This was NOT the paradise I had imagined.
What I knew about the Maldives I knew from Instagram and from tabloid photos of celebrities frolicking along white sand beaches. I knew the Maldives to be home to paradisiacal views, dazzling beaches, and the kind of gentle, lapping waves I have always sought out. With the journey from New York to the Maldives lasting upwards of 20 hours, I knew I was unlikely to visit its picture-perfect shores any time soon. That is until a work trip brought me to India on short notice. With the trip confirmed, I tacked on a few vacation days and booked a flight out to the island nation’s capital, Malé, in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I needed to experience this paradise for myself.
Paradise Almost Found
The emptiness of my Air India flight to Malé should have created a sense of foreboding, but it did not. I read the pamphlet listing items prohibited in the Maldives feeling relaxed and compliant with local laws. I would not be transporting any spear guns, dogs, idols for worship, or pornography. Or so I thought.
At the Malé airport, I learned that while many resorts were a convenient ten-minute speedboat ride away, the one I had booked was a $350 40-minute seaplane ride away. Few tourists spend much time in the capital city, where bikinis are illegal, so I had to fork over the cash. While $350 is probably not much for a celebrity traveling with an entourage in tow, I was sad to part with it.
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The sight of the Trans Maldivian Airways seaplane calmed my fears. The cherry red decals on the propeller craft gave it the look of an anthropomorphized vehicle from a children’s story. Before we took off, the attendant confirmed all of our destinations. I was the only passenger onboard for the third and final stop.
At the first stop, two-thirds of the passengers disembarked. From above, their destination looked like a perfect jewel. The overwater bungalows were exactly as I’d imagined: pristine and luxurious. Our plane puttered off without fanfare. At the second stop, another resort island, the rest of the passengers deplaned. I sat in my window seat, watching fish dart about in the crystal-clear waters below.
“So, unfortunately, you have to get off here,” the attendant said, interrupting my reverie.
“What?” I said.
“Yeah, we can’t fly after dark, and with the boarding delays, we aren’t going to be able to make it to your resort. So, a boat is going to pick you up.”
“A boat is going to pick me up?”
“Yes,” he said. “And also, can you take this with you?”
He handed me a package of rolled-up papers.
“When is the boat coming?” I asked.
“Soon,” he said. “Soon.”
Anything but Relaxing
The plane took off into a technicolor sunset, leaving me marooned on the wrong island. The dock lacked the kind of accommodations that would make it a pleasant place to wait for a boat (i.e. seating and a stiff drink). I sat down on the edge, my feet dangling into the water, and waited.
I had ample time to contemplate my circumstances. What if they did this on purpose to use me as a mule for whatever was in that package of rolled-up papers? I wondered if my demise would even merit a Maldives-inspired tabloid story with a headline reading: “Naive New Yorker Jailed for Transporting Contraband in Paradise.”
After two hours of sitting alone on an empty dock, a boat did finally come. I gave the name of my resort.
“Yes, yes,” one of the men answered.
“How long to get there?” I asked.
“Ten minutes,” he said.
I considered my options. I had already spent $350 more than I planned to. The very fancy and expensive-looking resort behind me would set my wallet back even further. The sky was already dark. Ten minutes at sea with a few strange men in a very conservative country was not my top choice, but I decided to take my chances.
They loaded my belongings and the package of potential contraband into the small motorboat. Ten minutes passed. Then thirty. The resort behind us faded from view. Eventually, a string of lights appeared on the horizon, which I decided must be my resort. As we approached, I realized it was some sort of boundary marker. Our boat sped across the water, the nose slicing across the top of the water. An hour passed. An hour and a half. At this point, I assumed the worst had happened; that I’d been kidnapped. Sensing my growing discomfort, the driver turned the radio on, blasting the DJ Snake hit “Taki Taki.”
Around the two-hour mark, lights appeared again. This time they expanded into a real island. A hotel employee wearing a branded jacket greeted me at this dock, and I knew I’d been saved from my imagined fate. Sitting down in the spacious open-air lobby of my resort, I forgot all about the melodrama of my harrowing journey. They offered me a hot towel and a cocktail, and I handed over the roll of documents I’d been carrying in exchange.
A Lesson Learned
The next morning, I awoke in my own bungalow, and went looking for something to do. The options seemed limited to: being on the beach, eating on the beach, getting a massage on the beach. Almost no one was at the resort, save for a few British couples. I had my pick of tables at mealtimes. I called my sister, desperate for a sympathetic ear.
“It must be heavenly,” she said.
“No. There’s nothing to do here,” I told her. My imagined kidnapping had been the most exciting part of the whole trip.
“Isn’t that the point?” she asked.
“Didn’t Kim Kardashian lose her diamond earring in the water here? Maybe it’s washed up on my island, and I can find it,” I mused.
“No,” my sister said. “I think that was Bora Bora.”
Maybe Bora Bora offered better things to do. I waded into the ocean, which felt as easy as stepping into a bath. As promised, the water stretched out from the shores of the island in an otherworldly blue. The tropical sun shone down gently and subdued. My accommodations were clean and nice, but without anyone to share it with, it wasn’t as much fun as I’d hoped. I didn’t find any lost treasure or romance on my trip, but I did learn an important lesson: for me at least, paradise alone is no paradise at all.
