At the airport in Kochi they have a shop called Kocaine, and a remote control bomb detecting robot... except the remote control is a wire about 2meters long, so it is not very remote..
We flew on a propeller plane to Maldives. It took about 1hour 45minutes. On landing we saw a harbour full of sea planes.
The water is amazingly clear and a very bright turquoise colour. The Maldives is a load of sunken volcanoes that have grown a coral reef on top.
We had booked the UI Hotel for the firat 2 nights on Hulumale...the man made island connected to the airport. The hotel cost $55 per night.
In the airport I bought 2 simcards with 2.2gb of data each for $45 each, which are 4g so really fast, but they are only valid for 2 weeks, so I had to buy 2... Quite annoying, but they should work everywhere.
The hotel had arranged a transfer from the airport for us, but they took about 90minutes to show up, and it was too hot...so it wasn't a great start from them
They did give us $5 off the $8 transfer fee though.
They did give us $5 off the $8 transfer fee though.
Hulumale island is a building site with loads of 3 storey concrete buildings going up. There are lots if Bangladeshi workers.
The beach is 50meters from our room, and it is a bit shaded at around 4pm, so it is cool enough to play on then. The water is warm and full of dead coral. It stays about 1 meter deep and there are big balls of dead coral that Winston can stand on when in the deeper water. The visibility is not great.
We have been trying to find somewhere nicer and cheaper to stay until 30th March, and after joining some groups on Facebook, Caroline found somewhere for $40 per night, and she also found some people who are interested in selling our hammocks on to hotels.
The first lunch we had came to $52 which is a bit over budget, but then we found a local eating place for the construction workers where they have nice sri-lankan food for about $3 per person.
As a Muslim country, it is not permitted for women to wear bikinis on the beach, although we saw someone yesterday... so Caroline has to swim with a dress on.
There are women here so Burkarized that they are head to toe in black and even have black gloves... Must be roasting in there.
We took the local bus for about $2 to GT the boat for about $2 to Malé city. Not much going on there, a few crappy souvenir shops and a load of motorbikes, we had an ice cream, got some drinks and came back.
I spent a morning catching up on work while Caroline went to the beach. The internet is good here, so it was possible to make progress.
Today we went to a cash machine... They charge about $7 for a withdrawal... So I don't be doing that too often. We found a local book shop which had mainly english books from India for small kids. It was a good selection. Winston got a toy plane and a treehouse book, and Henry got a plastic toolkit and some paper to draw on.
Winston's numeracy is coming on well... Today I asked him... If it takes 4 eggs to make enough cake for 2 people how many eggs do I need to make a cake for 4 people...he answered instantly... Not bad for a 4 year old.
It takes a while to adjust to the idea that we are not on a holiday where you have to see as much as possible in the short time you have, but that we can take our time like we would at home.
It takes a while to adjust to the idea that we are not on a holiday where you have to see as much as possible in the short time you have, but that we can take our time like we would at home.
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