Tid Bits on Maldives

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Trip Start Dec 23, 2007 Previous
Entry Trip End Jan 09, 2008

  West Point, New York
Sunday, January 13, 2008

Here just a little info on Maldives, and some cultural differences

-Maldivians eat very late. Dinner is around 10:30 or 11:00 at night. Most shops are open until 11 pm as well.

-All drinking water is bottled. From the water at meals to household water, it is all bottled. On Addu, most water is collected during the rain in large vats with filters on them.

-Maldivians have sweet chairs, one is a swinging chair, and the other is made of netting. Some of my pictures may contain them.

-I'll never figure out how to use that hose instead of toilet paper

-During the evening, all the girls come out on the main link road in Addu and all the guys drive back and forth trying to impress the girls. Ali said thats how a lot of people meet.

-Most of the food I had was really good, mostly spices and Tuna, but I really enjoyed it.

- Family is key to Maldivians. Ali's grandmother had 40 offspring total(to include grandchildren and great grandchildren). Family was all around us, and it was hard for me to keep track of how everyone was related.

-All during the trip everyone looked at me because I was a white guy riding around with a Maldivian. On top of that little kids liked coming up to me and to say hello and how are you.

- I was always referred to as the American, and I liked it.

- They block out TV for a moment during the call to prayer to remind people to go to the mosque.

-On Addu there really is no way to get rid of trash efficiently, so most people burn it, and its not a big deal to just throw trash on the ground. A lot of the beaches were littered with trash.

-Don't underestimate the sun.

- I didn't meet one person who supported their President. He had an assassination attempt on his life the last day we were there. The election is this November, so it will be interesting to see how things go.

-Life is sandal oriented. I wore shoes coming and leaving. That's it! Over here you take your shoes off because its courteous. In Maldives you always take your shoes off. I even did it in the barber shot where hair was on the ground. No one wears many socks either. I'd hate to see what happens if someone gets athletes foot.

- Bats are a normal thing to see flying from the trees.

-There is no hot water heaters. People just get use to cold showers, although it isn't extremely cold like the water here in the winter. My hotel had this box in the bathroom that was suppose to heat the water, but it only warmed it. I'm not sure how the resorts are though.

-Whenever we were invited to someone elses house for tea time or dinner, the host didn't sit and eat with us. The just brought out food and drink and watched to make sure we were enjoying ourselves. Very different from the US, I am use to sitting down and eating with the family.

-After meals, Maldivians (I am told most of Asia too) eat these things called beetlenuts wrapped in beetle leaves. It is a nut that looks like wood, and they wrap it in the leaf and chew on it until they can't chew anymore. It tasted horrible to me, just like eatting wood chips. The aftertaste was kinda like the freshness mint leaves in your mouth, and the nuts are suppose to keep your mouth clean after meals as well.

I'll add more if it comes to mind, but it's not right now. I'm having a hard time with jet lag now, they say your suppose to get back to your normal sleep cycle as fast as possible. It's hard for me to wake up at 0520 and re adjust. I am tired very early like 6 pm. I'll sleep and at 0520 I feel great and ready to go. Its going the hurt me when I need to stay up and do homework, or for my weekends out of here.

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