I am back from the beach, and ready to continue the tour. I had approached a beach attendant for water, telling him I would be sitting pool side and would like some water. After waiting twenty minutes I eventually did get a glass of water from the pool shack myself. It was deserted, as the pool boy continued to be missing in action. However when I got up to leave to meet Steve, the attendant was sitting in the shack. I nodded, gave him a smile and departed from my table. This was our only staff slip up here, I surmise that the first attendant didn’t speak English. I think some of the staff doesn’t understand English, and only smile when you ask them something.
So to drag out the suspense a little longer of what does the bed look like?, and what is a plunge pool? I give you the front landing. Here we are, unit 301, the first of the villas off of our jetty.
This is the view of our jetty, from the apogee of our oval. What a fancy word! Did you know what it meant with out looking it up? Of course you did, all my readers are smart! Our villa is the building at the one o’clock position. The Japanese Restaurant Tai is at the almost twelve o’clock position. The coral garden lies in between. You are only supposed to snorkel there during high tide. Unfortunately high tide has been at inconvenient times, and we haven’t gone. Part of the reason also, is that Steve has been fishing and I won’t snorkel by myself.
Here is another view of the restaurant. In the area with the vertical windows is the Sushi area. Will I hang out there at the Sushi bar? You have got to be kidding me! Although I secretly did want to watch the chef in action. Maybe I’ll just look up some videos on You Tube when I get home. I’m a bit uncomfortable telling the chef, I don’t want to eat, I just want to watch.
Back to our villa, here is just inside the front gate. There are umbrellas there, not for rain, but to keep the sun off you. We haven’t used them yet, preferring to wear hats. Here are the bikes that are provided for all the guests. When we stayed at Gili Lankanfushi I fell off my bike and landed in the bushes. I found it really hard to peddle the old clunkers, and steering on the sand was difficult going around curves. Which is what happened to me. I was going a good clip as instructed by Steve. Once we got off the jetty there was a sharp turn to the right. Steve was far behind me and missed my fall. As he was riding by me, I yelled “Steve!” He was shocked to see me in the bushes, as I had left him in the dust. So I had enough of the bicycles in Gili!
Having seen tricycles at Gili, I figured Como had them also. Voila, we were given a tricycle for me, and a bicycle for Steve who says real men don’t ride tricycles. We attempted this method of transportation, but as I started veering off towards the edge of the jetty and into the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea I put the kabosh on it and told Steve “Buggies only!” Now the buggies are actually golf carts. They have three rows, and the third faces backwards. I found the third row to be the best, although I don’t like looking backwards, but there is more leg room that way.
Now to drag it out even longer, here is a view of the pool equipment and pump area.
More to come, but Steve needs to proof read this. Remember to like me, and please leave a comment. I don’t bite. Much.
I left you yesterday somewhere over the Indian Ocean hading toward the Thaa atoll, where Como Maalifushi is located.
We flew over a resort that was under construction, just before we landed. Here you see all the over water villas along a jetty. It appears that these villas will have plunge pools also! The black areas in the water are coral reefs in shallow water. In the distance you can see the barrier atoll where the deep water crashes into the reef.
It looks like there is construction going on here also. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find out what was being built, or what the new resort was going to be named. Am I expected to know everything?
We finally landed, next to a floating dock. You can tell that this gentleman is not the pilot as he is wearing sandals!
Here is the approaching ferry to take us to Como Maalifushi. Did you think they would leave us bobbing on a float the rest of our lives?
We were greeted at the landing dock by the heads of all the departments. The staff knew the names of all of the arriving guests. I think they had cheat sheets, and each head was assigned a family to greet by name. We were met by Steve’s fishing guide, Craig. We have a good friend who is from South Africa, and his name is Greg. I think that white males from South Africa only have a choice of two names, Craig or Greg. Steve, however thinks Craig really looks like a Trevor, which is really messed up if you ask me! Steve and Craig discussed the upcoming day’s fishing and then we were escorted into our buggy by a driver and driven around the grounds. We finally arrived at our villa. Our first day we had arrived late, and my pictures were a bit dark. The pictures from this post are from the next day.
Let’s go into our villa, shall we? I have skipped over the front door and entryway as I am currently sitting on the beach; not enjoying a mai tai as the pool and towel attendant is elsewhere. I did not take the picture of the front door and for that I profusely apologize. Perhaps later. Anyway, here is the living room. There are two chairs, and a table to drop your stuff off on.There should alway be one designated shit collector area in every house. Unfortunately, like most people we have a tendency to leave stuff on every horizontal surface! Every evening the room attendant would leave on the table a sheet detailing the next days activities. The hanging light over the table was hung at such a hight that every time I got up from sitting there I would hit my head. Swine light fixture! There is a lovely sofa in which I sat for two minutes to try it out. Very comfy. A huge flat screen tv complete with Bose sound system completed the entertainment area.
There was an adapter supplied in case you forgot to buy one at Target before you left home. No usb cords, but I am sure that you could get one if you asked. My key pad seems fully charged now, so I won’t need to borrow a usb cord. It seems that my keypad was not fully charged before we left home , although the literature with the device said that it was shipped fully charged.
