Male, Maldives

Three sea days after Penang, Malaysia, we have arrived in Male, Maldives, the capital of the country, and are just straddling the equator in the heart of the Indian Ocean. The island is flat and fully built with a diameter of 1 square mile. The average elevation of the Maldives is 4 feet 2 inches above sea level.  The highest point in the Maldives is 7 feet 7 inches above sea level.  120,000 people live on this island. 100 % are Islamic.  All other religions are banned, punishable. Everything is imported. I was amazed to see it, amazed to see the airport, and wondered how a tiny, flat sliver of land can exist in the middle of this vast ocean.
 It seems to me a wave could knock these building blocks down easily. Since I have been a bit under the weather, we cancelled our tour and decided to just go out on our own and discover the city. Most of the ship headed out to beaches for the day. This is the thing to do here and everyone agreed the beaches were amazingly beautiful.  Male reminds me of Jamaica, the Caribbean, French Polynesia etc in that the best thing you can do is to head to a great resort. Having only visited the city, what I enjoyed most was visiting the fish market, the local market and watching the boats being unloaded. The fish market was interesting but I did not want to stay long. I was too squeamish. The local market was full of all kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables. Very colorful and healthy! Stores are tiny one room boxes. They say the only thing that saves this place from deathly heat is the balmy breezes which we did not have today :). David was really good and walked a lot to keep me happy. I love exploring, but here, the city itself is not the place you want to be except to see it once and say you have been here. What makes this a vacation paradise, an exotic get away, is all of the resorts located on 87 of its 1,000 islands. Over 99% of the total area of this country is ocean and it is considered one of the best dive destinations in the world. One of my children already knows that, I bet.