Good morning! Another day in paradise and another juice shot to wake up with. This one was orange and pineapple.
Today I decided to have waffles with fruit for breakfast. Not to mention the whipped cream, bananas, strawberries, blueberries and raspberry sauce. Why diet while on vacation?
Steve had a tasty omelette. He is not into fruits, I am. Well, they do say that a marriage made of opposites makes a happier marriage!
I’m not sure what we did on Tuesday but lets take a tour of the grounds. Here is the outdoor cinema. Last night a couple had dinner and a movie. You can arrange this also if you choose to stay her. www.Gili-Lankanfushi.com (I don’t get any credit for the links in my blog. Maybe some day I will be a paid travel influencer, but not yet!)
There was great signage everywhere.
Speaking of yoga, here is a view of the outdoor pavilion where yoga classes were held.
This is a view of the gift shop. No, I didn’t buy a bikini.
Anyone up for a game of pool? That could be done here also. Don’t they think of everything?
Lets go climb the 360 to enjoy the view. It doesn’t look too high for me to climb.
The view wasn’t much better here, in fact it was probably worse than the view from the ground as seen here.
What’s funny is that when I first saw this picture in my photo roll, I though it was from Como Maalifushi where we are staying now. The resorts all have dhoni boats that you can take a sunset cruise on. In the distance you see One Palm Island, thats where we went group snorkeling near. If you wanted to you could have a private dinner here also. One Palm Island is a different island than Two Palm Island. I am not sure if there was a No Palm Island, Ha Ha!
Besides the wooden directional signs there were Evacuation Maps also. Chances of Tsunami’s are rare, as the country of India blocks most of the deviating tsunami’s that might occur, but you never know.
This is the lovely table and chairs that were set up on the 360 platform. This was another great spot for a private dinner.
This is the beautiful vegetable garden on property. I loved the fresh green lettuces.
Back down on solid ground we go by the By The Sea Restaurant again.
Here is a lovely lounge chair to sit in and enjoy the view of the ocean and a sunset. Or perhaps you had too much at dinner, and need to take a rest?
I know, let’s try to hang out at the pool for a while. Past the Main Restaurant we go.
Shucks, some one is under the cabana. Looks like we’ll have to sit in the shade. Well, that can be arranged.
Steve and I are too old to do hammocks. Those are for young people, who can easily get out of them. Seeing the hammocks brought back fond memories of when Steve used to lie in the hammock with the kids on a weekend. Not much reading was down, but there was some tickling and napping.
Perhaps we should have some lunch al fresco, if it can be arranged. Yes, lets share a chicken Caesar salad with a beer!
Hey, why don’t we go for another massage? Yes, lets do.
Ah, the relaxing massage with the view of the coral and fish. Did you see the one with the yellow tail?
Now it is the time for our last night’s dinner. It was an Asian Buffet. We had a beautiful salad to start, where you could choose your own greens.
Followed by lots of beautiful breads.
They had many stations at the buffet. There were lots of preplated dishes.
Lots of stuff to eat that I didn’t know what it was. The lighting for photos was bad, so I can’t show you the soup, grill or stir fry stations. The dessert station was equally lovely, with lots of fresh fruit, tarts, and mousses.
That’s it for our last night at Gili Lankanfushi. Tomorrow we head to Como Maalifushi.
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Time to get up and start our day! Looking at the Instagram postings for Gili Lankanfushi I found this picture…
Whoa! What a beautiful pool! I didn’t recall seeing it anyway on property and thought I would ask one of the servers at breakfast how I could find it!
After my fortifying juice shooter, I inquired.
Well Madame, I am sorry to but that will not be possible.
How so? Please break it to me gently. Yes, I am sitting down now, you can tell me.
“Perhaps you might like to see if you Rosti and two egg mozzarella, mushroom, spring onion and pepper omelette is to your satisfaction first. ”
It’s “varah Meeru’, very tasty. The picture is from the Residence, and it is fully booked! Oh well.
I guess I will just have to satisfy myself with some of the fruit from the buffet.
The fruit was just so pretty that I couldn’t stay disappointed for long.
Maybe I’ll just have some more fruit from the fruit chef and go on with my day.
Look, things are looking up, Steve saw the lounger under pool canopy was empty, and we could sit there for a spell!
Now how do you say, “I am so happy?’
Would Mr. and Mrs. Lant like a towel, some ice water, sun lotion and two bread sticks while you enjoy the shade and the view? But of course, we would!
