clouds which fail to deliver on their threat other days and violent winds bringing heavy but short-lived downpours. And throughout all that, always, but always, hot!

We ran around all day half naked and barefoot. Of the two pairs of flip flops and four pairs of shoes that I'd brought, I only used two pairs of flip flops! The entire island was covered with sand and (which should come as no surprise) we were allowed barefoot in the restaurant. Oh, I wore one pair of shoes on Lobster night but I cursed them the whole night! You try wearing high heels in soft sand without breaking an ankle.

We snorkeled, we (Reto) dived, we saw beautiful, colourful corals brimming with equally beautiful and colourful marine life including sharks, turtles, calamari, lobsters and crab and literally tones of fish, all kinds of shapes, sizes and colours. We saw the moon start off as a thin slice and grow into a half circle. We sat under brilliant starry sky counting satellites and falling stars. We ate, we drank, we danced. We got sore backs and butts from lying around.

But all good things (and alternately and thankfully so, all not so good things) must come to an end. The same boat which brought us to Paradise, so cruelly took us away at the end of our holidays. Back to Male International and the awaiting plane (how on Earth is that monster going to take off from that strip?!?), back to the mountains of Switzerland, back to the cold and back to reality.

Did we really even go or was all that only a dream? I look at the photographs and our smiling, happy faces look back at me. Moments in time. Moments of life captured in Paradise. Forever.

Radio Silence for 2 Weeks!

I sit here in my brother-in-law's appartment in the outskirts of Zurich looking out the window at the low, grey skies and dreading tomorrow. Most people in my situation would be extatic right about now but me, I shiver at the thought of getting on a plane tomorrow afternoon.

As you guys already know, we leave for our trip to the Maldives tomorrow, Monday March 3rd, and will be gone for two weeks. As you also know, I am extremely nervous and scared of flying so you can imagine how my fingers are shaking as I write this. As with all phobias, the dread starts a few days prior to the actual event which is causing the phobia and my dread began late last week gradually escalating day by day until it climaxes the day of the event, in my case, the flight. At the moment, I'm in the stage of palm sweating, unvoluntary muscle contractions a.k.a. trembling body, difficulty with swallowing and a sense of....well, dread.

A friend of mine suggested I took or rather "smoked" something to calm my nerves before the flight. I laughed at the suggestion at first but now I am starting to seriously consider it. We have some time tomorrow morning before our flight and I will definitely be making a visit to a drug store. I have equipped myself with my ginger pills which I obtained and used on our last big trip involving trans-oceanic flights two years ago (they are still good, no worries, expiring in January 2009) which help me with the motion sickness but do absolutely nothing against my fear. So as much as I would like to not medicate myself with chemicals, the natural stuff is just not good/strong enough I'm afraid.

My husband, on the other hand, is very relaxed and excited and cannot wait for the.....plane food. You read correctly, plane food. Too bad they never give you enough, he says. Well, I tell you, he can have mine too, all of it. I won't be doing much eating up there.

So, adios for now amigos. Hope we make it there and back. And hope to see you guys on here and the ever popular Facebook again soon.

http://www.visitmaldives.com/Maldives/fast-facts.php