Daniel's Post - Making it to Male and Exploring Our Island!

November 2nd - Travel Day and First Day in Male

(Starting at the in-airport hotel in Singapore...)

I managed to have 4 hours allotted towards sleep – I couldn’t fall asleep right away so I probably only slept 2 of those hours. Even still, sleeping in a bed after a shower worked wonders! We wake up at 7 a.m., quickly pack and then head out in search of some breakfast.

I see a Dunkin Donuts on the map which I vote for since they have bagels. We don’t find it right away so we eat at a smoothie place instead. To supplement the sugar, Dad pulls out the Bronk Bars that he smuggled half-way across the world. Once we finish, we head downstairs and see the Dunkin Donuts – but they don’t have bagels anyway. We spend some time on the free Internet, expecting that this may be the last reliable source for a long time and then we head to gate E28 for our flight.

The gate starts letting people enter through another security checkpoint at 8:55 a.m. Our flight leaves at 10 a.m. and we get to the gate around 8:45. We both use the restroom because we notice that there are not any behind the checkpoint (Beth would have had a hard time with that setup!). As we go through security, we expect to get flagged for our camera gear, but all we get yelled at for is brining a 1L bottle full of water. I forgot that we filled it up at the hotel. Luckily they let us drink it – so I drink 1L of water in about 60 seconds. It feels great – I’ve been dehydrated for a while now. I look around with a well-hydrated smile and remember that there are no bathrooms…da da daaaah. We enjoy the last bit of free Internet but I am very happy when we board and I immediately use the restroom on the plane.

This flight is only 4 hours and it already feels like we are done. I watch The Heat, an episode of Billion Dollar Room, and an episode of Wipeout. Then we are there. I really enjoy having these entertainment options!

The Male airport is very small, much like we expected. We wait through a customs line and then baggage return. Dad tries to find someone to ask about his Allen wrenches while I get the luggage. The good news is that the luggage arrives, but the bad news is that no one knows anything about this envelope with the wrenches. We leave with a phone number to try calling…

There are a lot of hotel kiosks in the outside, humid section of the airport. We find the Bandos sign, check in, and then grab the boat to our island…yes, our island. Bandos is an island with nothing but a hotel resort located on it. The ride is ten minutes long. We have to wait for an hour or so to go through the check in processes, but it doesn’t matter because we’ve arrived! Oh, and everything is crazy-beautiful…

Our room is a 10 minute walk from checking and they cart our luggage to us. Once our luggage arrives, we head off on a walking tour of the island with cameras in hand. The island is not large, but it is not small – it probably takes 20-30 minutes to walk around the entire perimeter. We walk along pristine white beaches. They aren’t very crowded because people are pretty well distributed across the island – and there are beaches all the way around…

After our walking tour with 10,000 pictures, we head back and get ready to snorkel. The snorkeling is a lot better than I expected – lots of animals and lots of color – it’s an excited sign of what is in store for us later! We head back after about 30 minutes – Dad gets the camera and I head to the Sand Bar to grab a drink and send some email. I really wanted a Gatorade, but I had to settle for a banana shake…woe is me! The internet is frustratingly slow – I tried to attach some pictures and that was a big mistake! After fiddling around some, Dad comes to get me and we head back to go on our sunset walking picture tour…

I think this is a "Where Beth Would Go" picture...

I spy with my little eye...

This time I grab the 7D in an attempt to get a picture of the bats that we’ve seen everywhere. I get a few pictures, but nothing great. We then proceed to take sunset pictures…lots of sunset pictures…so many…The sun sets around 6 p.m. and dinner does not start until 7 p.m., so we had about an hour to kill. I started catching up on pictures, but was soon overtaken by a wave of exhaustion. I passed out for about 25 minutes and slept hard. Dad woke me for dinner.

Dinner is included and is a large buffet-style restaurant. There was everything from salads, fruits, rice, Indian cuisine, steaks, casseroles, pastas, fried fish, and desserts. We thought about it and this is our first real meal in several days…we got there at 7 p.m. and didn’t finish eating until 7:50 p.m….we ate for 50 minutes without stopping…it felt so good! We both felt amazingly better.

By now it was dark outside and there were a lot of people hanging around the center area. I tried to send some emails again, managed to talk to Beth some on Hangouts, but ultimately failed with Internet again. I’m going to go back and type up some on my computer and then head out to email just that.

As we walked back, we noticed just how dark the island is – there are lights here and there along the pathway, but it really is pretty dark. We head out on the beach near our hotel and there isn’t a light around – and we can see stars…lots of stars! We play around with pictures and manage to get a few good ones. After that, we went back and Dad showered and is asleep. I am catching up on pictures and journals. Now that that is done, I am going to go take a quick shower and head to bed. It is 9:42 p.m. here and I set my alarm for 9 a.m. – we’ll see just how well I can sleep in!

Boat boarding day...

It is raining all day today, so we haven't taken much. Dad's been going stir crazy. We're waiting in the lobby for the shuttle to the boat - it's still raining and there are no power outlets...I have to run my poor 5+ year old battery to the limit...

 

Posted with Blogsy