A brand new year with a brand new challenges. So sorry for the long silence, it wasn’t intentional, but was pretty occupied with settling all my things before the start of my new biggest challenge and had just settled down slightly after 1 year of preparation and coming into a new country with different cultures and meeting all types of nationality people over here.
You must be wondering where am I, isn’t it? Well..I am at the Island of Paradise – Maldives. It consist of 1000 over islands which they called them atoll, located in Indian Ocean, south of India. It’s a muslim country and its a republic country. I am at South Male Atoll, which is about 45-minute ride in Speedboat from Male – capital city of Male. The resort that I am at is called Olhuveli Beach & Spa Resort and the name of the spa that I will be working for is Sun Spa.
Here the logistic from one atoll to another can be quite confusing and the working days takes a while to get used to. In Singapore, our working days start on Monday but not in Maldives. Bank will close on Friday and Saturday. But Sunday, they will be practically work half day because they just return from their weekend and when it comes to Thursday, afternoon half is practically off as well – preparing for the weekend ahead. Therefore only Monday – Wednesday they are open full days. As for the rest of the companies, they start on casual Saturday and 1st day work starts on Sunday and off on Friday. It’s quite confusing in the start but now its getting better.
I will always remember my first day in Maldives. When I came out from the arrival hall and unable to find the one who suppose to hold up my name, I called my friend who is my new boss. She told me to go to counter no 17 and I was then being recognize then. What a relief! The airport was quite old fashion, not like Changi Airport – so technology savvy, clean and has the wow factor.. Male airport is very ordinary and you feel like you arrive at the Batam ferry terminal.
To my shock, I have to take a boat – local term dhoni, to Male! They are not in the same island. The Airport is in a man-made island. How wonderful can that be! So me with my overweight luggages, my ever faithful umbro bag and a sling bag followed the staff to the boat. Already been thinking how am I going to carry my big bag across and into the boat without falling off the boat. Luckily the boat men helped me with it. The journey was just 5 – 8 minutes ride. For those people who are prone to sea sickness, I would not recommend this as it sway from side to side.. Once reach Male, I was being transfered to my hotel room called Host Palace by cab. All the cab had a fix price and they do not have a box on top of the car but they just print the word “taxi” at the side. So anywhere you go (point a to point b) is RF 20 and after midnight will be RF25.
My room was on the 2nd floor but i have to climb 2 flight of stairs. I stayed there for a couple of days. As I arrived here on Thursday, and Friday they were practically closed till 4pm, I practically do nothing on that day but to wait to 4pm in order for me to get a local mobile line. However, I decided to walk around in the morning to oriented myself on the surrounding and manage to find a local cafe opened for breakfast. Being the first time, I went in to give a try on the local food. But, I realised that I did not change any money in their local currency – Rufiyaa (Roughly the exchange is 1USD = 126RF) So I changed with them USD50 which gives me around 630Rf. From then i just ordered some dishes that they serve. Later I found out one of them is smashed tuna and another is some kind of vegetable – no idea what is that. These they come in small dishes and you eat together with a dough something like “capati”. It was quite nice, something different but was very full due to the capati as it was quite thick and made from flour.
In the evening, managed to meet up with my boss for dinner at a restaurant called - Chinese Garden. Apparently this is the closest restaurant to our local food. Food wasn’t that fantastic, and all the portion here are in huge quantity. I basically can’t finish my plate of fried noodle but lucky we are able packed it and my boss able to bring home for her breakfast the next day. She showed me around Male – the dock area, the garden, the mosque and we ended having coffee at one of her hang out place. One thing I found out their coffee at Maldives are super sweet and there isn’t any fast food, so no kfc, no mcdonald, no starbuck and no coffee bean! How boring..
It’s a truly an eye-opener for me and that was my first day in Maldives.
