Unexpected Maldives

Maldives for €280 each? Is it a joke? Sure, it's just a flight, and yes, you have to add the taxes (€898 in total for two, everything included), but it still seems like the deal of the year! We send our booking request to Borsa Viaggi and meanwhile Daniela gets moving to find, in record time, information on the feasibility of a holiday in the Maldives outside the tour operators...

IT CAN BE DONE! The search for a resort begins, sending hundreds (and I'm not exaggerating) of availability requests and quotes to the links we find on tuttomaldive.it and mondomaldive.it; in the end the winner of our own personal tender, balancing price and the positive reviews found online, is ASDU (we read that it's a bit spartan, but we're backpack travellers, so simple accommodation doesn't scare us, not to mention their offer, $55 full board!) We leave from Bologna around midnight with Eurofly (congratulations for the charter!) and arrive at Malé airport, where an unexpected humid heat greets us. As agreed, they come to pick us up with the speedboat ($130 each) and after less than an hour of sailing we reach Asdu...

the Maldivian island just as I'd always imagined it! After the paperwork they take us to our bungalow, simple and essential but in the end nothing is really missing, and on top of that they clean the room twice a day. It's the last one in the row, right on the corner of the island, and we notice that just below us there's a nursery of sharks, small ones, but still sharks... accompanied by rays, morays and little fish with which they train in their first shark attacks.

Throughout the week the food is very varied, with some refinements like pizza and some truly phenomenal desserts! Naturally fish reigns supreme, also because a guy from Rimini who had gone fishing came back with more fish than we managed to eat in a week! The diving guys (Valentina and Riccardo were really friendly and proved efficient and well prepared, especially when I ran out of air (I always breathe too much!) and when we surfaced in the middle of the sea and there was no boat because it had broken down and was drifting... and so were we, but after less than half an hour they came to get us with the water-ski speedboat. Dives? Very beautiful, and above all, thanks to the sighting of two manta rays (one on the first dive and one on the last), we had some great thrills.

The island is very beautiful and above all quiet; in the early afternoon you get the impression of being the only one there! The snorkelling is really worth it, all around the reef, even though the little harbour part has somewhat damaged coral, but you know... tourists! Good weather almost all week, it only rained one day but we took the opportunity to relax in the room with our books. Verdict...? I'd say the island is splendid, the resort simple but very well run, the diving reliable, and a round of applause to Borsa Viaggi, which let us grab this offer on the spot... who knows if it will happen again, we're here waiting for it! If you need any info, we're available: didodandan@fastwebnet.it Bye bye Diego&Dany