My First Time in Male

Monday
13:09 hours
Canteen
Four Seasons Resort Maldives Kuda Huraa

I'm kinda sick of titling my entries 'my first time' but there's no way around it, it really is my first time, again.

I have been training as a Housekeeping Supervisor for the past week. Housekeeping Supervisors assigns the rooms to the attendants, inspects all the rooms and helps the room attendants to deliver the rooms spick and span on time, which means to say they start the earliest and end the latest.

I wasn't too well on Saturday and was made to rest, and yesterday was my day off, so two days off in a row.

Lucky? Think again.

I'm not sure if I wrote about this, but not being in good health here in the Maldives is possibly the worst thing that could happen to you. There is honestly NOTHING you can do, as the doctor will not allow you to partake in any of the watersports that's just about the only thing I do, and 'they' don't wanna see you on your iBook all day either, 'cause that's just not right, according to the doctor, as my department heads would probably want his head rolling for giving me a day off to use my laptop.

In any case, being stuck on an island in poor health isn't the best package, oh and I forgot to mention how I had to keep away from gym and this morning at the gym felt draining. Long hours as a supervisor plus my want to make the best of time after the shift online was the cause of it.

So for two days I couldn't do much but spend time online, or read my book, or simply rest and last night was possibly the final straw, I JUST COULDN'T TAKE IT.

Johny and Rory had plans to go to Hulhule Airport Hotel in Male yesterday evening and asked the girls along. In the earlier part of the day I didn't feel too well and thought I'd pass but after reading, time on the computer and rest all day, I just msged the girls in the evening to say I'm coming.

I dressed up, for the first time in Maldives, and I looked pretty nice I must say. :p Picked up a bit of a bargain in the past week during the resort shop sale for staff we had, the usual, large sizes and probably unwanted stock. >.< Went to the girls' room, waited for them to doll up and we were off.

Got out of their room and realised it was drizzling and progressively getting heavier so we ran to the jetty and gave our staff I.D.s, you have to log your exit from the island and they don't want the locals to abuse this free service we provide for our staff to Male.

Just as Johny and Rory made it to the jetty it just poured down mercilessly on us, and the sky just looked nothing short of threatening. It was quite the journey really, I was telling them it looked quite like the scene in Pirates of the Caribbean, the sea was just rocking us like crazy and the route ahead was just hazy. And I had the pleasure of sitting the closest to the hull, which meant I got a lil wet. >.<

The journey lasted about 40 minutes and felt more like a bus ride than anything else, the city, not quite sure if I should call it a city but it IS the capital, and MEL, MEL, MEL, I warned her THREE TIMES, and she STILL bumped her head so hard when she got off the boat everyone could feel it from the sound of the bump.

We were looking for a nice Thai restaurant recommended by someone but it turns out the one we were recommended was closed so we decided to take a walk down the street and we found a VERY NICE restaurant, also specialising in Thai cuisine.

It was decked out in Thai decor, pretty well-lit, Oriental colours of gold, green, some red and the waitresses were positively Thai ladies as well. The one that was closed only had a staircase leading to somewhere more exclusive. Pity we didn't have a camera for the evening 'cause we all looked very nice and the restaurant looked very nice as well.

So we decided to try it out and thank goodness we didn't venture out into the heart of the city for some shopping, else we would have missed out on a gem!

We sat down at our table, the menu was very well done and had tons of information on herbs and spices that is usually found in Thai cuisine on the first page, and they had a good selection of the usual tom yum, green curry and phad thai. Even the beverages we ordered were pretty interesting. Mel and Johny got a Roselle drink, I had lemongrass, Sarah a Ginger drink and Rory iced coffee, that was made with REAL espresso. My god, it was tempting but I just wanted something more refreshing.

The food took a while, the service was just alright, waitresses could just sit around and look really glum, ha, but I guess the company and the food was excellent and that made all the difference. The table had phad thai, green curry, fishcakes, tom yum soup, glass noodles soup, a round of drinks.

I remember one of the conversations when we were talking about Asian food and somehow we told Rory and Johny about our da-bao drinks in our coffeeshops and they were really amused we serve our fountain drinks in a plastic bag. Ha. The check came up to about USD70 for the five of us and it might be a lil pricey but in the Maldives, this is just about the only luxury.

We headed for the bar at the airport hotel after dinner, going to meet Johny's friend, Jack, a Tropicsurf instructor at Anantara, another resort so we had to take a boat to the airport, then got on a transfer van.

Sarah said it seemed like those affordable Bintan resorts, but oh well, it's the only bar we have here in the Maldives aside from resorts. So anyway, we walked into the bar and it looks pretty similar to Joe's in Grey's Anatomy, pretty smoky, you had some Sri Lankans in there and tons of Britons.

It was there we met Jack and he was a pretty crazy fella, enjoyed a couple of drinks (I had a Mojito and beer), and a drunk Russian fella stumbled into us too, mumbling rubbish and couldn't speak any English 'cept 'wait' and 'russia'.

How the night ended there was pretty funny, we nearly couldn't make it for the ferry back and had to run everywhere, the check at the bar took too long that's why. Johny made a call to the boat operator and he said he'd wait for us and thank god, we made it, else the ladies will be in deep trouble, they were on the morning shift and the earliest ferry back to Kuda Huraa from Male's twelve noon.

Journey back was very rough, waters was horribly choppy and I was getting pretty soaked and chilly, water just kept splashing into the boat. Had a cup noodle, hot shower and drifted into la la land, and here I am blogging about it. :)

One word sums it up for me, how my dreadful days off ended, absolutely GRATIFYING.

14:04 hours