My Wild Travels – Page 25 – Photography and Travel Blog

The Hotel

On December 5, 2021

The hotel is set on a small atoll and has 79 rooms. Roughly half of these are over-the-water villas several 100 yards off-shore and only accessible by boat. I opted to stay in a beach villa. I did not want to feel isolated and I think this was a wise choice.

I booked on an all-inclusive basis and was led to believe I could eat at all restaurants without additional charge. This was not the case. I could only eat in the main restaurant or pool bar. There was an additional charge for the two alternative restaurants. Speaking to other guests they were hugely expensive and not very good. Friends I met were charged $50 for a starter of a single prawn with a garnish of a slice of cucumber. Badly done indeed.

The atoll is tiny. I walked around it in 10 minutes and kayaked around in 30 and I was not rushing. Consequently it very quickly became quite a boring place to be with very few activities. I was so pleased to be diving. I think I would have gone stir crazy without that. One of the nice things on the island were the lovebirds which were very beautiful. They were fed twice daily and guests were given seeds in their hands. It could be quite an onslaught. At one stage I had 12 birds on my arm!

The main restaurant was actually fine. There was a buffet every night and also a cooking station, offering different food styles each night. The restaurant was partially inside, on decking and spilled over onto the beach.

My complaint would be that almost every dish contained chilli. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like chilli but there is a limit to how much I can consume. I do not want it in every single dish and after a couple of days I found it really difficult to swallow. Wine burnt when it went down and initially I was worried about what might be wrong with me. I took to drinking sparkling water for a couple of days and cut out all chilli, which meant I mainly ate at the beach bar and not the restaurant. This meant my diet became salad, burgers or pasta. There really should have been more variety and there is no way the food was 5 star. There were no gourmet dishes and no waiter service, apart from plate clearing and drinks. The restaurant was 3 star at best.

The pool bar and food was very good and the bar staff made extremely good cocktails. Often all-inclusive hotels skimp on the quality of the drinks and cocktails. This was not the case here. I spent a good deal of time sitting at the bar in the vain hope I would find someone to talk to, so this was a big bonus. The daiquiris and cosmopolitans were spot on.

I felt the reception staff should have been better trained and I was under-whelmed by their helpfulness and attention to detail. I appreciate that times have been hard due to covid and am sure this contributed to the issues. I would hope that things have improved significantly now. When I checked in, I was given no orientation paperwork for restaurant times, water sports, diving etc. I assumed there would be something in the room but there was nothing. When I went to dinner I stopped at reception and told them. They said they had a WhatsApp group with all the information and they would add me to it. A very good idea but it should have been done on check-in. I had a drink at the bar on my own and dinner on my own. I was seriously out of my comfort zone and feeling that booking such a romantic resort was a huge mistake. Anyway, ever the optimist I strolled back to my room knowing that tomorrow could only improve once I’d signed up for diving.

My phone pinged and there was a message from reception with the link to the WhatsApp group. The problem was it was addressed to Mr & Mrs and as I was widowed four years ago this was the last straw. I shed a few tears then thought I’d browse Facebook to distract myself. It was most uncanny as the photo below popped up.

It’s a photo of Chris after we’d just qualified as Master Scuba Divers in 2014. I took it as a sign that he was saying. It’s OK, you’ve done the right thing. Enjoy the diving. Strangely from then on the holiday was good. I made new friends and enjoyed the diving despite the sites being a little uninspiring. I did tell reception in the morning that I was unimpressed by their letter to Mr & Mrs. In fairness they took it very seriously and I expect the person responsible did receive a reprimand.

The Diving Experience

By Maggie

On December 4, 2021

In Angsana Velavaru, Maldives

Absolutely the best thing about the hotel was the dive operation. The dive team were extremely professional, friendly and knowledgeable. The equipment was all in excellent condition. The dive boat was a large wooden dhow. Everybody had numbered crates for their gear so you could easily keep all your kit together for the entire holiday. There was none of that Caribbean scrabbling around on a central console for yesterday’s weight belt that someone else had commandeered.

The first dive was a shallow one on the house reef. There were just two of us led by Ahmed. The visibility was poor but there were lots of fish and large batfish swimming up to our faces.

In total I did 13 dives and I have to say they were very average. The visibility was dreadful, sometimes the current was overpowering and the coral had clearly suffered in the last bleaching of 2016 so was under-whelming. It was recovering but I have experienced much better dives in the Caribbean in places that are not reputed for great diving. The hotel has a marine research lab and they are re-seeding coral which looks healthy and is growing well.

The good points were that there were very few divers, the dive team were great and I met a truly inspirational couple. They were in their 80’s and only took up diving 10 years ago when they retired. Since then they have clocked up 1100+ dives all over the world. The wife Jeri took videos of the dives, which she posted on You Tube and made a tidy sum from advertising with her 10000 followers! I said that much as I love diving , I prefer safaris. Their response was that they did too, but would do that again in the future, when they were too old to dive. What a great attitude!

On our last two dives we were returning to the hotel when we were surrounded by a huge pod of dolphins – probably 100 or more. We stopped the boat, slipped into the sea and were privileged enough to snorkel with them. What a fantastic experience.

