Rihiveli, Rihiveli… where to begin. I’ll begin with our arrival. I questioned for quite some time whether it’d be worth it to fork out the cash for a resort on a private island. The thing is, I’m no spend thrift… anyone that’s ever seen my shoe collection knows that I’m not afraid of spending money (not always a good thing…). I place a very strong value on the money I spend, though, and have a . . .

Like I mentioned in part 4, me and Jonathan were pretty fed up with Fulidhoo; we weren’t overly impressed with the people, the Kinaan Retreat was good on paper but in reality was kind of annoying with the hideous smell in the bathroom and the noisy guests (the hotel was full during our stay) so we decided to gtfo and packed our bags with the quickness and checked out. Kinaan staff graciously did . . .

Gulhi… I’m not sure why, but this place really made me feel some kind of way. There was very little information available on the various islands, so the decision-making process was straightforward: can we get to the island with relative ease, are there decent and affordable housing options, and is there a bikini beach. Gulhi seemed to tick all the boxes, so it made its way onto our itinerary. The . . .

First days: arrival and Maafushi The Malé International Airport is very small, despite servicing international flights, but border control is a smooth process. We couldn’t be bothered to make our way by ferry to Maafushi as this would have required a taxi and a short shuttle ferry, then a long wait (we arrived in the morning but the ferry leaves at 3pm) and it takes two hours to reach Maafushi. . . .