Alas, all good things come to and end and it was time for use to get our snorkeling briefing by the resident Marine Biologist. No pictures of the pretty fish again, but we did see several different species and we even saw an octopus! There were three others with us on our expedition; the tennis instructor and two guys. I asked them where they were from. Guest C said Columbia, and Guest E said England. “Where did you meet I inquired? ” ‘Ibiza!”
We headed back to the Over Water Bar for lunch. There was a very interesting cocktail on the menu board. What are the odds that I would order one?
It was called the Kaashi Cocktail. Fresh coconut water, rum, Midori, Amaretto and pineapple juice. Yummy!
We had more delicious bread.
I ordered a pizza, with ground beef, mushroom and pepper.
Steve had some kind of stir fry.
Of course when we left the Over Water Bar (which I seem to have been incorrectly calling Over the Sea, or Over The Water Bar), my hat flew off and Steve had to rescue it for me! My Hero!
No more about Monday, we had more caviar at dinner on Steve’s tuna tartare, and we had chocolate with raspberry sorbet for dessert. What can be better than that?
We were staying in GVS30 which was off of Jetty 2. We had both sunrise and sunset views. The resort is very convenient to the airport, it was only about a 20 minute boat shuttle. I think if you wanted to take a shuttle in to Male you could, but why would you when you were surrounded by beautiful white beaches? The only draw back we could find at the resort, was that since we were near the airport you hear planes through out the day. It wasn’t offensive, but you knew you weren’t too far from civilization. This was high season, and one night we did hear the music from the resort across the way from us. It didn’t bother me, but Steve did have problems sleeping that night. We later found out the it was considered the Russian New year, and those oligarchs on vacation like to PARTY!
We went to the Over the Sea restaurant for lunch. We were given our cold towels, and then a juice shot. It was quite refreshing. Since Steve only drinks orange juice, I got to have both drinks. You can probably tell that this one was watermelon based.
For lunch we went to the salad bar. Having a green salad with a little egg and chunks of ham is always a delicious lunch. Steve had the salad bar also.
I actually had a drink at lunch. It was a Curaçao and Midori based drink. You know how I like my fruity Martinis, so I really enjoyed this!
We hung out at the pool for a bit after lunch and then…
We went snorkeling! Here I am in my full face snorkel mask. This is definitely the type of mask to get. You can breathe normally, and wear your contacts. I did get a little water in my mask, but that’s because I was so excited to snorkel that I didn’t adjust my mask properly. We learned about these masks from those people I hated in the Galapagos who were the cushion and table hogs. They were big scuba divers, and donned these masks when our boat trip stopped for snorkeling time. I had never snorkeled before and found it quite easy. We went right off our dock to explore the coral beds in our lagoon. We saw lots of pretty fish. No pictures as we didn’t bring an underwater camera or the GoPro. We also didn’t trust the water proof cell phone bags that came with the mask. You can get the masks from Amazon for about $79 each. The masks had a bright orange snorkel, so it was easy for me to see where Steve was when i lifted my head up and vice versa.
For dinner we went to the Japanese Restaurant. After more cooling towels and a juice shooter we were ready to enjoy our dinner. 
We started with salted Endame, they were so good!
This was the amuse bouche. Fresh seared tuna.
I had the tempura as part of the chefs tasting menu.
Steve had some beef that was quite rare and very good.
Then I had some fish, shrimp, and sushi. The fish on the bottom had rice underneath. I think that was called Nigori, usually the fish is raw, but they cooked it for me. It was very difficult to eat, I ended up using my fingers.
Steve ordered soup. He really loves soup, and would eat it at every meal if he could.
For my main I had some kind of meat pancake. It was very strange.
Steve’s main was fish. It was not strange and very tasty. I think it was on risotto. The little balls were caviar, that I got to eat, as Steve would rather the fish eggs grow up to be fish, and not caviar.
At every table there was a little Zen Garden to play with.
Here is Steve’s fine design.
These were the chopstick holders. Steve appropriately got the fish, and I got the star. Now how appropriate was that!
Dessert was another yummy chocolate treat. That plate was cleaned! Steve and I joked during dinner that we saved our selves a lot of money on this trip. I decided that I wasn’t crazy about Japanese food, and a trip to Japan (which was on our travel list) was probably not going to happen now. So we saved all that money we would have spent going to Japan!
I forgot to mention that Steve had a different glass of sake with each of his courses. Fabrice, the sommelier came over to give a detailed description of each type. My eyes glazed over during the first description, but Steve looked remarkably attentive throughout the evening. He might just be a better actor than I am!
