Day 8: Sunday

A kind of odd loneliness starts to creep in today. I meet a friend for lunch (yes, I have friends in the Maldives, which sounds odd even to me, as if people who live in these fantastically beautiful places are not allowed to be real humans with friendships) and we talked business and sci-fi. As we were having lunch the weather went suddenly haywire. It started to pour. Spiky powerful lashes started to come in from the side drenching our table.The staff struggled to close us in behind plastic screens. The floor was in puddles in minutes, his camera dripping. 'I love the rain' he said. But then he would: he's Maldivian. Rain is precious in the Maldives.

My feelings veered between understanding him, remembering how pissed off we get when foreigners complain that it's raining in Malta and feeling quite pissed off that it had decided to start pouring when I was on my holiday. If this were Malta this would be cuddles time. If The Writer were with me we would have run back to our Villa through the rain and chilled out for a few hours. If TW were here he would be fouling the lounge area with his fags, making copious cups of Nespresso with the snazzy machine (16 different flavours of coffee and counting), reading and playing on his iPad.

Instead I walked back despondently to the villa through the rain. It was not funny or fun. I sat on the bed looking at the overcast sky and trying to figure out which book to read, TW un-Skypeable because of the time difference and I suddenly felt a little alone, a little wanting human interaction.

As if on cue (what is it about the staff in this place?) Ashad, the villa butler, turned to see how the whole torrential rain situation had affected me. 'Would you like to go on a sunset cruise?' he says without the slightest hint of mirth and very obviously not asking me out on a date. 'Will I be on my own' I ask him. 'Yes: you are entitled to it as it is part of the Club Villa package. It is very romantic'. 'Ashad' I tell him 'I cannot be romantic by myself!'. I wonder how odd this sounds, even to myself. Like the Sandbank Picnic this would turn out to be me with staff, again. 'Ok' he smiled (Maldivians, I will have you know, have a fabulous sense of humour, until their neighbours the Sri Lankans who never get a joke). 'I will put you in a small group'.

And that is how I end up volunteering myself out of solitary confinement. Why do I have the feeling that within minutes I will be regretting my decision? After all, it is not humanity in general that I miss. It's The Writer.

Day 7: Saturday

We had yoga on the deck, right over the sea, this morning. 'My' butler booked me in as apparently it is part of the package. I hadn't even noticed but I love waking up for an 8am stretch session when I'm on holiday. The breeze is beautiful and caresses our hair softly.

Yoga is that group session where you can interact but mostly you do not. So it was quite surprising that an English woman, fifty-something, turned up fifteen minutes late and started to gab a way a mile a minute. Everybody just stared especially when she placed her friendly companion, a packet of Marlboro reds, right next to the mat.

Yoga over I contemplate whether to have breakfast in the main restaurant or the posh Club one where there are hardly any people. I leave the deck area where the Englsh woman is coughing and hacking, the yoga breathing probably having done her some damage and notice the Club area is empty: 8 tables of sheer quiet available, staff waiting to serve me and nobody else and no real expectation of human interaction beyond a 'good morning', a smile and a few thank yous. The more time passes, the more I am loathe to utter anything. My throat clams up.

The club breakfast does not come with the copious ostentation of the buffet in the main area. It does not scream 'croissants' and 'cake' and 'omelette station' and cooks wanting to fry your egg and whip up your pancake. For most Maltese (and many other nationalities: gluttony seems to be an international thing these days) making a beeline for the main area would be the highlight of the morning.

I order my omelette, my fresh mango juice, my teas, thank everybody and my 'job' is done. I also smile a lot: inwardly, outwardly and even when I'm on my own which now sounds odd but then led me to realise that smiling is not necessarily a communication but simply an expression.

 

Day 6: Friday

Today I moved to Coco Palm Bodu Hithi. This place came recommended to me by my lovely South African friend Melanie, who runs Exclusive Serenity. This is an agency which is different from most others: they only have top notch properties on their list so I knew that if Coco Palm had made it through her sieve, it would make it through mine. I will eventually review this brilliant resort but suffice to say that I was a 'celebrity', by virtue of my aloneness, before I had even arrived.

Which is why the affable General Manager Mario Stanic, star of the Wedding Channel (no, I did not know there was such a thing either) and therefore a celeb in his own right, came to welcome me. He is half Italian, half Coratian, grew up in Australia and had a Maltese girlfriend, many years ago, called Iris. Iris, if you're reading this, well, Mario is in the Maldives.

Mario asked me, right off the bat, if I would extend this solitary trip to a Sandbank Picnic.

