Maldives

ISLANDS Magazine, January 2010
Amanda Jones

I am standing in what I believe to be the world's most beautiful water. The blue is a color I have not before seen in the ocean, the exact color of a rare Ceylon topaz. Sunshine hits the gin-clear water and dances geometrically on the sandy floor around my feet. Behind me a graceful, palm-lined arc of blindingly white sand stretches to a thin peninsula, not a footprint on it.

On the beach in my bag is the quote that has brought me here. In 2006, I had watched a short video done by Nicolas Kristof, the New York Times' Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, on the Maldives. So horrified by the news, I had written down his first line. I quote Kristof, "This is paradise, the Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean. But come soon, because it may be submerged under the ocean as a modern Atlantis." I had taken his words to heart, spending the next three years scheming on how I would get there before the island nation-the lowest country in the world-drowned, a victim of global warming.

By 2009, I had read almost every research paper and article on the plight of the Maldives (pronounced Maldeeevs). It turned out I had around 100 years to get there before the nation might go the way of Atlantis, but the warning had obsessed me.

And now that I was actually here, I stood in that beautiful water and chuckled darkly at the stupidity of man. It seemed more immediately outrageous that we would allow the few jewels left on the planet to disappear because of our own rapaciousness.

The peril that threatens the Maldives reads like a Vonnegut plot: An island chain in the middle of nowhere is so mindboggling gorgeous it defines the stuff of human dreams-sugar-white sand, crystal water, caressing breezes, fruit-laden trees and exotic fish. The locals are peaceful, kind and doing their best to live in harmony with nature. The big bummer, though, is that the average altitude on the islands is four feet high. The pinnacle is 8 feet. You can stand on a chair and summit the entire nation.

Elsewhere in the world the multitudes are consuming mindlessly and creating unnatural levels of carbon. Ice begins to melt. Oceans, which constitute most of this mid-sized blue planet, rise. Despite warnings of impeding catastrophe from a few able but uncharismatic scientists, the islands remain a playground for the well-heeled, many of who made their fortunes on the fossil fuels now destroying the planet. Millimeter by millimeter, the island nation is swallowed by the tide, becoming merely the setting for future fantasy novels.

And yes, I went, knowing full well that jetting from California, through Dubai and on to the tiny cartographical speck 400 miles south of India, was only adding to the problem. And worse, I convinced my old friend Sally Tagg to join me there, flying all the way from New Zealand. Painfully aware of this, I chose the Six Senses Soneva Gili as our first of three resort stays. Six Senses walks the walk when it comes to green hospitality. And they very cleverly assuage travel guilt by buying carbon credits to offset guests' flights.

Lying on the upper floor deck of our over-the-water villa, I'll admit I found it challenging to remain focused on carbon footprints. It was actually more like stepping into a Wim Wenders dream sequence, all blue and shimmery and hot and slow. It was easier to listen to Waheed, our handsome, sarong-wearing villa host, explain how to operate the cappuccino machine or make reservations at the all-organic, over-the-water spa.

Waheed didn't seem too concerned by the threat of global warming. "But aren't you worried that all this might wash away one day if we go on polluting the world?" Sally, in her unvarnished way, confronted him, snapping me back to reality.

"I don't know, Madam," he said earnestly. "I do not think you need to worry about it right now. We are taking measures."

And true, Soneva Gili was the epitome of eco-chic, built entirely of sustainable materials like bamboo, telegraph poles and palm wood. They employ solar energy and waste-to-methane power, grow their own organic vegetables and supply drinking water in reusable glass bottles. The hip new Maldivian president, who appears to be more uptight about global warming than Waheed, would give a thumbs-up to Six Senses.

According to President Nasheed, the threat to his country is potentially so dire he's investigating the purchase of a new country-or at least a sovereign territory-in India, Sri Lanka or Australia. If the worst comes to pass and his people become our first environmental refugees, they will at least have somewhere to go. In 2008, Nasheed unveiled a plan to make the Maldives the world's first carbon neutral nation by 2020. Admittedly, what 400,000 Maldivians do for carbon neutrality will have negligible impact on the melting icecaps that may be their nemesis, but as Nasheed says, "We can only hope the world follows suit." Waheed's nonchalance got me thinking about another quandary, an extra twist in the plot. Tourism is the largest and most lucrative industry in the Maldives. They need people like me to feel so stressed out by our busy lives consuming and wasting that we fly to their remote homeland to decompress. In a way, they rely on the very source of their destruction. If I become so green that I forego my travel plans, people like Waheed cannot feed his family. What had I expected? That the Waheeds of the world would be losing sleep about the 2mm the Indian Ocean rose last year or the storm surges and gales that are predicted for the future? No, like most humans, we nod at doom and carry on with our daily lives. That thought actually cheered me up and I felt a responsibility to enjoy every hedonistic moment at these luxury resorts.

