Malé, Maldives

            Thursday, 1 March 2018 – The Maldives is a South Asian island country, located in the Indian Ocean, a tropical nation in the Indian Ocean composed of 26 ring-shaped atolls, which are made up of more than 1,000 coral islands.  Malé, the capital, has a fish market, restaurants, and shops, as well as a 17th-century mosque, often known as the Friday Mosque, made of carved white coral.

Map of South & Southeast Asia

Near the Friday Mosque

            Originally, we had signed up for a walking tour of Malé, which had been cancelled several days earlier for “operational” reasons.  However, we did what many others did (unless they were going to the beach or scuba diving): we took a tender ashore and walked around.  A friend (Julie) went with us because her husband (Canute) has an injured knee and was afraid he might injure it more boarding the tender.  Since the population is mostly Muslim, we wore clothes that covered knees and shoulders.  The weather was very, very hot and humid.  Because of the heavy traffic (much of it was motorcycles), it was sometimes difficult to walk on narrow sidewalks and to cross the busy streets.  Although we found only a few souvenir shops, prices were very expensive.  (A fellow passenger commented to us later that Maldives is a “playground for the rich.”)  Julie tried to bargain for lower prices, but nothing worked.  Again we were very happy to re-board a tender and then our air-conditioned Insignia!  (Sally took a little nap.)

            Since the pool was crowded with “talkers” because of calm water and hot sun, we waited until 6:15 PM to swim.  Still, we ended up sharing for most of our half-hour swim time, even though it was almost dark at the end.  At dinner, we joined Cliff and Angela (of the U.K.) at their table in the café.  One of the youngest passengers on the ship, Cliff sold his business and retired at the age of 50 before embarking on the World Cruise.  Having visited the Maldives previously, they had planned their day in advance; they visited another island, where they swam at a beach, ate lunch, enjoyed drinks, and (in Cliff’s case) became sunburned because he fell asleep in the sun.  Also, in our conversation they expressed unhappiness with their own government in some respects.  However, Angela was very surprised to hear that many women in the U.S. did not want a woman as President.

            Having started eating dinner somewhat late and then talking longer than usual, we were also a little late for our half hour of dancing.  Since the ship had resumed sailing, the sea added some extra steps to our dance routines.

            Tonight we set our clocks ahead by one-half hour.