This is apparently one of the lushest, most fabulous, most romantic thing a couple can do in the Maldives. 'Mario' I told him 'Do I look like I'm about to get all romantic to you?'. Mario laughed. 'We can set up a really wonderful dinner for you'. Of course he was totally pulling my leg. The prospect of sitting there, on a sandbank (for those who do not know the Maldives this is basically a few metres of sand in the middle of a huge expanse of water, like an island but so not) like a total idiot, eating on my own, filled me with mirth.

Mario was not to be deterred. He was, in fact, determined. 'It is fun. Go on a picnic' he said. 'Sunbathe. Swim. Snorkel. That's what you are here for, no?'. And verily that is why I am here. I decline to tell Mario that I can do all this in the most fabulous villa ever where nobody ever disturbs. I feel obliged to go to the blessed sandbank just to prove my unwussness.

At 3pm on the dot 'my' butler Ashad turns up to pick me up. He takes me to a huge boat which can easily take 50 people and we chug away to the sandbank. I don't have my mobile phone with me but of course, he has one for me. On it I can call either him or Coco Palm.

'The tide is high' he smiles. 'Oh great!' I reply, then start to plead 'Please don't leave me there in the water in the middle of the Indian Ocean!'. They take pity on me and I  make them wait in the boat a few hundred metres away from the sandbank.

They set up this lovely picnic, an impromptu camp, a bean bag and towels and frankly leave me to it. My demons come rushing back in: I fear abandonment, being forgotten, a tsunami, being raped and attacked by a passing stranger or boatful of Maldivian fishermen, having to wait for a pickup, of the sea becoming rough and simply engulfing me. Did you know that many people who are lost at sea (75% of earth) are never found? They are simply lost.

I make Ashid and the rest wait in the boat a few hundred metres away while I do everything Mario had instructed to do: swam and snorkelled and saw fish of a hundred colours and read and slept and then, when the sun started to hide behind some clouds I called them and three guys came to pick me up in a speedboat. I felt like a right princess with no pea in sight.

 

Day 5: Thursday

It is my 5^th day of ‘being alone’ and I have no complaints.

Actually strike that.

During the day, I have no complaints. During the night I’m a little bit shit scared. I am fearful. God knows of what but the reasons have included, in my racing, overthinking brain: tsunamis, too many fish, what if I get sick and nobody realizes until the morning, what is that sound under the villa, what is that sound outside the villa, is that surf or a tsunami, does a tsunami have sound or does it just kill you, is it true that the best death is by drowning, oh god is the absolute worst death by drowning, I should have eaten more sweets because I’m going to die anyway, is the IT guy who came to fix the wi-fi hiding in my wardrobe, what was that sound in the bathroom, I don’t want to die!

Then the sun comes up in the morning and I would have slept deeply anyway and everything is wonderful and brilliant. I am alone. I am never lonely.

Moreover I find myself resenting human interaction. When somebody knocks on the door to change my towels I want to pretend that I’m not here. I do not crave communication with the waiter at the restaurant, or chit chat with other guests. I do not want to do ‘small holiday talk’ and gush about how fabulous the fish are or how good the food is.

I must be giving off some kind of vibe as nobody approaches me to ‘create international friendships’ which usually lead to nowhere but a Facebook ‘add as friend’ click and three months later, an unfriending as I wonder who this person is.

I remember when we were in Sri Lanka in 2010, on a safari with Kulu, deep in the jungle. There was this lone woman, an amateur photographer deeply attached to her massive zoom. Maybe we should ask her to join us, I told the writer. Why did I imagine she needed my company? She did not. I am glad TW told me to forget it.

Alone and still loving it. This could, oddly enough, be the best ‘holiday’ I have ever had: a holiday from travelling companions and from people.

 

Day 4: Friday

Today I wake up to a brilliant and scorching sun. It is 8am. There is something to having a sunrise-side villa and not thinking 'bleurgh...I want to sleep in' is one of them.

At 9.00am I still have not decided whether to swim in front of the villa all day or go to the island. Such are the decisions I am having to grapple with. Those, and what sun factor I should be using to get brown without getting lobster-like.

'My' houseboy turns up to ask me when I want the room cleaned. This is a little unnerving: they keep turning up through the side and surprising me. It is amazing how quickly you get used to being alone: human interaction becomes superfluous and surprising.

One thing I have decided on this morning: no more breakfast with all those people. I call in for a pot of tea and a couple of poached eggs and enjoy the sound of the surf. The pretty boy who brings me breakfast keeps taking surreptitious glances towards the inside of the room. 'Only for man?' he asks. I raise an eyebrow. 'Only for you?'. 'Yes' I reply, realising that he has another plate with double the order nearby, waiting. I am guessing they do not see too many solo women around these parts. He leaves to get the bill fixed. When he returns, I reach over to sign, changing the R in 'Mr' to an S. Mr. Farrugia is not here.