The resort had a jet lag special at the spa, if you booked together it was $199 for a one hour massage. As Steve and I adore massages and we were jet lagged we arranged the spa for the morning of our first full day. This is the entrance of the spa. As you could see it from our back deck, we didn’t need Shazu our Ms. Friday to bring us there.
The treatment started with a foot soak, and then a scrub a dub dub of crystals to invigorate our sore feet. We were in heaven already!
We entered the room to find the normal massage tables. In the floor were cutouts so you could watch the activity below the spa! It was so much fun to see the fish swim below. I think all spas should do this, just put a television on the floor and cover it with plexiglass!
After the massage we went upstairs to the second floor of the spa. Here Steve is pointing out something to me, what it was i don’t remember. However as you know I love a good posed picture I thought I would share it with you.
The lovely ladies gave us some orange slices, almonds, cold water and hot ginger tea to refresh us after our treatment. The ginger tea is supposed to help energize you and aid in the elimination of toxins. It sure was spicy!
This lovely lady gave Steve his massage. She delightfully posed for the blog.
On the way back from the massage we decided to see what the gym looked like. They had two Pilates reformers, a DVD constantly going with a Pilates session. There were also yoga mats, although each room was provided with their own yoga mats. There were free Yoga sessions daily, although we didn’t attend any. They were held outside, in the morning and afternoon. 
The gym was air conditioned, and had treadmill, ellipticals, a bike, free weights, and a few weight bearing machines. There was a refrigerator with cold towels in it also. If you forgot your gym shoes, you could borrow some at the spa.
Look at this view. Well it’s a lousy photograph, but it really was nice to look out the window. We quickly said goodby to the gym, who wants to ruin a good zen with a workout?
This was the outside of the gym entrance. Above is where the Japanese restaurant is located.
We head back to the our villa and think about what we want to do next. Here you can see the water cisterns conveniently placed to cool feet. Steve saw one of the resort’s workers refill them. He just dumped out the old, and put new water from below in them. Although you could probably figured that out on your own now, couldn’t you?
Well he managed to safely stay out of this one. This is the Main Restaurant. The breakfast displays were all under the canopy on the right. Tables were on the left. Even if you weren’t on seated closest to the water you still had a magnificent view!
Here is Steve demonstrating how to get your feet wet. He does a might fine job, doesn’t he? Speaking of mighty fine, check out the lounge area under the canopy! It has my name all over it! Now I hope you can recall the trouble at our hotel in the Galápagos Islands. There was only one really good table to sit at at dinner. Unfortunately two couples at our hotel camped out and didn’t share the table. One member of the group was assigned the duty of racing to the table (or front viewing cushions on the boat). They would plop down their gear and hog the table for the rest of the afternoon and onto evening. They would sit there after the cruise at 4, and then never vacate the table until 11 at night. They would sit there and chat, ordering a beer or two and then finally their dinner at eight. Steve and I who could eat dinner in an hour grew frustrated at his behavior. (Especially me-Steve doesn’t let it bother him. I stew, and wish evil diseases on them!) I think chair hogs are the worst!
This is the view from the back of the pool. The palm trees had little wells around them and the pool had an infinity edge. Lounge chairs were placed between the pool and the beach. If you wanted lunch or a drink, the gentleman who operated the ice cream shack would have it delivered.
There were also hammocks, if you wanted to sit in them. To the left was a raised platform, if you wanted an even better tan because you were closer to the sun. (Not really, but that was such a fanciful idea I had to add it!)
This was the interior of the ice cream shack, here you could get ice cream bars, or dishes of several different flavors. No chocolate but they did have stracciatella-vanilla with chocolate shavings. You could also order lunch, and eat it poolside. Want a beer? No problem.
Tennis anyone? There is a resident pro, who will give you lessons. That’s her in the white top and the orange skirt.
Plenty of bike parking available here!
This is the way to our villa. We were staying in number 30. There are 44 over water villas on property, Seven separate stand alone villas that were not connected to land via a jetty, and then the Residence. All you had to do was to call your Mr. or Ms. Friday and a shuttle boat would appear to take you wherever you wanted to go. 
Spaced evenly on the jetty, were these earthenware pots that held water.
The deck got really hot, and our American feet were not up to the task. I stopped in front of every pot and got my feet wet. wish I could tell you the name of the Nail Polish, but I forgot. I tease Steve all the time, about how wonderful my feet are. as I love the shape of my feet. They are nice and wide, I have great stability. It makes it difficult to find shoes that fit, but whatever!
