Maldives

You'll likely notice that we are officially way out of order now. To prevent ourselves from falling further behind, we decided to skip ahead to the (almost) present in an attempt to update more frequently. But don't worry, we'll be sure to fill-in the rest of the European cities at some point. As the chronology gets more and more jumbled going forward, if you're looking at the desktop version of the site, you should be able to click on a European city on the map and it should take you to that post. So stay tuned for posts on Oktoberfest, Alexis's drunkest night to date (you'll be surprised where it happens!) and the dramatic conclusion to Mike's European root canal saga.

Which brings us to the Maldives! We called this week of our trip our official "honeymoon," in part to justify how expensive and out of the way it is, but it ended up being worth every penny.

The Maldives are comprised of a series of 26 atolls and over 1,000 islands that run north-south off the west coast of India. The photos from the air are beautiful, although it does look a bit like the ocean has a skin disease...

Given the number of islands, picking a resort was near impossible. But luckily we have a fantastic travel agent friend, Martha Merle, who picked an amazing resort from the list of what seemed like hundreds. And it was a perfect pick. We stayed on in island in the Laamu atoll - in fact, it was the only resort in the entire atoll and our hotel was the only thing on the entire island. Being so remote was great, but it took us three back-to-back-to-back flights and a 30 minute boat ride to reach the place from Germany! However, it ended up being worth it and the seclusion was wonderful.

You would never know from these smiles that we were coming up on 20 hours of traveling at this point...

The resort's beauty came as advertised.

One objective of management was to leave the natural landscape as untouched as possible and to blend all the facilities in with the surroundings. We would say they were successful.

The first thing we did when we arrived at the resort was to take off our shoes/sandals. And we didn't put them back on until we were on the boat headed back to the airport a week later. We rode bikes around the island, complete with our initials.

There was even a bike parking lot, complete with its own valet. Fancy stuff.

But the real attraction was our hut, which was along a jetty and the room itself was on stilts, over the water.

It was like one of those pictures they have on the subway that you stare at longingly in the middle of a February snowstorm. We took over 400 pictures, but it is truly impossible to capture how beautiful it was. We'll try anyway. Starting with a shot of our hut from the jetty:

While it looks kind of like a wooden fortress from that view, everything is there for maximum privacy. The view from the water is a bit more impressive...

Hidden behind the wall on the left was a massive outdoor shower.

Which also had a glass bottom bathtub.

The outdoor area had lounge chairs at the edge of the water:

Couches for escaping the sun for a few minutes:

Over-water hammocks for complete relaxation:

A deck on the roof for looking at the (many!) stars:

And a waters-edge table for enjoying celebratory champagne:

Yes, after 9 weeks, Mike finally remembered he had a self-timer on his camera. Meanwhile, the inside of the hut was not lacking charm either.

Unsurprisingly, Mike's favorite part was the bathroom.

Yes, the bathroom had a glass floor. A first-person close-up of the view from the throne itself, complete with the water below:

As awesome as this was, believe it or not, it was outdone by the bathroom in the lobby, which was a real outdoor bathroom.

Alexis assured Mike that taking photos in a public bathroom isn't creepy or anything...

Prior to our arrival, we expected that 8 days here would provide up with ample time to catch up on things, like plan our time in SE Asia and of course catching-up on blog posts. However, we were shocked at how time consuming the following activities ended up being! Reading:

Relaxing in the sun:

Eating:

And swimming:

Speaking of swimming, Alexis began giving Mike swimming lessons. A halfway-decent freestyle stroke strikes us as something a 32-year old show be capable of doing. Also, we did make the occassional trip to the gym, but ONLY because it had this incredible view:

Notice that "drinking" is absent from the activity list! Although we did have one drink each every day, this was easily the healthiest week of the trip so far.

We did manage to attend some social events, including welcome drinks on the beach at sunset:

And a sunset dolphin cruise, where we saw zero dolphins:

But we did get to see a spectacular rainbow!

The nights were also beautiful, as there was a full moon about halfway through our stay (that is the moon, not the sun!).

This is one of Alexis's pictures. She also documented Mike struggling to capture the moment...

but his picture was lousy. He blames an inferior camera on his phone, but it's becoming clear who has the better eye for photography.

What's also incredible is that the resort is almost equally beautiful in the rain.

We had high expectations going in and they were exceeded in every way imaginable, thanks in large part to our personal coordinator, Auzam:

And of course the free, all-you-can eat ice cream bar, complete with numerous toppings:

We managed to stick to 4 scoops a day (more or less...). Our only regret is that we stayed in such a wonderful place so early in our trip. It is really going to be hard to top, but we will certainly try! So before we board our plane to Singapore to start the SE Asia portion of our trip, we have one important, closing thought on the Maldives...CANNONBALL!!