The second visit to the Maldives and we did things a little differently, veering off the package holiday route and booking flights and “hotel” seperately. We had an equally fantastic time in a slightly more “natural” habitat than you generally get with package deals on Asdu Sun Island, which is an hour speed-boat ride from MalĂ© airport.
Asdu is different to many of the other Maldives resorts a in several ways – it’s less “purpose built” and more basic/informal, plenty of trees in a more natural habitat and a smaller Island all-round – without the 5* touches, but much more of that “middle of nowhere” feeling which is, I have to say, fantastic.
You sit on the white sandy beach during the day looking out at….nothing! Not a thing in sight. Robinson Crusoe this is! You can walk right round the Island in, ooh, 10 minutes, it’s that small. It only had around 25 guest rooms, a central restaurant, and catering mainly for visitors on diving holiday packages, is quiet during the day because they all sail out to the reef to, well “dive” I guess! Not that it will ever get busy with so few rooms!
It’s a more rustic feeling, basic yet very clean rooms, but it’s also a very cheap holiday by Maldives standards. We did this …
Read the rest of this post »
Posted in: Holiday Reviews
Sometime back in the 80′s, when I was a mere youngster, before the days of this amazing Interweb thingy, I remember seeing an advert in a glossy magazine for a package holiday to an amazing looking place called the Maldives. It was what has now become the sterotypical package holiday brochure image depicting paradise – the palm tree, white beach, glistening blue lagoon and the distant outline of a small Island – and I remember thinking “one day, I’m GOING to go there!” The trouble is of course, the pics in the brochure are always touched up, taken from the “right angle” and generally the best possible advert…the real thing never lives up to the image.
Or so I thought. When I returned from my first package holiday to the Maldives in 2001 (one of Kuoni’s Far and Away holiday packages), my answer to people who asked what it was like was “it’s the only place I’ve ever been where the reality is better than the pictures!”. Which is probably why I went back again in 2006 and will be going back again as soon as I can, and probably again after that (repeat to fade). I’m not normally one to go back to the same place twice in quick succession, but the Maldives is definitely the exception …
Read the rest of this post »
Posted in: Holiday Reviews