This is a view of the gym and the Japanese Restaurant. It was just off our jetty.
Good morning sleepy heads, its time to get up! This is the view from our deck. Since we are very close to the equator the days are about 12 hours long. Gili Lankanfushi has it’s own island time. One hour ahead of the time in Male. Many of the resorts do this also, so people can enjoy the sunrises and sunsets better.
Part of the breakfast display was in the wine cellar. Here you see a lovely spread of cheeses and cured meats. Having your own private dinner in the wine cellar was option also.
Fabrice, the sommelier offered wine and cheese tastings in the afternoons also. I believe there was a ~$75 up-charge for that.
Here are some of the beautiful chocolates under glass, in the wine cellar. I think there might have been a wine and chocolate tasting available each afternoon also. I am really surprised that I didn’t try to open the cases and sample a few of the treats, but I was too busy documenting for the blog!
Here is a display of all the different types of honey you could choose at breakfast.
Just like the Club level room at the Ritz in Santiago, Chile; there was a honey comb on display.
Here we have a display of all the different types of jam you might want to put on your toast or croissant.
Speaking of croissant’s, here is a display of all the fresh pastries. Nothing beats a chocolate croissant for breakfast in 80 degree weather. The inside is all warm and gooey, and the pastry flakes all over your clothes. Heaven!
This was our table, We had a beautiful view of the ocean, and we were in the shade, just delightful!
Every morning we had two cappuccino’s. Don’t they look pretty with the cocoa starfish on top?
I ordered scrambled eggs with toast for my breakfast. Eggs could be ordered in any style including Eggs Benedict.
Lots of choices available at the juice bar! There were also bottles of champagne if someone wanted to have Mimosa’s in the morning. On the rack there were little tinctures if you wanted to doctor up your drink. Not alcohol, but elixirs, to detox, invigorate, or cure any aches and pains that you might have. I drank my Orange juice straight up. Next visit I’ll have to walk on the wild side and try one of the elixir’s. It might make a new woman out of me!
Here is a close up of all the little bottles. I think there was a run on the Detoxifying Elixir!
All the dry cereals were in these coconut shells. The lighting was very bad, and it was difficult to read all the labels. You had to lift up every lid and check inside to find out what the cereal was! There was a little boy from England who had his father opening up every lid trying to locate the Froot Loops for him. Steve even ended up joining in on the search for the little boy’s favorite cereal.
Decisions, decisions, here is Steve trying to decide what to put on his plate.
You could have spring rolls, or this Maldavian dish that had lots of coconut in it.
There were bowls of fresh lettuces that were grown in the garden on property.
If you wanted soup at breakfast, you could have that also.
Every morning fresh cut up fruit was available. All you need to do was point and ask. I especially likes the dragon fruit, it was so pretty!
I had a lovely salad also. How could I resist the fresh greens straight from the garden?
Doesn’t this fruit look mouth watering? Believe me, it was!
I leave you with a picture of Steve contemplating absolutely nothing. It was zen her in Gili Lankfushi!
Now that you have completed the grand tour of our bungalow, it is time for dinner. There are three restaurants on property, The Over the Water Bar and Restaurant (seen above). The Main restaurant and the Japanese Restaurant. With our resort package we got a full breakfast and a $100 credit per person toward dinner. Lunch would be on our own. It is smart idea to get the food package as food is very expensive here. After all, everything has to be shipped or flown here.
We were shown to a lovely table overlooking the water. There weren’t many other diners in the restaurant, not only could you eat in one of the restaurants, you could elect to have dinner delivered to a romantic location on the beach!
Here is the view from our seat, looking across to some of the other villas.
I did a bad job of reading the special dinner menu, and thought it was $120 per person and we would only be paying a $20 up-charge. Steve caught it right away, but gentleman that he is said the choice was fine. Add in two glasses of wine, the added service charge and Maldivian tax and it was a very expensive dinner!
The dinner included a bottle of champagne also. It was all very tasty, especially the chocolate dessert! But then when is chocolate ever the wrong choice? 
There was an area in the bar of the restaurant where you could hang out and look at the open area for fish swimming below. We were a bit tired, and so didn’t hang out. Of course, I am not one to hang out in bars anyway, so Steve had no expectations of my staying.
When we go back to our room we found the night attendant had fancied up the bed for us. I don’t know how long it would take me to figure our how to create this design!
