Maldives - A week of fun

Having arranged the tour of The Golden Triangle for my sister and Brother-in-Law, I was apprehensive! You don't want things to go wrong, not only is it your personal but also your professional reputation. I have been back a week, today as I type this and my sister and Brother-in-Law have told me they are very happy. Trust me, they wouldn’t say it if they didn’t mean it! When your client is happy, you're happy!

We said goodbye to my sister and Brother-in-Law at Delhi as they headed home to the UK. We then went to the opposite end of the spectrum and had a week in The Maldives, sheer luxury at all-inclusive 5*resort. With a Maldive resort, you get what you pay for, some of the resorts closer to Malé, the capital is the risk of being near the waste dump! With a 40-minute sea plane ride, we knew that would not be the case for ours! Arriving to a welcoming party of staff and drum beats certainly made us feel welcome, where we were shown to reception to do the formalities of hotel arrival.

Being shown to our Over-water villa, with mini bar included and a choice of pillows from a menu, made you realise this was a 5*resort. For the week we ate, wonderful food and drank too much, we snorkelled with turtles and tropical fish, we saw the effects of globalisation finding plastic shampoo bottles and other detritus washed up on a desert island. We saw dead coral and a live coral reef. All whilst zipping about in a speedboat with 2 x 200hp outboard engines. We sat under clear skies from morning to night in shorts and shirts, ate gourmet food at different restaurants, Italian, North African, Asian and buffet style each night were our choices. We had a 30-minute Jet ski session, which is great fun. I 'drove' it out, Madeleine brought back in. Madeleine claimed to have beaten my top speed of 24mph by getting up to 30mph, but as I didn't get the chance to reclaim my title, does it count?

Our penultimate day was meant to have been the speedboat tour, but Madeleine was poorly in the night, when we became concerned, her airway could become compromised. I called for a doctor. She was given several drugs, some intravenously. The following day, we found they had a speedboat on standby for transfer to hospital should it have been required. We called to ask for the bill! To be told it was all included, that was a relief. Now, that’s what you call all inclusive! All the drama of the day meant we couldn't do the speedboat. It was postponed to our final day, which was a blessing in disguise. Instead of wallowing around all day we enjoyed ourselves, finishing with an excellent Italian meal and bottle of red wine. Receiving our departure information explaining the procedure for paying for any extras, in our case jet ski and speedboat tour, then luggage taken to the seaplane dock, our last breakfast before a final look around our over water-villa.