Here I show you the outside of the credenza. We were supplied with bottled water each day. They were free in the room, if you wanted water at your meals, there was a slight charge. The price for still water was $3 and $5 for sparkling water. A name brand was higher. What’s inside the credenza you ask?
On the right side was a coffee maker, electric kettle and various teas. This coffee maker was so easy, even Steve could use it!
In the middle was the mini bar, supplied with all sorts of expensive goodies. That bottle of Corona looks really good right now, and where is that beach attendant when you want him?
Here is another angle of our room, looking toward the sofa and television. It appears that we have a bucket of champagne in melted water. Hmm, the management must have left us some bubbly before we went to bed our first night, and clueless couple that we are,we didn’t notice it! Perhaps we can bring it to dinner and have staff exchange it for a chilled bottle!
It’s a bottle of Tattinger, we don’t want to waste that!
As we were the only guests on the boat we got those great seats with a view of everything. We saw lots of boats on our way to Male, many of them were these big cargo ships. The Maldives has almost everything brought to it, which is why everything is so expensive. These cargo ships have their own cranes on them. Smaller ships come up to them, and cargo is unloaded on to them and then brought to port. Some of the workers never get to land, they can be on the boat for a year! Definitely not the life for me.
After about twenty minutes we reached the dock at the airport and are luggage was hoisted on to dry land. We were a little nervous about if we were going to be met at the airport by someone who would escort us to the proper area for our flight to Como Maalifushi.
Yay! We did have an escort who loaded our bags unto a cart and brought us into the terminal.
It was fun to look at all the ferries that were taking people to Male and to other islands. It appears that a bridge is being built linking the airport to the mainland.
Here is Steve posing in front of the Maldavian Sea Plane counter. Our passports were entered into the system and we waited. 
While Steve waited, have you ever seen him so relaxed in your life? Go to the Maldives, after only four nights and two massages you can look like this also!
While Steve waited, I explored. I love seeing different stuff that people ship. I actually stepped into the Phamacy that I had my picture taken in front of. I had to see if I could actually consider it a grocery store. You do remember that Steve fishes on trips, and I visit grocery stores don’t you? It was a hard call to make, they had a lot of water, baby wipes, and medicine but no regular food. I looked especially hard for cookies or crackers, but couldn’t fine any.Since it was a pharmacy it did have pills that one ingests. So I decided that it would count as a grocery store, although it was definitely not a supermarket.
After our papers were processed we entered a shuttle to another terminal where there was a Como Hotels Lounge. In this building there were lounges for all the resorts serviced by Maldavian Seaplames. Four Seaasons? You wait in this room. Como Maalifushi? You wait in this room. There was a problem in that one scheduled departure of 3:30 was not going to be met as there were mechanicals and only two planes were in operation. They told us that we would definitely make the last plane of the day that was scheduled to leave at 4:30. We waited and waited. I thought that I had taken a a few pictures of the lounge, but i can’t find them. They had coffee, soda, cookies, yummy brownies and potato chips. We were a little bit nervous to hear about the mechanical, but what were we going to do? 
Here we are patiently waiting for our flight. Steve looks a little worried, doesn’t he?
Down the gangplank and towards our plane. Maldavian SeaPlanes are known for their barefoot pilots. I bet that you did not know that.
The plane was pretty tiny. There was not much leg room.
We were given ear plugs.
As we were so close to the Equator I was trying to get a screen shot of 0 degree Latitude, but we were too far north. The Maldives is Just above the equator. Now look at that elevation reading. Did we make it to Como Maalifushi? Did we drown? No, of course not as you are reading the blog, but I thought this was an amusing way to end the post.
I had another shot of the morning starter, a pineapple orange combination. I also tried the healthy green juice drink. I can’t tell you how much stronger, vibrant and alert i am. Ha, Ha, just kidding! I’m the same old Linda.
More fruits form the fruit bar. The little white balls were quite interesting. The hairy one was different from the one that looked like fish eyes. They were both very wet, and the hairy one was a little more opaque appearance than the three to the left. It was also larger when removed from the shell All were delicious. There is that beautiful dragon fruit again, on the lower right. It looks like a purple kiwi! There is also a pineapple tart on the upper part of the. picture, but we are just going to ignore that piece of heaven. Too many calories to think about.
Steve was feeling a little sluggish from all our relaxation and insisted that we hit the gym. The view from the exercise bike was delightful, but it was a little too warm for me. I adjusted the air conditioning, but I was still a little too warm for comfort. Plus the bike was not a recumbent one, so I was eager to quit after twenty minutes of cardio. I decided to try the Pilates Reformer that was in the gym. There was an instructional DVD going on, and it was a lot of fun to try to imitate the sleek and limber model. Later that day my groin was killing me, I think I went at it a little too vigorously.
We returned to our villa, finished packing, called our Ms Friday Shazu to pick us up. We got a picture of her with her buggy in front of our villa. You were wondering what our wonderful Shazu looked like, weren’t you?
We had a lovely lunch of Chicken Caesar Salad with another beer, and waited to be picked up to be brought to Male for our afternoon flight to Como Maalifushi.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!