One of the fantastic things about living in Singapore is the
proximity to many travel destinations. Many conversations revolve around travel
plans over the holidays: where to go, where to stay, what to do, sights,
shopping, relaxing, suggestions,
recommendations and itineries are nutted out over coffees, lunches and wines.
No one stays on the island over holidays. In fact, people
take every chance possible to escape the island. Phuket, Bangkok, Sri Lanka,
Hong Kong, Boracay, Laos, Cambodia, India, Japan, Penang... The options are
endless. But there was one place that I was most hoping I would get to see
before I left. I wasn't confident that it would come to fruition, but in the
back of my mind.... There was always this niggling idea that it might happen.
Then, I receive a cryptic clue:
It took about a millisecond to realise my lovely man was
whisking me away to my dream destination: The Maldives!
Now, I will put it out there that we were going for a long
weekend. The Maldives is not really a long weekend kind of destination. I had
no idea what time we were flying or who we were flying with. I was joking to my
girlfriends over coffee that we were going to the Maldives for 8 hours - I
expected the plane journey to take 7 hours minimum with stopovers as most
companies don't fly direct, then another hour on a boat to get to the resort. By
the time we got there, had a swim and a cocktail, I was prepared to start the
journey home.
Alas, it doesn't happen very often ;) but I was wrong!
The plane was jam packed with travellers keen for some sun. As
usual, we were located near the back of the plane. However, upon landing, many
people decided this was the perfect opportunity to start their holiday happy
snaps, so we quickly bypassed all the posers getting photos with the plane. As
we were about to head into the customs area, we noticed another plane had
landed before us. We walked in and were puzzled to see everyone filling out
forms: turns out the plane before us had run out of customs and quarantine
forms, so we were quick to file into line and were through customs quite
quickly - as we were waiting for our luggage, a quick look back and the lines
were HUGE! We grabbed our bags, were greeted by a lovely man from our resort
and it turns out we were the last ones to meet the boat........ This was a
totally new travel experience for the Smiths!
A 4 hour direct flight with Singapore Airlines, a 20 minute
boat ride and with the time difference, our flight left Singapore at 10am, and
at lunchtime Maldives time, we had hit the sand and were swamped by this
colour........................
Bliss!!
We checked in, climbed into our swimsuits, and hit the spa!
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| happy hour |
The next day we went swimming and snorkelling in our
backyard, and revisitted the spa...
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| Our backyard |
And went dolphin hunting.
Waking up to this is my idea of heaven!
On Sunday, we packed up and headed back to Singapore vowing
to return..... A long weekend was lovely but a couple more days would have been
perfection!
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| Obligatory arm out selfie. |
Thanks honey! xoxo
