So we’ve been poking around the islands swimming in this
gorgeous, utterly unreal, aqua water for a couple of weeks now. Some days we’ll
sail for a few hours to another atoll. Others we’ll stay put and spend the day snorkeling
and the evenings watching the sunset (often from the beach with a cold beverage
in hand). On one level our experience is very similar to that of every other
tourist who comes to the Maldives,
but on another level it’s utterly different
The Maldives
is a fairly unique place. Unlike most tropical holiday destinations, people
coming to the Maldives
are typically headed to a luxury resort on a private island. This means you
arrive at the airport in Male and immediately transfer to your hotel transport.
A short while later you’re on your own island—no local hawkers to contend with
and other than the occasional cultural day-trip to a local island, no rubbing
shoulders with riff-raff.
We’re kind of keen on the riff-raff and are really grateful
to be here after the 2009 Local Tourism Law which lets us visit the villages. But
recently we (sort-of) got a view of how the other half live when we visited the
Zitahli Dholhiyadhoo Resort.
For a pleasant day we wandered the resort pathways, explored
the amenities, played with the turtles in the conservation program and swam on
the gorgeous resort reef. The major differentiation was we still ate and slept
on the boat, and oh, the resort was built but never opened so it’s kind of
abandoned.
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| part of the show suite--to let prospective buyers know how the resort could look |
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| Maia checking out our over-water bungalow |
Apparently there are quite a few abandoned resorts in the Maldives.
Information about why they are tourist free is a bit scarce—but it seems that a
combination of politics, financial and environmental factors have conspired
against them.
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| checking out the turtle conservation program |
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| the staff spend their off-time fishing for the turtles |
The result is both a bit eerie and heartbreaking. It seems
like a huge waste and the workers who are left behind to try and maintain the
resorts face an uphill battle. Zitahli Dholhiyadhoo was started in 2008 set to
open in early 2011, but rather than looking like an almost new resort it’s
looking fairly forlorn. Still gorgeous though.
2 comments:
Sorry, but this is really craaazy. Investors have lost their shirts but yet the govt let's this potential revenue sit idle? What am I missing? Are there multiple other similar resorts operating successfully? So this operator just didn't pay enough bribes to someone? Perhaps you cannot comment until after your departure...
Jonathon--politics are incredibly complex here right now and this resort and its sister resort(the sister resort is complete and operating well) are both on the market. It seems like a couple of the resorts that were due to come on line in the middle of the worst upheaval are the ones that were abandoned. It's hard to get clear information on what's up--but other resorts are still doing really well and a sales are rumored to be pending on some.
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