It is very important to select your resorts in the Maldives well because there is not much opportunity to leave. It's not like you can just wander out of resort bounds and get down with the locals. Most hotels are not on the same island as a village, and getting to one requires an expensive boat trip. Sally and I, however, were determined to make it to a village before we left.

"Most guests don't want to go to villages," Aishath Ali, an executive at Soneva Gili, told us. "They tend to stick to their villas, the beach and the spa. That's usually why people come here. Besides, there is nothing special to see there other than the way they live. They don't put on any performances or dress a certain way because tourists are coming. Some people find that disappointing."

The Maldivians seem fine with this separation. Other than creating employment, they are not terribly interested in mixing with tourists. They are 100% Sunni Muslim and, frankly, seeing women in bikinis isn't really their thing.

100,000 of the 400,000 Maldivians live in the insanely crowded, less-than-one-square-mile capital island of Male, one of the world's most densely populated cities. The rest are scattered in small, traditional villages on 200 of the 1,192 islands.

It is not confirmed where they originated from, but given that Sri Lanka is 470 miles east and Southern India is 380 miles northeast, it is assumed they are a mixture. Their language, Dhivehi, is a boggling intermingling of Tamil, Sinhalese, Sanskrit, Persian, Urdu and Arabic and it short-fused my brain's language center.

"Go on then," Sally said to Waheed one afternoon as he was delivering tea and mango pastries to our villa, "Teach me how to say, 'Hello, my name is Sally. Nice to meet you.'"

"Assalaamu Alaikum. Aharenge namakee Sally. Badhalu vee thi varah ufavejey." Waheed replied, his white teeth flashing on his dark face. "Oh," Sally said, uncharacteristically deterred.

It would not be until our last resort that we would be close enough to an island with a village to visit. Banyan Tree Madivaru, our second resort, was so removed that no other island could be seen at all. It was extremely remote and extremely luxurious, built on a tiny four-acre atoll of smooth sand and mangrove trees. If you just committed a white-collar crime, escaped with boatloads of dosh and need to disappear, this would be the perfect lam-lair. With six safari-style tented villas, you actually never see another person other than your villa host and the spa staff. Your villa is a cluster of three canvas tents on an elevated deck with a plunge pool and two massage tables. In the bathing pavilion there was an egg shaped, stand-alone bathtub and a daybed for naps or possibly fainting spells. The living room was complete with bar, wireless Internet, television, stereo and another daybed for more napping.

Off the deck, we stepped through a wall of foliage onto a beach that was the kind of private paradise to which Kristof referred. Had we been a couple, we would likely have romped in the buff and rolled about in the surf on that beach. Since we were not, there was nothing to do swim, snorkel and stare out to where blue topaz water met blue peacock sky.

"We are forced to have daily massage," Sally declared. Nizam, our dignified villa host, summoned the two spa therapists who dispatched us into bliss involving fresh herb bundles and hot oil.

By our third resort, the remote and larger Beach House on Manafaru Island, we were itching to get to a village. "No problem," we were told by the manager. He pointed to a smudge on the horizon. "Over there is Molhadoo, 20 minutes by boat."

Late that same day we set out for Molhadoo. During the boat ride over I girded myself for the self-recrimination I feel when I visit locals living in abject poverty while I am living large in a five star hotel. Happily, what we found was far from misery or scarcity.

We arrived just as the fishermen moored their dhoni fishing boats for the night and the women, wearing headscarves and long robes, were out gossiping as they swept the paths with twig brooms. Teenaged boys played soccer on a hard dirt field and slender, pretty young girls wearing luridly colored tunics lined the field, giggling behind raised hands. Despite there being no cars and only one motorbike on the island, the sand roads were wide and tree-lined.

Ibrahim Shareef met us on the dock, having been allotted the task of showing us around the village. "A-her-angie nam-kee Sally," Sally said. There was a long pause from Ibrahim. "Hello," he said, looking amused. Ibrahim paraded us proudly past the school, the generator, the well, and the cemetery. "And we have two mosques," he said, stopping before two humble cement block buildings, "One for women, one for men." He grinned at us expectantly, as if as women we should be impressed that the females of Molhadoo need not resort to off-hours worship or being relegated to a side room of the men's facility. What impressed us most was that the women's mosque was well lit and with spotless tile floors and a neatly planted garden while the men's, which we could not enter, looked dingy and unkempt.

