Greetings from Laamu atoll....


This is the view of the sun setting behind the nearby island, photo taken from the beach in our resort.

Been on a hibernation mode for a while, I don't know whether its just plain online ennui or maybe I was too busy at work? Hmm, I really felt so out of touch for quite sometime.... so far away from the outside world.

Laamu atoll is just so amazingly wonderful. Culturally rich, this is where the Buddhist remains were discovered (I even went to visit the Buddhist stupas! more on that later). The agricultural diversity I found in the neighboring islands is something you don't find anywhere in the Maldives.

I will update later on about Laamu life...

Comments

Chris said…
There was a Buddhist revival in Laamu, centred in Dhambidhoo island. The official line is that the Islamic conversion of all the Maldive islands took place in 1153. That was when the king in Male was persuaded to convert. A less known fact is that Buddhism flourished in some parts until at least a hundred years later. The Isdu and Dhambidhoo island copper plate grants record that several indigenous Buddhist monks were taken to Male from the Laamu Atoll monasterires many years after the official conversion and beheaded by the Islamic authorities. This is a fact censored from officially recognised history books because it points to the violent nature of the Islamic conversion. (Maniku, H.A. & Wijayawardana, G.D.(1986). Isdhoo Loamaafaanu. Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka. Colombo.
Romero-Frias, Xavier. (1999). The Maldive Islanders, A Study of the Popular Culture of an Ancient Ocean Kingdom. Nova Ethnographia Indica. Barcelona)
May 11, 2009 at 4:12 PM
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