Another Christmas in paradise...

North Ari Atoll, Maldives

Another Christmas holiday spent in the Maldives. The past few years, I’ve been spending most of my Christmasses here in the Maldives, that’s the drawback of working in the hotel industry, public holidays are always peak times which normally means --- no holiday for you!

The good thing though, since I am with a pre-opening hotel I was able to get out and spend my Christmas holiday at Bathala Island Resort. It was a perfect 3 day weekend!

We woke up early on the 24th and was running towards the jetty to take the airport ferry, our check-in was supposed to be at 5:15am! I was still in a semi-dreaming mode (its even difficult to rouse me out of bed at 8am, how much more at 4:30am!) and managed to get to the airport just in time --- only to be told that our names were not in the passenger list! As in hello???

All the other transfers for the day are full so we went back to Male dejectedly. I slept off the whole morning and was thinking, if worst comes to worse, we will just go to nearby Bandos Resort (although we will have to pay!). I think Santa is very nice to me, I might have been good the whole year --- we were told that boss has arranged for the speedboat to pick us up from Male! Thank you very much, indeed!

It was such a perfect day! The sun was blindingly shining the whole day, the water was so calm that the usual 1.5hrs ride took only less than an hour. I just slept through it though...

The crystal clear water at the jetty looked so inviting......you can even see the tiny fishes swimming around the corals!

The sun was setting in when we arrived at the island......I am still amazed at how beautiful Maldivian sunsets can be. I took photos (with my new Canon SX30 IS --- my Christmas gift to myself!!) in different areas of the island and the colors also varies, on one side it was yellowish....on the other side, it was an explosion of magenta, fuchsia, orange....

Even before we can even check into our room, we passed by the bar area for a little cocktail....salamatirs gajud boss for the complimentary stay. Kalami gajud magpahi-inom basta dili kun binayran! hahaha

I was not really expecting much for the Christmas Eve dinner but I was really surprised at their buffet display, they have really exerted a lot of effort to make it look great! My other officemates were also there (came a day earlier than me!) so we had one long table during dinner.

And my favorite......lechon de leche! This is what I miss spending Christmas away from home, my mother would usually order a whole roasted pig for Christmas Eve dinner with the left-overs taken along with us for our lunch at the beach house in Consuelo the following day. Really missing it......haaay!

While having dinner I can already hear the loud disco music emanating from the bar, as if telling us to shake off our slippers/shoes and dance barefoot on the sand floor! Of course, we danced the whole night away.....haha

What a lovely day! The sky is clear, the water is calm....what more can I ask for Christmas Day???

Need to send out my Christmas messages to family and friends first before anything else...

Our old creaky bones were aching from too much exertion the other night hence we woke quite late on Christmas Day, was too late for breakfast so we just went to the bar and had cappuccino, I still need to finish the novel I was reading (my first from Stephen Frey, I did not know he writes good thrillers! I am now a convert! hehe).

We were told by the bar staff that there would be a Sunset Cocktails at the Sandbank late evening, so we decided to have a Balinese massage first. The therapists were not the same ones we had before when I first visited the island. The old ones were definitely better!

At about 5pm, we went to the jetty to join the guests departing for the sandbank. I was so inappropriately dressed, as in super over-dressed compared to the other guests as most of them were just in their swimwear! Only when we got there that I realized that since we have lots of time before the sunset, we can also go for a swim!

We had to wade through the water after disembarking from the dhoni. And voila! My new fashion statement --- tied hemline of my dress! lol

The sight awaiting us was awesome! No other words for it but ---- perfect! We had a few glasses of champagne, with the astounding sunset panorama as our backdrop and the sound of the lapping waves as our music.....what a sublime experience!

When dusk started to set in and clouds enveloped the glorious sunset....It was really difficult to leave the sandbank....

Still in my euphoric mood from the sandbank, we had dinner alfresco instead of sitting inside the restaurant. My mood crashed when I was given the bad news --- apparently, due to our haste, we left our house door unlocked and the key left in the door itself! Good thing our cleaner came over (after 2.5 days coz he was on holiday also!) and saw it (later on, when we came back to the house, everything was intact. Thank God!).

I wanted to walk a bit around the island after dinner, we ended up at the jetty. Its one of my favorite pastime, gazing silently at the water especially during nighttime when everything is so quiet....

I sat on the planks to be nearer, I was curious about the blinking neon-coloured patch in the beach. Planktons were everywhere! OMG! Really amazing!

The end of the jetty itself is a colorful aquarium, full of different variety of fishes illuminated by the jetty lights.

The entertainment for the night was again a Cabaret show but this time with a different theme and story. Some of the animators are also new, but they were still so hilarious especially the Mr. Bean character! Even if I cannot still understand a single word they are saying, I just couldn't help but laugh with the other guests.

I promised myself to wake up early on our last day in the island --- I still need to get a tan!

Being in the beach at 6:30am means you have the entire place to yourself (not that you'd ever feel overcrowded, this is the Maldives after all, where you can have a secluded strip of beach all to yourself anytime!), with just the sun, sand, and clear blue waters for company....

Its blissful moments of tranquility like this that I will truly miss about the life I have here in the Maldives. I've been blessed to be able to have these experiences, to see this unbelievable beauty......there's no other place in the world as perfect as these tiny white sand-ringed coral islands dotting the Indian Ocean.

I am still humbled by the sheer perfection of the place after how many years of being here, its so out of this world....

Just before leaving the island, this beautiful maccanah bird really made me smile.....she must have noticed me lurking in the beach taking photos.....she preened herself and hopped from the jetty to the coral bed....as if telling me to take more photos! hahahaha

Perfect!