The pace in Molhadoo seemed slow and content, with all 325 occupants well dressed and healthy. Bare-chested men sauntered from the jungle carrying machetes with mangoes, taro, yam or coconuts slung over their shoulder. Toddlers played with toys fashioned from sticks, cans and plastic bottle caps. Lining the streets, the older houses were built of coral blocks with thatched roofing. Since the government (rightly) outlawed coral harvesting, utilitarian cement block is the cheapest, albeit ugly, alternative.

"This is Auntie," Ibrahim said, introducing us to a large, elderly woman who sat regally in a chair made from poles and fishing net. Amazingly, given the 90-degree heat, she was wearing a black polyester tunic, trousers and thick black nylons shoved into flip-flops. "She's our medicine lady. We have no doctor here, so Auntie knows traditional ways to cure people. She is a very important woman."

"Bad vee the very oofa veejay, Auntie." Sally said, shaking her hand. Auntie looked worriedly at Ibrahim, who muttered an approximate translation of Sally's butchery. Auntie's face cracked a broad smile from under her black headscarf. She stood, kissed Sally on both cheeks and began a rapid monologue in Dhivehi. Ibrahim struggled to translate what seemed to be her telling us there were no medicines, the only clinic was 120 miles away by boat so plant medicines were essential but not many people knew how to administer them.

Ibrahim was also a BMOC, or rather a Big Village Man, because he spoke English and worked at the Beach House as a villa host (a villa host is the person-formerly-known-as-butler). "When the resort opened in 2007 I was working in Malé and I hated it. I came running back to my village to apply for work there. I am so happy to be away from the crowds and competition of the capital," Ibrahim said, throwing out his arms as if to demonstrate his newfound space. "Foreign tourists are very important to us here in the Maldives. It gives us good jobs other than being a farmer or fisherman."

Ibrahim seemed surprised when, true to form, Sally inquired about the odds of his nation disappearing. "Yes, I have seen the president on TV, but I have seen no proof."

"What about the sandbags I see on all the beaches?" I asked, piling on.

"I don't think the water is rising. We just have problems with erosion." Clearly Ibrahim hadn't read the alarmist articles in the New York Times or the U.K. Guardian?

"None of this talk has changed the way we live in the village," he replied defensively. Mind you, his village runs off a single generator, residents get their water from a community well, they eat locally produced food, they fish in sailboats and they don't drive. There's not much carbon to neutralize in Molhadoo. "What can they do about it anyway?" Sally said, sensibly. "They can't force us to give up our Hummers and grotesque overproduction of useless goods. They just have to live in hope, be an example, and trust that the world cares as much about their future as they do about that of polar bears."

"We are optimistic about our President Nasheed," Ibrahim hastened to tell me. "He's called 'Asia's Obama.' He is young, educated and fair."

Fairness is something Maldivians haven't experienced in a while. For nearly 200 years the nation was a British protectorate. In 1965, it was finally made an independent republic. It established a hopeful democracy and was promptly commandeered by President Gayoom who refused to leave office, ruling for a heavy-handed 30 years. Gayoom committed the regulation despotic abuses-imprisoning dissenters, building palaces with gold toilets, buying presidential islands and yachts, siphoning money and ensuring a penniless life for non-cronies. Perhaps the only good thing he did was bring his country's plight to the United Nations, making them understand that his nation was condemned if seas rise the between-two-and-ten feet they are predicted to over the next century.

In the interim, it was clear that Ibrahim was more concerned with keeping his job at The Beach House. Modern and chic with 83 over-the-water villas and beachside houses, three bars, three restaurants, two pools, a dive center, tennis courts, a gym and an enormous and opulent spa complex, it was a shock after the total solitude of The Banyan Tree. The rooms, while not being particularly eco, were world-class and sleek, each spilling out to a private balcony with plunge pool and ladder to the ocean below.

The Beach House is also known for some of the best scuba diving in a country known for excellent diving. Bea Andolfatto Zaglia, the resort's exuberant, Italian dive master, has been diving the Maldives for 20 years. "I've seen El Niño bleach the coral," she told me, "and yes, the water warmed up, which means the coral will take a long time to come back, but the fish are still some of the most fantastic to be found." Sure enough, not far off the resort was a teeming Times Square of fish life, thriving despite the grayed coral surrounding them.

