Maldives

March 23, 2000-Neill

The Maldives was a very interesting, if decidedly unfriendly and overall unenjoyable, experience. It is a convenient stopping point on the path from Sri Lanka to Aden and is a beautiful country so most all yachts stop off there. We had to go to the capitol city, Male, to get our much anticipated mail drop. Unfortunately, Male is not a very friendly place for us westerners. It is a Muslim country and has some very strict laws, one of which seems to be "no smiling." The president is a shrewd man, who developed a very sophisticated tourism industry for the western world to come and have their decadent playtime in. They get over 400,000 tourists a year to the islands, staying an average of 8 days. While a strict Muslim country, all rules are relaxed at the resorts. No alcohol in town, but of course the resorts wouldn't survive without it. In his defense, the development has been conducted with clear and well publicized consideration for the environment. No resort building can be taller than the highest palm tree, only one resort per island, no spear fishing. The resorts do look great. Really nicely designed and a fantastic scene. Turquoise lagoons and white beaches. Classic paradise stuff. The snorkel and dive scene, which is reportedly some of the best in the world is not so spectacular now due to the effects of el nino, killing off the coral. It will come back sometime. We stayed anchored off Male for a few days checking on the mail and provisioning up. Daily trips to the post office were met with the same "Sorry, no package" response. The people were very strange to us after SE Asia. There, everyone is too friendly, always in your face asking if you want to buy something or where you are going or if they know you from somewhere (the first step of a scam.) We felt a bit like the rich colonials. Everyone wanted to be our friends, from Indonesia up through Thailand and Sri Lanka. In the Maldives we felt very looked down on. There are very few women around, all men, not doing much. A lot of eating and smoking. Not much smiling or laughing. While they stared at us, as soon as we tried to make eye contact people would turn. I was imagining what they all hear about the ugly westerners, particularly Americans, as they grow up. Yet they run the country on the tourist dollar. We finally gave up on the mail and left a letter with the Post Office Director, as instructed, to release our mail to our agent (everyone in Male has to hire an agent for $150, <grimace>) who would then work with us, through email, on where to send it next. Our agent agreed this was a good plan, he could always forward the mail to Aden in the worst case. So off we went, we explored a great lagoon south of Male, really perfect. Crystal clear water, perfect temperature, no bugs, fantastic. We spent a couple of days there working in the morning and playing in the afternoon. Then back to Male for a weird check out scene. Our agent, normally on top of things, seemed to go a bit brain dead. Misunderstood when we were leaving etc. So as Sarah baked in the scorching mid day sun, in our dinghy loaded with 5 jerry cans of diesel and lots of food, I waited to check out. Off we went then to a lovely little island up north, Uligan. It has no tourism, although a resort is being built nearby, and is therefore un-spoilt, but also poor. We noted that the school was a mess. Very uncharacteristically dirty. In fact, as we poked around the sand streets we found the compulsive cleanliness to be a bit of a facade. Inside the houses there was rubbish everywhere. The people were very nice. We watched the village volleyball game one evening and a weird mutant tennis/baseball game that the girls play another. These people were friendly, so maybe it was just the jaded tourism thing in Male. Growing up in a very touristy town I should be able to relate better than I did. On the last day we called the Male post office to see if the mail came. "Yes," they said. "It has been here for over a month. When will you pick it up?" Sarah nearly fell over. We were 200 miles away, not about to backtrack. So we should have called Male from Male rather than talk to the counter staff. So, we asked them to send it on. "We need a letter to do that, otherwise it goes back to USA." We explained that they had a letter, but they couldn't find it. Couldn't we just come in? It is a cultural thing. Back home you get riled up and start asking for supervisors etc. Here, as in SE Asia, that definitely does not work. They hate those uncomfortable situations and simply refuse to engage at all. Oh well, at least we had our agent, he could handle it all. We talked with the "post officer" at Uligan (who coincidentally is the cousin of the agent) and he agreed that it would be easily handled. Off we went. Well actually not so fast. We spent an agonizing, really agonizing, like a festering toothache that builds and builds until you would gladly use a revolver to stop the pain, day deciding whether or not to change plans again and detour to Kenya, where Sarah grew up. It would make it a 5 year trip instead of 4, instead of 2, instead of 1. I will spare you the details on the discussion, as I am detailing you to death on our mail, but it was a very complicated decision. We all agreed in the end to stick with the current plan and visit Kenya by plane. So off we went, the next day. I phoned the agent using our lovely sat phone. He said it sounded fine. He would go and talk with the post office and get the package and send it to Aden. I phoned the post office and had a very frustrating long call with two people that didn't speak English at all well (I know, I should be speaking Arabic, but I don't) This is where things went downhill terribly. With a bit of time since then, it is very funny. I will show you some snippets of emails that we received from our expensive agent. (See the Fifo email)
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