My Room

By Maggie

On December 2, 2021

In Angsana Velavaru, Maldives

I love my room and its location. The room is semi-circular with a large rear garden and direct beach frontage.

All the rooms are set apart and very private. Mine is on the quietest part of the island and located on the best part of the beach. It is consequently the longest walk from restaurants etc but nothing on the island is very far from anything else.

I have a lizard that likes to bask on my patio while I drink my morning tea. He also tries to ambush any low flying insects.

Day 7 – Ravello

By Maggie

On October 22, 2021

In Amalfi Coast, Italy

This morning the skies are overcast and rain is forecast. We decide to visit Ravello where even if it rains there will be things to do. Initially we are lucky. The rain holds off and we can order coffee in the main square and sit and watch the world go by.

We wander around the town and go inside a small church – Chiesa S. Francesco. At the front of the church lies a lifelike body (I presume St Francesco)which is encased in glass. The body is clothed and there are transparent panels on his hands and feet where you can see the skeleton beneath. I have to say I was rather uncomfortable with this but each to their own.

The next port of call was Villa Cimbrone which is perched on the hillside with spectacular views and ornate gardens. It is now a hotel but they still charge tourists to visit. Very enterprising.

It started raining cats and dogs but we were not deterred. We had waterproof jackets… and umbrellas… and the view was still great despite the murkiness!

We head back to the hotel to shower and warm ourselves up in preparation for our final dinner. The hotel is family owned and run and all the family were present, including great grandma. It is considered polite to thank them for their hospitality and make a formal presentation of our tips. Now, as I mentioned at the beginning of our stay, we were split into two groups. Our group was the fun one and the other group had, how can I say this nicely, some unusual characters. I’ll avoid the use of real names but the dullest of the group was clearly off the spectrum and had zero social nicety skills. His presentation started off well enough. Very impressive that he could speak fluent Italian and he gushed forth at length to impress us all. We thought he would sit down. But no – there was more. He had re-written words to an Italian opera and proceeded to sing at full volume. Nobody knew where to look and it went on and on. At last he finished and we really did think now he would sit down. To our horror he had roped in another one of his group and he had now written words to a Gilbert & Sullivan opera. There were so many verses….. We had tears running down our faces – it was so cringe making. Anyway not to be outdone our group thought we’d give Bohemian Rhapsody our best shot. The irony was wasted on him. He thought we’d enjoyed his performance and joined in too. Nowt so queer as folk!

Day 6 – Herculaneum

By Maggie

On October 21, 2021

In Amalfi Coast, Italy

Today Bomerano is shrouded in mist and rain is forecast. Severiano wisely changed the order of our itinerary so that we had the best weather and visibility for Vesuvius and The Path of The Gods. Originally there was a choice of visiting Capri or Herculaneum today. Capri is now off the agenda as the weather is too poor.

It seems that the decision to visit Herculaneum today is a good one. As we descend to the coast we find ourselves below the clouds with reasonable visibility. Rain threatens but never actually materialises and the sun peeps out on a couple of occasions.

Herculaneum is very different to Pompeii. Pompeii was engulfed by a pyroclastic flow of billowing clouds of 700°C gas, ash, and rock travelling at up to 725 kilo-meters per hour. This incinerated and demolished almost everything in its path. The pumice rained down destroying the second floors of virtually every building. As a result few of the buildings in Pompeii remain intact. By contrast, Herculaneum escaped the initial eruption but was buried by the second phase where rivers of ash and mud poured down the volcano. The town was buried under 25 metres of mud and ash which preserved and sealed it beautifully. Consequently, the houses are largely intact, paintings and murals still have vibrant colours and bodies were well preserved. It is definitely worth visiting both sites if you have the time. Pompeii is vast; Herculaneum is much smaller but it makes sense of Pompeii.

I was surprised by my first view of Herculaneum. When you look down on it and can see the whole town and can tell how deeply it was buried. As we entered the town our first view was of the old harbour and merchants stores. People were buried alive here with little or no warning of the impending catastrophe. The bodies shown below are plaster casts of the originals but their posture and placement is identical.

Next we crossed the waterway to stand above the shops and look down across the harbour. We could see excavations taking place and wanted to know what had been discovered. I was a long way off but pretty impressed by the zoom on the iphone. I was astonished to see the ribs of a boat and also, perfectly preserved, the hip, spine and femur of an unfortunate victim. Quite something to be one of the first people to see this after nearly 2000 years.

Below is a taste of the treasures of Herculaneum. Particularly impressive are the numerous mosaics on the floor and vibrant colours on walls and paintings.

Damage to windows from the mud slide…

Below are photos of the well preserved male and female baths.

Particularly well-preserved is the College of Augustals shown below.

The mosaics in Neptune and Amphitrite House shown below.

Some street scenes….

Although Herculaneum was smaller than Pompeii we felt we could have spent longer here. All too soon we had to leave and make our way back to the hotel. The drive back up the mountain was scary. A thick fog had descended and it was very hard to see the road ahead.