Here is a close up of the pleating of the sheets. Night Night everyone!
This is the open air living room. It looks out to the Indian Ocean. There are two couches on each side. The bedroom is through the door.
Here is the cabinet that holds, soda, beer, and wine. To the left are glasses and plates, to the right is hard liquor. On top of the credenza is a Nespresso machine that I could only figure out once. There is always plenty of bottled water. The first night we were left a complementary bottle of champagne and iced tea. We never got around to drinking it. The soda, beer etc. were not free.
Let’s go in the bedroom. There was a little couch and a desk. The room looked out to to Indian Ocean and the barrier reef surrounding the atoll. 
Here is the beautiful bed. The mosquito netting was just for show, we never saw a mosquito while we cheer here. There were plenty of outlets, near the bed and reading lamps. There was a paddle fan above it you didn’t want to use the air conditioning. Temperatures were in the 80’s here, humidity was not oppressive due to the constant breezes. We did use the A/C at night as the breeze would stop in the middle of the night.
The view outside the desk was of the neighboring villa, and their shower.
There is a television in the bedroom. We never even turned it on!
We were left some goodies, watermelon with goat cheese, dates and then tuna. I ate the two on the left, we skipped the tuna.
In the great room facing the outside was a little table, and the wine bucket holding the goodies we never got around to try! Below is our private deck. Let’s check that out!
Well, what do you know, Steve has changed and is there already! I’m busy taking picutres for the blog, and he is relaxing! He has the right priorities! Anyway the deck had two twin chaise lounges, an umbrella and two built in hammocks. We each made the mistake of trying them out. Once you get in it is hard to get out! We had to crab walk our way out.
There were also two builtin small sofas, with a see through coffee table through which you could see fish swim by!
This is a view from the deck to the living room, and the hostage taking hammocks! Once in them, they were difficult to get out. I had to call Steve for directions on how to get out of them. No pictures as we were laughing too hard to take any pictures!
This is the view from the deck of the bathroom. Wait til you see inside!
To the right are matching sinks, and a soaking tub with a view of the water. They had bath crystals available for you too!
To the right was a big mirror and open closet. Steve unpacked when I started taking pictures. Sometimes I make him wait to unpack until I get all my pictures taken. Not this time!
Straight ahead is the shower. The curved aqua shape is a little settee you could sit on when you changed your clothes.
Your very own view of the ocean while you tie your shoes!
Your very own grotto, where you can swim in the nudie! Or use as a snorkel access point. Steve saw a five foot shark swim right through the grotto!
Here is the shower, you had a choice of waterfall or regular shower head. Or you can even have a shower for two, so no one gets cold! The shower had frosted glass on one side, the front was all open air, so it did get breezy at times. The resort is eco friendly and had refillable shampoo and conditoners. No wasteful mini bottles.
There is still more! Let’s go on upstairs! Up the winding staircase…
We see a small set of cozy chairs.
Upstairs was also a bed that you could sleep in during the rain, or pull it out from the canopy if you wanted to sleep under the stairs! We did! Howeve as I wear contacts, and Steve glasses, our views weren’t so good after the contacts were out and the glasses off!
There was a small table and chairs if you wanted to sit and enjoy your sundowner.
And speaking of sundown, enjoy! It’s time for dinner!
This is what the overwatervillas look like. They are connected by a wooden pathway, just wide enough for two golf cars to pass by. Just barely! Our villa had an air conditioned bedroom. Some of the other villas had air conditioned living rooms and bedrooms. We requested sunset views, and that is what we got. We have sunrise views at our second house in Lake George, and sunset views in Poughkeepsie. I didn’t want the sun waking me up in the morning on vacation.
These are the villas that have the air conditioned living rooms, they are a bit larger than ours. I think some of the free standing villas have more than two bedrooms. There is a separate villa called “The Resdence”, it has many bedrooms, it’s own plunge pool, a slide into the ocean, and has two Mr. Friday’s to serve you! Future trips, if I can get friends to join us!
Okay, let’s head down the walkway to our villa. On the left is a little bench to sit on while you wait for your Mr. or Ms. Friday. Lightning rods are on each roof peak. There are bikes for each unit, or you can easily walk wherever you wanted to go. The island is quite small, with lots of signage, so it would be difficult to get lost. To the left of the picture will be the master bedroom, straight ahead is the living room and to the left is the bathroom suite. 
Shall we enter? The little round ball on the right is a foot porcupine to wipe off the excess sand you might have on your feet.