Jan 28 - Last night, having read a bit about the oldest mosque in the Maldives, I decided to go out at dawn and have a look, before we become caught up in breakfast and departure to the airport.
The Malé Friday Mosque was originally constructed in 1153 CE when the ruler of the archipelago first converted to Islam and renamed himself Mohammad Bin Abdullah. The current general form of the structure was affected in 1648 by Ibrahim Iskandar I. It is a highly unusual for several reasons, which I will go through by the photos:
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We stuff down some breakfast at the roof buffet (included in price) and head to the airport in a courtesy shuttle provided by the hotel. I did wonder why they seemed to want to push us to the airport so early, and this was answered quickly upon arrival there. At 8:40, it is a madhouse of sunburned tourists, all heading toward the check-in counters. We discover that, like in Istanbul, there is a security check BEFORE getting to these counters, meaning that everyone is lined up with all their luggage, inching their way into the building. Of course certain groups, who have paid for the service, are expedited right though this bit. For us, it takes about 20 minutes to enter the check-in hall. Air Asia, our carrier today, has only one counter open (for non-premium members), so the line for this takes nearly an hour. Somehow, many behind us seems to know that they can skip the slow line and just cheat with the premium line when it gets short, so this stretches out the process even more. When we are finally close enough for me to read the notice, I see that once again we are supposed to fill out a Maldives immigration application (for departure!) to generate a QR code. Of course by the time I see this, we are already nearly at the counter, so I am doing the bags and tickets while Janet is going online on her phone to fill out the tedious application. Airport wifi being what it is, we are unable to finish all of this but the ticketing agent, having to deal with this all day, just clears us and says get it done before passport stamping. We finally secure the QR codes and head upstairs to immigration, which is another forest of people, winding all around the hall. Several groups, in a panic, are just pushing through the people and barriers as their flights are already calling final boarding. We are nearing that point but I let it go and just wait our turn. Finally the stamp, Janet shows one QR code and the agent doesn’t even really give it much of a glance, let alone look at all three. What a waste of time to have that dumb system in place, it obviously achieves nothing. One more excruciating security check, behind a tourist couple who still don’t understand that belts and jewelry need to be removed before going through the x-ray, and we enter the duty-free distraction zone. Velana International Airport has gone through great lengths to make it as difficult as possible to know where the departure gates are, hoping that the passengers will wander through the perfume and and handbags forever. Finally find the gates, all down a stairway hidden at the far end, as our flight announces final call. We are the second-to-last passengers on the flight, and the doors close a few minutes later.
Some good views of the islands as we bank to the east and head out over the Indian Ocean.
COST SUMMARY:
This is our final day in the Maldives. I initially never considered going here, as I had read (in Lonely Planet) that I could expect costs of about $300/day. But after drilling down into accommodation, I decided the on-the-ground costs could be brought down to $150. The flights are a big factor if one is just planning for here alone, but for our purposes it was just necessary to add a stop in our journey east.
Projected daily cost from the pre-planning phase = $150/day
Realized daily average costs for Jan 20-28 = $129/day
The share of this cost apportioned to lodging was 60%, food 13%, and public transport/taxi at 19%. As expected, lodging is a significant cost factor here, the islands being so popular that even basic places can jack the prices. What is disproportionately expensive are the speedboats. The average 19% transport cost includes seven days when we spent nothing. If planning on staying in more than one island (away from Male), this cost could eclipse even the accommodation. I was told it is tough and expensive to hop between islands (unless they are very near each other).
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