Speedboat Back from Kandooma (Maldives)

This was way cool!

Operation Maldives - Part 1

Three days in the Maldives Islands and what can I say but wow! This has by far been the best vacation I have ever had bar none. This place was designed for nothing but total relaxation.
Expensive, oh yes, but worth every dime because of all the 'No's', the 'No's'?
NO LOUD BUS HORNS, NO AIR POLLUTION, NO ROADS, NO SHOES NEEDED, NO DOGS, NO MOSQUITO'S, NO COWS, NO BEGGARS, NO BLACKBERRY, NO LAPTOP, NO TRAINS, NO POLLUTED OCEAN WATERS.
We probably wore our flip flops 10% of the time we were there.

The adventure wasn't totally without a glitch. First we flew Emirates air as we heard that they usually offered a complimentary company upgrade, well we didn't get one out of Colombo but no big deal as even economy class was very roomy and they did give us finger sandwiches and drinks. It was only an hour flight so no big deal.

When we arrived the Holiday Inn staff told us that the tides were to high for them to safely take us to the island and they would have to put us up at the Holiday Inn on Male for a night. We took the speedboat over there and they put us up in a nice room. We checked out the hotel, pretty cool. Roof top lounge with swimming pool and a state of the art gym that we made use of the next morning. A fantastic breakfast was comped for us and I made use of the egg and waffle chef quickly! This was also our first introduction into how expensive the Maldives is. Coffee, cappuccino and pastry $17, the pastry was only $2!

Someone found us at breakfast and told us the boat would be ready to take us after breakfast.
We packed up and walked out to the dock with someone from the Holiday Inn.

The boat ride over took about 45 minutes. They offered us cold mint infused towels to refresh ourselves and cold beverages. No alcohol. The Maldives is a Islamic country but some resorts pay a license fee to serve alcohol, the Holiday Inn Resort was one of them.

Thanks to the twin Yamaha 200 HP engines we arrived in good time and I wasn't sea sick!

We were directed to a waiting area with lime soda drinks waiting for us. Someone came by and checked our names off on the list, guess who's name wasn't on the list! The staff was quick with apologies and assured me that they would take care of everything.

Soon we were walked out to our place. The man taking us there points to one side and said "These our are garden view villas, this is where we usually put our guests, but your not going there" "I have upgraded you two villas up from this" The second would be the garden view duplexes, and after that the beach view duplexes but even better are the detached villas which we got!

End of part 1

The Vietnamese Dinner

Just returned from all I can say is quite possibly the best meal we have had so far in Sri Lanka!

Colombo is currently holding a World Spice Festival and all of the hotels and fancy restaurants have selected a country and in some cases brought a chef from that country to make something special.

Chris and I went to the outdoor festival and was not impressed. All the food was very generic and we didn't sample anything. So when Chris told me about one of the hotels serving Vietnamese I was a bit skeptical. We both love Vietnamese food and the curiosity got the best of me.

We went to the hotel and found the restaurant (They have three) and conversed with the manager a bit.

After taking our drink orders we browsed the buffet and wow and double wow. First nothing had been touched so the display was extraordinary, you just wanted to dive in. But what caught our breath was the Pho' (Vietnamese soup) station complete with a Vietnamese chef.

We started off with cheese dishes sampling a little bit of everything, bree and plums, yum!

Next was the salads, plural, I can't even begin to describe the many different salads with calamari and tuna and even dried sardines. Honestly I think the salads may have fallen closer to a Mediterranean style, but very good. The shrimp rolls in rice paper wrap was so good and the peanut sauce had a mild kick to it.

We then had to go for the Pho' and it did not disappoint. There was a sous chef that added the accoutrements which was a little different as your typical Pho restaurant has this on the table.

Afterwards we made a platter of the hot dishes. Incredible. Meat falling off the bones of the pork ribs and a fish that had you wanting more and more.

Could we do another round of Pho', maybe more salads. I was thinking of a few more shrimp rolls or do we just do what we both knew we wanted to do...yes, hit the desert line.

The deserts are in little portions so you can sample a little of each without feeling guilty. I'm not even going to try to describe the deserts, so good!

The bill didn't hurt so bad, worth every penny. Live lounge music played all night with many of our favorite tunes. It wasn't crowded and just scant few tourists. Two and half hour dinner, gotta love it!

Book Corner - Finished Reading

The 5th Horseman (Women's Murder Club) by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
Paperback
484 pages
Fiction
Detective Thriller

Right on the heels of me saying how cliche it is to read Patterson novels, I finish reading yet another one.

My review? What can I say, it's a Patterson novel.