Maldives Republic

Here's some underwater snaps of our wee snorkeling trips from the water villa....

We hope you have all had an amazing day and are suitable stuffed with some yummy food in front of a fire somewhere!

We haven't had a very Christmassy Christmas-the past few days have been spent chilling in the water villa, wandering around the island or snorkelling and spending the time with lots of fishies!

Although we did have a lovely Christmas Eve Dinner last night- and I'm determined to perfect food art by next Christmas now!

Not too much to tell you, we're just having a relaxing festive season! Lots of love xxxx

Well, it’s official, we’ve found somewhere that’s hotter and more humid than Abu Dhabi! But despite all that, we’re thrilled as it’s been raining too! No, we’re not crazy, we just haven’t seen rain since we were back in Scotland in June- and it seems like years! We hear lots of tourists being grumpy because of the rain, but we’re really loving it! I suppose we’ll change our minds when we’re back in Scotland and it’s raining- at 10 degrees!

We arrived in Male last night which is the main island/ capital city of the Maldives.. it’s actually about a square mile in total- a bit different to what we’re used to in Abu Dhabi. The tallest buildings are about 5 storeys high, the streets are very narrow and there are mopeds everywhere! There are a few touristy shops, some shops for locals (selling bananas, Barbie dolls, t-shirts, massive swordfish and toilets in one..) but all in all, it was just a really nice place to wander.

Although, the weirdest “shop” we did see was an Acer computer shop with wooden boards on all of the windows. When we walked past, all we could hear was lots of laughter and chattering and glasses clinking- yes, in a country where they don’t even sell alcohol in hotels on the main island (it’s completely banned- probably why the airline was pushing so much on us before we landed), we found the only illicit bar! Only down side (at 10am) was that we couldn’t find the door!

Today we transferred to Paradise Island (here, everything is on it’s own wee island- the airport, resorts, water plants) where we are staying in the most amazing water villa- a wooden room on stilts where we can jump strait into the water.. needless to say, once again the rain won’t be stopping us from relaxing and playing with the fishies here! It only took Mike the time to find his snorkel before he was in the water, and we’ve already seen a reef shark swimming past!

We’ve also been told that Santa will be visiting us tomorrow at midnight- so excited he remembered where we are!