Always a pleasure to return to Rayavadee. Familiar staff, we hug Western style. This is our eighth stay. The vegetation only gets more beautiful. After the Asian tsunami in 2004, Rayavadee was closed for a year to remove all the sand and replant the entirety of the grounds. The salt 
water killed all the plants.
Really enjoyed our 4 day stay here at Baros. Amazingly attentive and friendly staff. Think we are the only Americans here. Mainly Chinese, Japanese,European and Australian.This is their half of the world. Being independent travelers, everyone speaks English, lucky for us. The food has been exquisite and the villa is beautiful. 
Tomorrow we fly back to Singapore, overnite, then fly on to Krabi, Thailand for our stay at Rayavadee.
4.5 hour flight into Male, Maldives from Singapore. The Maldives are located about 1,000 miles off the southern tip of India in the Indian Ocean at about 7-8 o’clock. The Maldives is a nation of over 1,200 islands. Their population is 375,000 people. Half live in Male, the capital. 200 of the islands are inhabited. 100 of the islands are luxury resorts which occupy the entirety of their island. We sit on one of these.We choose Baros because it was a half hour speedboat ride from Male. Most of the other island resorts (where the rich and famous go) require seaplane flights of up to one hour to get to.
This afternoon we go out on a glass bottom boat to explore the amazing sea life amongst the coral reefs surrounding our little island. We walked around the island in 15 minutes. Just watched a 5 ft. long shark swim idly by in front of chaise lounges, about 25 ft. out in our lagoon. We were swimming there 15 minutes before. These sharks are plentiful and don’t like people. Guess we taste bad.
tomandceleste 