Later, as I am smearing Clinique Factor 30 (wuss!) all over myself in the open-air bathroom, trying all my yoga moves on to reach the small of my back, the butler comes around to see if I need anything. I stop short of asking him to do the bit I've missed.

_____________

This afternoon the management have decided to drag me out of my solitary confinement and onto a Sunset Cruise. There is a boat, there are musicians and there is flowing Piper Heidseck champagne so I am not going to quibble.

At some point, a few minutes out of shore, the drumming starts to become more vibrant, the singers chant loudly and one man stands at the front of the boat standing and risking falling in, clapping and stomping his feet. Suddenly he claps and stomps even louder as two little dolphins, a metre each, swim up to the side of the boat. I get a flutter like I only remember from Africa: pure, unbridled joy of being faced with nature. The musicians play louder to keep the dolphins with us and attract a few more.

Sadly their presence is all too fleeting. A very disrespectful resort from right opposite has sent not one but three huge boats full of people to watch. It reminds me of the jeeps packed with locals at Kula National Park in Sri Lanka. The boats eventually give up. We hang around a little longer but also, eventually, return. The sunset is a glorious red, grey, white and yellow.

 

Day 3: Thursday

The sloth starts to creep in and I am just enjoying it, relishing its very possibility. There is no alarm, which The Writer insists on even on holiday. There are no waking sounds. There is just the crack of dawn which wings its way through my porch door at the Kanuhura, the wooden blinds on which I purposely leave open. There are streaks of warm orange and electric blues. I watch them for two minutes, not even bothering to get out of bed and grab the camera thinking ‘plenty of mornings left to do that…’. In fact, I just close my eyes and go to bed for another two hours.

If the resort had wanted people to socially interact in any way, would they give one the option to have a breakfast in the villa? Yet I force myself to eat ‘with people’ and as I am here in the Easter peak (there are two ‘peaks’ in the Maldives: Christmas and Easter. I had no idea when I was booking: I just got terribly saddened by the horrendous grey weather in Malta and wanted to go). The place is packed with children: all extremely chattery, giggly and happy. They spend long minutes discussing what kind of egg they should have at the omelette station and seem enthralled by the mirage of fresh juices.

I walk outside where it had just rained – the Indian Ocean is infamous for its intermittent rain, which lasts minutes, then the sun comes out again – which put absolutely everybody else. The staff very nicely fix a table for one: me.

Later on I decide to go to Kanuhura’s private island, just across from the main one. The transport is constant and quick. Already it is not enough that I am thousands of miles away from Malta, away from friends and family: I must go further into seclusion and the island seems to fit the bill.

There aren’t many people around, probably because of the rain. There are a bunch of six visitors milling around: two middle aged men with paunches and matching long shorts (the men, I have noticed, have forgotten what fitted, short swimwear is like or maybe there are not enough Italians around), two slim middle-aged women in Debenham’s finest and two loud teens. They are walking around trying to find the point. The point of being here, that is.

The group, all English, provide me with amusement, the men on this expedition especially. The trunks cannot contain their ‘office guts’ (like beer guts but acquired through stress and hastily gobbled sandwiches ripped out from plastic triangles while sitting surfing during the supposed lunch break).

They all soon give up. They have satiated their curiosity and leaving makes sense. They leave and I am left alone sitting quietly a few metres away.

The water is low like a gigantic kiddy pool and I have to wade out for many metres in order to be able to swim. Somewhere out there, closer to the horizon than the shore, it dawns on me that I’m here, I’m alone, it feels great and I’m loving it. I’ve done it: I’ve gone on a long-haul ‘exotic’ sea-and-sun holiday on my own.

 

Day 2: Wednesday

So far, doing everything on my own has been sometimes horrific (feeling queasy as our plane ‘held’ for a whole 90 minutes above the airport in a sand storm, being booted out of the business class lounge because my business class ticket was not the one that qualified for access, charging my phone sitting on a ‘stolen’ Paul chair in Dubai airport, arguing with the manager who wanted it back even though his cafe was empty) sometimes brilliant (eating, swimming, sunbathing after a smooth transfer with Maldivian Air Taxi and checking in at the prettiest island in the south: Kanuhura). Yet in spite of years of solo dining in huge European cities, nothing had quite set me up for a ‘romantic, by the beach, hear the surf’ supper at Kanuhura’s Veli Café.

