Maldives - Final Day

Well, after such a great day diving I was really looking forward to a great night and a final day of relaxation. The Saturday disco night also yielded meeting a very fun married couple from Germany: Philipp and Julia. A great couple with whom I had a lot of fun with both Saturday AND Sunday night. So after a great night, I settled in and got ready for a great day of relaxation on Monday, my final day. I slept in. Slowly made my way to breakfast. Then I settled in here:

And here was my view:

A great day of sun and relaxation and a perfect way to end my Maldivian adventure. What a great 4 days!

Well, all that was left of my trip was a final night in Paris. And you know me, I made the most of that final night too!

Oh yeah, and I got to have one more disco night at the Diva Monday night! ;)
~ Rich

Final Diving Day: Rich 2, Whale Sharks 0

First off, I'm home.  My whirlwind adventure is complete.  That's why the updates have fallen off. However, I still owe you some so here we go!  So, since I'm now home and can access a few more things... here are some cool underwater photos from Day 1:

 If you look closely at the next photo, you can make out the silhouette of a shark!

 Your favorite blogger right after seeing the shark!

Well, my second and final day started just like the first. Although a little tougher getting up as I had a pretty fun time at the Diva "disco night" and introduced some of my new Maldivian friends to the vocal stylings of Flo Rida and Taio Cruz! Don't worry, they reciprocated with a great song too. Great time at the Musik bar at the diva!

Diving Day 1: Whale Sharks 3, Rich 0

Well, Saturday here in the Maldives I was up bright and early for my morning, 2-tank diving adventure. I decided to rent a camera in the hopes of catching a whale shark on film. As you might have guessed based upon the title of this post, day 1 the elusive buggers stayed away. The diving here however is fantastic. Unfortunately, the tsunami of 2004 that struck the Indian Ocean damaged almost 100% of the coral reefs. The amazing thing, minus the broken coral that litters the sandy bottom of the ocean, it is hard to tell! So cool to see how nature can rebuild itself after such a catastrophic event. As I stated earlier, my diving was through a company called the Euro Divers. Here is a shot of the dive center:

So, this is where I started every dive. We got our gear and hopped on the boat for our ride to the first site:

So, my first dive was at a site called Huddu Thila. We had planned to go to a different site but the current was too strong. Every dive the dive masters check the currents before we jump in. Huddu Thila was considered a medium current and was still pretty strong. We eventually aborted our planned trip around the one side of the reef and went with the current towards the back side. It was still an amazing dive. Great corals along the reef or Thila as they call it here in the Maldives. I saw white tip reef sharks, sting rays and countless fish. I have my photos from the whole day awaiting my viewing on CD. So, all in all a great first dive, but no whale sharks to be seen. Traveling to the second site, I made friends with three chaps from France. They introduced me to a Hungarian dice game that they didn't even know the name of. Basically, it is like another version of Yahtzee with very different rules. Here's a pic of me playing with Jonathan, Vivian, and Fabrice:

You can see the scoring sheet on the left. It passed the time between dives brilliantly! On our way to the second site, we caught sight of a manta ray swimming near the surface. These pics don't do it justice but it was very cool to see. Luckily it wasn't my last encounter!

Holy...

CRAP!!! Diva Maldives is awesome. Almost feel it is too nice for me. ALMOST. Friday I arrived via sea plane as you now have read. I spent the rest of the day exploring the island/resort. So an atoll is essentially a group of islands. The Maldives is made up of several atolls. The Diva Maldives is located in the south Ari Atoll. I picked the Diva Maldives because of the dive shop here. Typically whenever I'm going some place to dive, I check PADI for the diving operators that are in the area. As you might expect, there are hundreds here in the Maldives. Euro Divers has several in the Maldives and is considered a 5-star dive center. When I emailed them and expressed my interest in the local whale shark population, their first answer was the Diva. More to come on my diving adventures but I can definitely say the diving in the Maldives is AWESOME!

Okay, back to my resort. When I arrived and had checked in, I was escorted to my room. Now, I just have the standard "garden villa" but it is pretty pretty cool. Check it out:

One of the coolest features is the shower. It is "outside" and in fact, the entire bathroom is basically outside. Check it out:

So you can see the walls end right above the shower. Pretty fun! The rest of Friday was exploration...

Maldivians know how to TAXI!

Okay, as you hopefully are now aware, I'm in the Maldives. The Maldives is a country just east and south of the southern tip of India (east of Sri Lanka). Here's another shot:

So, on Friday, I hopped on an Air India flight from Bangalore to Malé, the capital of the Maldives. Here's another shot of Malé

And the little slice of a landing strip they call Malé International Airport:

So, once I landed, I connected with the Diva Maldives contact after clearing customs. Funny little fact, the Maldives prohibits alcohol coming into the country. Now, granted, it is essentially a Muslim population, but certainly works out in favor for the resorts! I read this from a post on Trip Advisor but not like I was going to try anyway. Seriously. Okay, maybe I thought about it! ;)

So, from Malé International I'm taken to the Diva hospitality suite. Sweet.

Here, we wait for our ride on the Maldivian Air Taxi to the resort...

Mysore Palace - Part 2

Okay, first, make sure you check out Mysore Palace - Part 1!

So, as I was saying, our first main stop for the day was the Summer Place of Tipu Sultan, otherwise known as the Dariya Daulat

Here's some quick info on the Summer Palace:

And here are some great shots of the grounds and palace:

And of course, a quick pic of your favorite blogger:

Mysore Palace - Part 1

Okay, finally time to give you my Mysore Monday post! I HAVE to post this now because I can't wait to post about where I am staying now: Diva Maldives! Okay, so Monday Drew, another coworker who had just arrived in Bangalore, joined us on our adventure. Also joining us was a member of Drew's Bangalore team, Swanu, and Swanu's family! We left our hotel and went to pick up Praveen on the way. Praveen is from Mysore so he, once again, graciously came along as our guide. Once we got on the road to Mysore, we got great views of outside of Bangalore:

We stopped for breakfast at a cool, outdoor place and tried some more fantastic Indian cuisine

Okay, so I haven't been keeping up with my facts but here's some interesting detail about the road to Mysore...