Editor’s Note:  Bayou City Press welcomes Andi Keist to our stable of columnists. In this account, Andi introduces readers to the Maldives, giving us a sensory dive into a far-off place. I hope you enjoy Andi’s inaugural column as much as I did.

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” – Jack Kerouac

As we approach Passport Control, I pull my hair back and wipe my forehead. The residual oil sheen from the past twenty-seven-and-a-half hours of travel feels gritty and dirty.

“Ma’am, we need you to step aside. Follow me,” says the skinny uniformed man, his soft voice lacking assertiveness, carrying with it a slight doubt that I would actually obey.

I watched my backpack being carried from the x-ray machine to another area with tables and more officials.

“They need to search your bag.”

I shrug my shoulders and oblige, then look at my husband, John. He continues to the long line in front of one of the check counters.

I’m assigned a uniformed woman. Her brightly colored hijab, unlike those of the other women officers, hints at a touch of personality and expression. She proceeds to scan me with a metal detector device and then has me turn my palms upward while she lightly swipes each palm with a large cotton swab at the end of what looks like, I can only imagine, a cattle prod.

“Wait over there,” she says as I’m cleared. I watch my items being extracted from my bag.

And bingo, there it is. An airline-sized bottle of wine I shoved in there upon our descent to Dubai after the exhausting fifteen-hour flight. I half-way joked to John about keeping a stash, knowing that upon arrival in Malé, the capital city of The Maldives, alcohol would be off-limits for the next eight days. I figured I’d drink the wine during our forever-long eight-hour layover in Dubai to help me sleep. But after eating and downing coffee for the first four hours while there, I was hit with a bout of forgetfulness right before I dozed on a chaise lounge in a remote corner of the airport.

“You’re not allowed to carry this into the country. It is illegal,” says another uniformed man.

I hope my look of surprise spoke more of I don’t know how that got there, sir, versus oh shit, I’m guilty and I’m busted.

“We’re going to have to take this.”

I nod my head in compliance, wringing my sweaty and oily palms

“Pack your items and continue, ma’am,” he says, turning his straight arm in the direction of the Passport Control line.

I join John, already in line, not sure whether to smile yet or stay solemn. He greets me with a guttural laugh and he nudges me and I can’t help but crack up.

“Shut up,” I tell him. “You know you have one in your bag as well. Guess you hid it better.” He laughs again.

“I didn’t hide it. I forgot about it,” declaring his innocence.

We near the airport exit, the warm salt-water breeze infiltrating and quickly dousing the last cool remnants of the conditioned air. We pass the endless line of resort island transfer companies offering sea plane or boat services to the many nearby luxury resort islands, finally making our way out of the airport in search of a cab.

********

Our trip to The Maldives stemmed from business and was forged two weeks before our departure. My husband’s company, a power consulting firm, had made a last-minute decision to move the trip up in an effort to avoid business during the upcoming Ramadan observance. The Republic of Maldives is an Islamic country, its inhabitants devout 100% Sunni Muslims with their national faith being the cornerstone of Maldivian identity. Observance of the Ramadan holiday spans the month of May. The timeline of completed contracts and all the required triggers to do business in the country had the original trip falling towards the end of May, when holiday festivities are ramped up. Our plans involved staying on three major inhabited islands where eating and drinking, including water, during daylight hours in public was prohibited. I had already planned for conservative cultural observance with an array of scarves, pashminas, and longer dresses to respect local traditions, but the team felt that the local Maldivian Ministry and World Bank officers wouldn’t be as available during that period, ultimately thwarting the progress and intended goals of the trip. The monsoon season also falls in May, so along with avoiding the holiday we wanted to experience the islands without a daily drenching.

The Republic of Maldives is one of the poorest developing countries in the world with its major industries being tourism, fishing and shipping. The land isn’t very fertile, thus limiting agricultural possibility except for a few tropical fruits and roots. It’s one of the most low-lying countries in the world with an average elevation only one-and-a-half meters above sea level, and is an archipelago of 26 coral atolls consisting of about 1,200 small islands located in the north central Indian Ocean, southwest of Sri Lanka. One hundred ninety-eight of the islands are inhabited, with only about twenty of them having more than 1,000 inhabitants. Included among the uninhabited islands (meaning that there are no locals or indigenous people living there) are about 100 islands which are luxury retreats.

