Maldives Day 5-7

nothing particularly exceptional happened over the last few days- just that the weather made a turn for the worse and gone were the lovely blue skies :-( but thank God we had plenty of it during the first few days rather than none at all. On one of the nights, we experienced a real thunderstorm in the middle of the night when the seas became all choppy and the wind was blowing like crazy. I retired early to the cabin that night and it was certainly something else to have your room swaying all around and listening to the sound of the angry sea as you drift off to sleep. 

Day 5:

We had assam fish for lunch on the fifth day!!! with thick chunks of pineapple and okra with the fish chunks :-) 

assam fish// spring rolls// stir-fried chicken chunks + kangkong// crackers// carrot salad ( shredded carrot+ coconut + tuna chunks make a wonderful combi)

need i say more? 

Afternoon consisted of napping, scrabble and more napping in the lounge. 

and dinner was exceptionally interesting that night! ( and that's saying something, considering what we've been having) 

pasta penne in tomato sauce// pan-fried fish// five-spice chicken (SO. GOOD.)// long beans// shoe-string fries// salad

I don't even know what cuisine this is....western? asian?? fusion??

The fish slabs were ENORMOUS. just one of them could probably make up a meal on its own ( sleeping + eating all day..... don't dare to weight myself after this hahaha) I took the fish head because  i'm strange like that :-)

and to reiterate my above point.... we had brownies with chocolate ice-cream for dessert. The brownies were homemade by the chefs and they were so light and fluffy, i almost thought they were healthy. there's really no end to what the chefs on board can do.

more scrabble and lepaking post dinner.

Day 6:

breakfast the next morning: tuna toast and freshly baked bread were the specialities :-)

i don't even need to repeat what I've been doing.

pumpkin curry// fish fillets// ladyfinger and long bean tempura ( best tempura I've eaten in a while)// black pepper chicken// coleslaw

I love how my plate is always so colourful!

yogurt with honey and sweet juicy mangoes post lunch :-)

And since i wore a really colourful dress that day..... time for photos! Unfortunately the colour of the sky didn't match the colour of my dress.... ( but that makes for greater contrast??? idk)

pardon for the narcissistic spams.

gave up on my model attempts and reverted to my natural state in the end. career options do not include modelling obviously.

Dinner that night- our final dinner on board- was mind-blowing, even for the chef's standards. 

aglio olio// beef chunks// seafood pizza// kang-kong ( of course, to keep up with the fusion theme)// roast potatoes (which somehow tasted so good??? with minimal seasoning??? how do these people even do it)// caesar salad with cheese chunks and egg.

The pizza was so good.....I'm drooling looking at this.

Dessert was some frosted cake made for one of the people on board as it was his birthday. this utterly convinced me that these chefs NEED to open a restaurant. 

Had a long h2h talk with mom after dinner which gave me plenty of new perspectives.

Day 7:

Last breakfast criesssssss :-( no more selection of eggs in the morning, no more warm chapattis with fish curry.....

Scrabbled & slept the morning away.

And for our final lunch: (sounds so ominous) porridge again!!!

with fresh squid added into the mix this time-how many porridges do you see that have more ingredients than rice???

the new addition was some fried chicken drumlets :-)

then shortly after lunch, we reached Male, where we were given a few hours to roam around the city. (That's if it can even be considered a city- it was so small!!! the 1.5 hours given to us to roam was way too long a time)

there was a fruit market where we saw fresh coconuts for sale!!!!

we got some to try- it was sweet and after we were done drinking, we simply handed the empty coconut over to the stall owner who helped us to cleave it into two to allow us to scoop out the flesh.

he also cleaved off part of the husk to be used as a spoon- ingenious and environmentally-friendly! I approve :-)

found that that the fruits in Maldives basically consist of 40% banana and 40% coconut, which was what most of the stalls sold.

after purchasing a few souvenirs from some souvenir shops with cut-throat prices prior to bargaining, we headed back to our boat for a final pack-up and distribution of fish.

thankfully, the last sunset was a beautiful one :-)

This is how our boat looks like!

Really going to miss the sunsets and its so strange to think i was just there 24 hours ago, even as i sit here in the comfort of my home typing this out. Holidays just have this surreal feeling that makes you feel like you're out-of-touch with the real world- in a good way. 

the fish distribution process was an amusing one- there was so much fish to be distributed amongst the families that when it was all laid out on the ground, it looked just like a fish market, especially when everyone was gathered around and people were shouting the names of the fish.  Should've taken a photo dang......

they prepared for us tuna sandwiches pre-departure to the airport! 

our meagre early dinner ( compared to the extravagance of the previous ones hahaha) since we were to have dinner in the plane later on.

there were packets of instant noodles lying around which we also utilised for dinner! it was such a far cry from the previous dinners, it was comedic.

cutie parents and their huge bowls of instant noodles because we couldn't find smaller bowls.

Left for the airport soon after and I had a fitful night's rest in the plane because I was freezing so i only slept for one hour.

