Author archive
15 November 2024
Sumela Monastery Trabzon’s highlight for me was going to be the Sumela Monastery out of town. In the late autumn season, I had read that public transport options are more difficult, so I booked a tour online with Sumelatur for TRY700 (NZD35) and came with a number of other sights. I walked to their office […]
14 November 2024
Arriving and domestic transfer in Istanbul With only 4h between meals onboard the flight from Male to Istanbul, I took only half a sleeping pill instead of a whole one. I enjoyed 2h sleep horizontally on three seats and managed to doze for a further two. Surprisingly Turkish Airlines served 2 full meals on the […]
13 November 2024
Heading to the airport Today, I leave Maldives for Trabzon in eastern Turkiye. Boo was flying back home to Malaysia and had to take the 0730 ferry while I had the luxury of the 1230 one for my night flight. This allowed me to fit in a 45 min final dip at the beach before […]
12 November 2024
Above: Chained birds near Maafushi’s port area. I had booked to dive with Arena Dive Club who offered the best rates of USD40 per dive and USD10 for all equipment per dive, plus a discount of at least 10%. (The discount turned out to be 20% when I returned to pay that night). They were […]
12 November 2024
Above: Chained birds near Maafushi’s port area. After a relaxing day yesterday of chilling and swimming, it was time for me to do some diving before leaving tomorrow. I had booked to dive with Arena Dive Club who offered the best rates of USD40 per dive and USD10 for all equipment per dive, plus a […]
11 November 2024
Even though Maafushi is a lot more built up than Gulhi, it still has pockets of island vibe. The bikini beach here is deeper but it doesn’t have the pure sandy bottom that Gulhi’s has. We had been skipping lunches a bit, at first to be virtuous, but now because we were running low on […]
10 November 2024
Above: In front of Maafushi’s prison. Because the prison offered employment to locals, they had capital to start guest houses and hotels when the tourism industry was liberalised in 2009. Today, we have a fifteen-minute ferry ride at 1615 from Gulhi to Maafushi, as we move our base over for the next three days. We […]
9 November 2024
Having rested well yesterday, we took a full-day excursion today. Having done this excursion before last year, I tried looking for others but this was the best value one. Shorter excursions cost only a little less. We met the group, consisting of two others, at 0920 and set off on the boat at 1000. The young guide […]
8 November 2024
Today was Boo’s first full day in Maldives. As he’s still gainfully and sometimes stressfully employed, we took it easy with a morning swim and an afternoon one. We skipped lunch and had junk food in bed in between the two swims. We organised our excursion for tomorrow and took little walks. In the evening, […]
7 November 2024
Flying to Male I had set the alarm for 0445 but woke at 0230, having had around 5h30 of sleep. I lay down for a bit longer but hopped out of bed around 0420 and prepared for check-out. I managed to get on the first train to the airport at 0500 rather than the third […]