Think of all those postcard pictures with tables on the sand, the sea lapping nearby, the waiters in sarongs and kicking your flip-flops off under the table and you get the idea. Now team that up with candles, whispers and the swishing of the palm trees and multiply it by a hundred. That is where I was, surrounded by couples smooching and making cow-eyes at each other.

I am also wearing a wedding band and this must be confusing the German couple on my right (ugly, poor sods, moustache-wearing and cigar-smoking and all of thirty years old) who keep stealing long glimpses at me, as well as the family on my left. Actually after a moment I realise this is just me being self-conscious: they do not really care so I’ll have to learn not to either.

I eat, and it is very very good. Yet I find myself doing it quite quickly, perfunctorily. When I am not eating, I read. I pass over dessert as there does not seem to be a point. Ditto coffee and the after-dinner cigarette which, if I were with The Writer, we would both be relishing while relaxing back into our chair and listening to the surf. I find myself going back to my villa at 10.30pm.

 

Monday

Before I left Malta I promised myself that I would read a book a day when I was away. I managed to keep this promise to myself for the first 4 days, going through three books.  I excused my lack of stringency which was due to the fact I had spent a lot of time in the air, through airports and all those places where you have to keep looking up to see if somebody has called you to a flight, to board and so on.

Then on day four, I started reading Jonathan Franzen's How to Be Alone. I had borrowed this from The Writer before I left, thinking it appropriate since I also was going to be alone. Not only did I not manage to finish the book within the day allocated but the smallest book I had brought with me has taken me three days to finish. Sure, those three days included loads of meetings, a cookery class with Michelin chef Gilles Harpy, travelling for almost an hour on a boat to Coco Palm, waiting at the airport for some more people who were going to be on the same boat and basically doing a few 'inward shrieks of happiness' sessions (they take time) when I realised how gorgeous the villas here are. Nonetheless the real reason it took me so long to read it is that it deserved its time.

I found myself going back to some pages and devoting more thought, more engagement to what I was reading. It has always lurked at the back of my mind that I should take Proust with me on holiday but I never have and probably never will. I prefer less taxing tomes such as Jilly Cooper's and judging by what I see around me on beaches everywhere, so do most others. Sadly these days people are reading on tablets so I have no idea if they are getting their teeth into Hornby or a bit of horny Miller (cheats! - judging people's reading material used to be so much fun) but well, I hope that when they saw me reading How to be Alone they got the message.

I'm off now. The sea and Jilly Cooper are beckoning me.

__________________

Sunday

This is not, as you may have noticed, working as planned. Whatever possessed me to promise a blog from paradise?

Having said that I am writing, and quite a lot but sticking to pen and paper. Doing it online is a different thing.

Today I checked in at the brilliant Coco Palm resort. I asked them for a 'quiet room away from families' and they gave me the furthermost villa. All I can hear is fish jumping in the water. Moreover the welcome party consisted of a shoal of dolphins which quite literally did a dance for me. I filmed them but converting the video file for Essie (see below) took me so damn long I don't know if I feel like going through the rigmarole again. Having said that, maybe I will.

This afternoon, after a cooking session with French Michelin-starred chef Gilles Harpy (conducted in French, translated by me via a few recipes into English: prepare to be cooking the sole of your shoe, such is my fantastic French expertise) I returned to my villa via watching so many large and colourful fish from the jetty to find that the same shoal - at least I presumed they were as they were exactly in the same place - were right opposite the open-air area outside. I could just jump in and swim with the dolphins, in the wild. Yet I got scared.

I have no idea what I thought they would do to me but I just didn't. Instead I ran around from side to side, banging on the wood (they are attracted to the sounds) and cranking up Dalida on my MacBook Air (they like singing). They were here for ten minutes and I hesitated. I cried in happiness. I held my hands to my face, a little like the Munch painting, without screaming.I generally fretted. But I did not jump.

Tomorrow I've asked for a 7am wake up call. The only thing left to fear is fear itself: I need to jump in there.  If they eat me, well...bye. It's been nice knowing you all.

___________

Essie is a fish that resides right outside my villa at Kunahura in the Maldives.
Well, it's not strictly 'my' villa but there isn't anybody else here so I've taken it over for a while.
Yesterday morning I spent 30 minutes swimming with Essie, wondering if she would, at some point, bite me.She did not. Nonetheless she does have quite ugly teeth.
Later I became a little more courageous so I ran in and grabbed my camera. I filmed her standing right next to her in the water as she danced around my legs.

 

She was there in the afternoon again.
This morning she is there again.
I called her Essie after the nail polish brand which stocks so many different colours.
Now you know why I never go to aquariums.

Mona
Kanuhura Resort
Maldives
2011
http://www.planetmona.com