=family with a huge fish that I caught on one of the nights! it was so tough fighting with the fish but i can see why people like fishing because Man vs. Fish is really exhilarating and challenging especially when said fish is huge like above=

And thus, this concludes my trip to the Maldives. It was a great getaway while it lasted and although i wouldn't say it has been the most exciting trip, it was certainly a laid-back and relaxing one like no other. I really would miss that feeling, especially when next year is going to be hell on earth :-( but it is a sad truth that all holidays must come to an end, and until my next holiday, GOODBYE.

Maldives day 3 / 4

The first two days sped by so quickly despite the lack of any activity- it's so amazing how time seems to speed up when you're enjoying yourself ( and by amazing I really mean completely, utterly unfair)

Finally a shot of the breakfast spread! Breakfast was the only meal that stayed fairly constant- there were always sausages, toast, eggs and fruits + a special dish. we could choose the type and number of eggs we wanted based on a menu: scrambled, fried ( and then you could choose whether you wanted your yolks hard or soft), or in an omelette form- stuffed with cheese, chilli and onions. I alternated between hard-yolk fried egg and the omelette for most of the days.

The third day's special dish was some thick and fluffy banana pancakes with french toast :-)

post-breakfast mainly consists of lazing around in various key locations around the boat: I liked the lounge for hotter days, as well as the second deck for the cooler ones.

briyani rice// beetroot curry (it looks utterly red and possibly gross but it still retains the curry taste- loved it)// cauliflower cheese casserole// sweet and sour fish ( which is super amazing) // fried okra slices 

And then we went snorkelling post lunch! Bad quality photo because I took it from my dad's underwater camera.

We actually went to the drop-off point- the spot where the reef slopes off into the deep sea and snorkelled along there and it is quite scarily exhilarating, because although it is beautiful and the fish are amazingly colourful, you know that within beyond those blue waters lurk fish possibly larger than my dad. And that is not an encouraging thought at all. The corals were more lack-lustre than I imagined and also really sharp- my dad and brother got quite nasty cuts on their legs from mere scrapes from the corals.

curry fish chunks// tempura ( consisting of sweet potatoes and long beans)// potato salad// coleslaw salad

i loved the curry! it tasted so amazing with the fluffy white rice and had huge thick chunks of fresh fish.  i used to love ladyfingers as a kid, then grew up to dislike it but i think this trip has revived my long-dead love for that vegetable :-)

And a sweet fruit-salad concoction for dessert! Tiny chunks of fresh tropical fruits such as papaya, banana, green apple, and pineapple all smothered in a sticky-sweet sauce and studded with raisins. after every meal there would always be various tropical fruits such as pineapples, papayas and watermelons which we could help ourselves to.

Night-fishing again! The waters are so clear that you can actually look down and see the shimmering silvery glint that the larger fish give off- and they move so fast it looks like a flash of flight. Woe to the person who falls into the water at night :(

Day 4:

the speciality of the day was homemade chapatti with fish curry! the kitchen crew were all Indian people so there was plenty of Indian influences in our food. no complaints there because i love indian food :-)

the chapattis are amazing- so thin yet so flavourful and they tasted awesome with curry. chapatti > prata any day.

After breakfast, we proceeded to visit an island which was close to where we docked!

LOOK AT THE WATER

Turquoise is officially my favourite colour.

Mom and I!

oh and fun fact: see that dark shadow in the waters behind my mom? It ain't seaweed or corals- its actually a MASSIVE school of sardines, packed tightly like....a can of sardines. *bah dum tssss*

The island was really tiny- as in you could finish walking around it in 10 minutes and they only have one tiny scantily stocked provision store in the whole of the island! and i thought Singapore was small and boring. the weather was really really hot, i walked minimally yet i was still sweating buckets by the end of it ( and i don't sweat easily). 

the cool water at the shoreline was a welcome respite from the heat.

and i caught a hermit crab!!! Albeit a tiny one. it was my key source of entertainment throughout the course of the island tour and it was really funny to see it scuttle around. I put it on my mom's bare shoulder and she got such a fright hahaha.

Not willing to leave my hermit crab, i found a bottle and gave it its own personal beach, thinking that i could deposit it in the next island we visited. alas this never happened and in the end I had to throw my hermit crab into the sea, which is one of my greatest regrets this trip. Sorry hermit crab :-(

back to the Soleil for lunch! Fish porridge with various condiments brought all the way from singapore and the quintessential fried fish chunks and bittergourd omelette. ( no wonder the fridge was so fully stocked with the amount of veggies they brought onto the yacht) 

This was so delicious; and it was a welcome break to have some good ole chinese food for once :-) i loved the broth for the porridge!!

sunsets never disappoint 

Mom concentrating hard on scrabble- and look at the violet hues in the background!!!! 

and on this evening, the next highlight of my trip came to light- SCRABBLE!!!! Turns out a few of the more elderly people on the trip were scrabble masters and we had a great time playing over the course of the next few days. i think i'm now addicted to scrabble. 

thought this was funny

This trip really honed my scrabble skills, and I think its way more entertaining than handphone games  actually :-)

herbal chicken soup// maggi noodles// sweet and sour fish// carrot + long beans// salad

The food is always delicious and I have run out of adjectives to describe it. 

We had yellowfin tuna sashimi post dinner!!! 

then more scrabble and leaking around before bedtime :-)