We arrive in the capital and most populated city, Malé, on the island of Malé, teeming with high-rises, narrow streets, and packed with people. Our plan was to leave the island and stay on the nearby island of Hulhumalé, a lot less congested than Malé and only made reachable by car six months ago with the completion of the “Sinamale” Bridge. The “Friendship Bridge,” an impressive leaping arc resting on vast splayed concrete supports planted on the sea bed spanning the ocean, was made possible thanks to the Chinese and their financing “friendliness.” This has opened up endless possibilities for the local people and their daily lives.

The drive to the island hotel should have taken ten minutes; however, with no GPS and the taxi driver’s lack of knowledge of the newly linked island, we drive the beachfront three times with no success. The beach front road was lined with mid-rise structures like a series of dominoes, most under construction with cranes perched on top, their spindly rebar tentacles stretching upwards as if to say, “More. More.” The construction waste along the road was packaged and organized, yet strewn along the street in seemingly endless piles as if permanent fixtures. This city is ripe with investors and undergoing tremendous growth and transformation from an exclusive luxury destination to a diversified and hopeful location for new economic possibilities. We find our hotel after a few more drive-bys just in time to see the sunset sizzle with a fireworks display of dazzling hues of blood orange swirled with deep violets.

We are greeted by several young men upon check-in who present us with cool towels and fresh juice. Their demeanor was polite, clearly having been schooled in the art of customer service. After settling in, I approach the skinny young man at the counter to ask about day trips to other islands and snorkeling tours. I could barely hear his soft-spoken, almost timid response, similar to the mannerisms I had experienced earlier in the hotel and at the airport.

The next morning, after a restless, jet-lagged night, John, with his team in tow, left early to catch the ferry back to Malé for meetings. I arrive at the front desk to meet my driver who brings me to the island jetty to hop on a boat for some snorkeling. It’s only me, a young couple from Australia, two guides and the boat captain. Having rained the night before, the sea was choppy, and I prayed that I wouldn’t see my breakfast a second time.

The atolls of the Maldives are the central part of an enormous underwater mountain range stretching for over 2,000 kilometers. Each individual island is encircled by the coral reefs. Our destination, a thirty-minute boat ride away, is to a much larger and steeper coral range formed along the outer edge of the atoll, sloping away to greater depths. The clarity of the gin clear water appears endless, sinking past the rays of the sun, harboring marine life like nowhere else on earth. With snorkel gear arranged, I plop in after my guide. Once submerged, the higher-than-normal waves are a thing of the past, and I follow his lead by diving down below the surface while he points out some of the deeper crevices and tiny caves and the creatures within. I spend the next hour entranced in a tranquil, silent movie of never-ending reels watching the exuberant, colorful underwater life, both coral and marine, including reef sharks, black tip sharks, and stingrays, along with hundreds of species of fish brilliantly painted with what has to be every color, tint and hue in the world.

After two days on Hulhumale, with jet lag completely evaporated, we head back to the airport to journey to the southern-most tip of the Maldives, the atoll Addu, and the longest island in that atoll, Gan.

For the hour-and-a-half-long flight, I made sure to claim a window seat, knowing the eye candy that awaited me. I stare down past the small bursts of worshipping clouds, and the image of the atolls and their formation becomes clear. I can see each giant ring of multiple island formations with their own, outer concentric rings of varying brilliant blues, their descending reefs, spreading out like brightly lit halos, then dipping into the darkest sapphire blue of the deep bottomless sea. There were hundreds of other islands, outside of the atolls, like sprawling amoeba, reaching their division end like colliding heavenly bodies. Some remained elongated as if never separated, much larger than their surrounding constituents. Most, I notice, were uninhabited, some with vegetation and some without, forming the script of a beautifully written language dropped into the waters. Lines with dots, all sizes, some curvy, some fat, and some thin with the sea waves as silky paper from a heavenly calligraphic pen, a message far beyond our comprehension.

Some islands even encircled their own body of water. Outlined by a ring of white sand and coral, they had their own ‘pool’ of water, a vivid edge of fluorescent turquoise, tightening towards the inside with a deeper ‘pool’ of cobalt blue, sustaining their own temporary world of marine life until the erosion of time washes them away. Splattered around were hundreds of droplets of separate misshapen disks of powdery white coral sand, called sandbanks. Some were barely submerged, with a thin watered down coat of turquoise icing, each outlined with their bright white edges exposed to the bleaching sun.

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