But that night, watching the moon beat a jagged path across the water, my thoughts returned to the danger facing the Maldives. What if we allow the absurdist Vonnegut-esque scenario to play out? Of course there are those few voices that say global warming is a myth and that sea levels are not rising, or that the land forms a natural barrier over time to prevent being swallowed. But such opinions are the minority among pundits and we can't bank on them being right.

Right here in front of me on that moonlit night was tangible motivation for me to give up drinking bottled water, drive a hybrid, turn down the heat, bring my own bags to the supermarket, buy local produce and ride-share more frequently. The Maldivians should not have to cop the consequences of our wanton negligence. But we cannot stop coming to places like this, for our own sake as much as the Maldivians. The best we can do is select resorts that are behaving sustainably and then act the same way at home.

Who knows if we can reverse what we have done to the planet or even slow the pace so that it'll be 200 years before the Maldives goes under? The truth is Kristof was right. Get here while you can. Get here so you can see what we stand to lose in the world. Get here so you can tell your friends that paradise is worth saving.

Maldives, Day-by-Day

Getting There

Fly Emirates, my new favorite airline. It is also the most affordable and most direct route to the Maldives. Staff are gracious, service superb and food remarkable for 30,000 feet. Flew through Dubai, spending night at the outrageously upmarket Burj al Arab (sail hotel) set beside a flawless white sand beach. From Dubai, it's a four-hour flight to Malé, the capital of the Maldives. Emirates - www.fly.emirates.com

Burj al Arab - http://www.jumeirah.com, doubles from $1,830

The Six Senses Soneva Gili (20-minute boat ride from the airport)

Day 1. It's tempting not to leave the over-the-water villa, which would be perfectly acceptable as the villa host, (the person formerly known as butler), will bring everything needed. However, the Maldives is renown for world-class spas and Six Senses leads the pack in sublime. Try the honey papaya coconut rub and spend the rest of the day chaise-bound in the buff on your oh-so-private deck. Dine in room.

Day 2. Wake early, tear yourself from your chocolate croissant and traipse off to the beachside champa for sun saluting yoga. Head back to the spa for an organic fruit facial, then swim home from their deck to yours. As the day fades, descend into the wine cellar for a tasting. Afterwards, migrate on to the bar to gaze at gaudy purple jellyfish and opalescent Fusiliers through the glass-bottomed floor. Afterwards, go crazy at the East/West buffet at the resort's open-sided restaurant.

Day 3. Snorkel at golden hour. Take a sunset cruise on a dhoni, a traditional Maldivian fishing boat. For dinner, repeat as above but try the fish curry.
http://www.sixsenses.com/soneva-gili
Doubles from $TK
The Banyan Tree Madivaru (40-minute seaplane from Malé).

Day 4 - Do nothing. That's the whole point of Madivaru. There is no spa; the therapists come to your villa. There is no restaurant; a table is set up anywhere you desire (there food was ingenious and delectable). There are no planned activities; just ask.

Day 5 - Summon the Thai spa therapists and have a two-hour lemongrass, cucumber and honey scrub followed by a massage with herb bundles in hot aromatherapy oils. Do nothing (you won't be capable post-massage). Dine on the dock.

Day 6 - Crank up Black Eyed Peas on the villa's iPod, do yoga on the deck or hit the beach hammock. Eat dinner beside plunge pool, raid DVD library, pour gratis red wine and employ fainting chaise.
http://www.banyantree.com/madivaru
Doubles from TK, all food included.
The Beach House, Manafaru (Domestic flight from Malé to TK island plus 30-minute boat ride.)

Day 7 - Ignoring the molasses humidity, play tennis or swim laps in one of two pools. Stop to accept offerings from Sorbet Butler. End the day with a Marma Ayurvedic massage, (you lie on the floor while the therapist clings to two ropes dangling from the ceiling and massages with a deft foot). Eat rack of lamb at the candlelit, waterside Saffron restaurant.

Day 8 - Head to dive center and head to the drop off to see manta rays and hordes of reef fish. Eat melt-in-mouth Black Wagyu steak at the Medium Rare restaurant.

Day 9 - Gawk at the emerald, rubies and sapphire jewelry in the boutique, then head to spa for Ayurvedic consultation and Maldivian sand massage. Eat a burger at Four Corners restaurant (although the Black Wagyu has probably ruined all other beef eating for life).

Day 10 - Take boat to Molhadoo village to meet locals and witness village life.
http://www.beachhousecollection.com
Doubles from $850 per night, food not included. See website for special offers.