Unbelievable how fast two weeks can go, when you're on vacation ! The two weeks on Velavaru passed so quickly.
I have been home now for almost two weeks also. They too have passed very quickly, mainly due to the fact that I have had all the pics to look at, and to sort down from about 1100 to something less. Some will show up here of course ;-)
So how did it go then ? Well, some mishaps of course, but mainly very well. My brother picked us up at 03:00, sunday morning the 8th. Off to Skavsta (outside Nyköping) and approximately 100 km from Stockholm. We arrived in good time for check-in, and a few hours later we landed at Stansted. So far so good.
09:15 we took the Stansted Express to Tottenham Hale (took us about 35 minutes), changed to subway for a trip to Victoria Station (which also took about 35 minutes). Next was the Gatwick Express (another 40 minutes).
All in all it took almost two hours from one point to another. Since our flight at Gatwick was scheduled to 17:40, we had a lot of time on our hands. Some was spent looking in shops and having lunch, but most of it was just sitting around waiting for the flight to turn up on the monitor. Finally it did, and we took our bagage and went to the check-in desk, where we learned that they had already been open an hour and we were about the last passengers (probably). Two seats close to each other ? Not to be had at the moment, but since there was a stop at Manchester also,we had to wait for them to free the seats they had left. We got two seats in the middle of the plane. Not exactly what I had wanted.
The flight was almost on time and 45 minutes later we landed at Manchester. More passengers (and fuel I guess) and a full two hour stop before we finally got on our way again. No stopover in Bahrein, next stop was Male.
12:40 (local time) and it was warm and humid. It was also raining a little. It took almost 30 minutes to get through customs, and another while to find our way on the outside. The last part of our trip was by seaplane, and we needed to find the port. A representative from AirTours gave us an envelope with some information and told us where to go. We were picked up by a coach and transported across the airport to the seaplanes.
That's were next mishap turned up. Someone had played a little to much with "cut'n'paste". We couldn't find our tickets. After a while we found out what had happened, and since the ticket for my fiance was almost correct, we assumed that the one travelling with her, should be me (even though the name didn't match) ....Surprise if it hadn't been ;-)
A short wait and then off to the plane
This was my first time in a seaplane. I was really looking forward to it, and it was quite an experience. Totally different from the big ones. In every aspect. I enjoyed it. Forty minutes of low flying over the islands. The weather could have been better, but it was a nice flight anyway, and at last - Velavaru. By now we had been on our way for 31 hours in all, and it was nice to finally set foot on the goal.
We learned that Velavaru was a little overbooked at the time, and management asked us if it was OK to spend the first night in a Garden Villa, and get our Beach Bungalow the next day. We accepted. It wasn't so bad. Since it was quite late anyway, we just put on our bathing-things and went for a first swim. Then an island-stroll.
The light fades quickly, and soon it was time for our first real food.
The next day we met (very quickly) with an internet friend. He too was relocated the first night due to overbooking, so we made plans to see each other the next day instead. Our day was mainly filled with bathing, sunbathing, the first snorkeling tryouts and the first tests with the underwater bag for my digital camera (from Ewa-Marine). They didn't turn out too well. The display was so dark, I couldn't see a thing. I tried several different settings but the end result was the same. Total blackness. I switched to camera # two, with the same result. Black screen. Boy, was I glad I had a compact underwater camera (APS) as well. As it turned out, that was the only one I could use. 12 rolls of film in all. Let me tell you right away - it wasn't cheap! The rolls are 12 USD a piece (25 pics)!
So the days passed along in a similar way. Breakfast, a bath, some snorkeling (around 1 hour each time, and a roll of film every day), lunch, some more snorkeling, sunbathing, a drink before dinner, dinner and off to bed. Well not always. Sometimes we actually went back to the bar again ;-)
We talked a lot to our internet friend (Stefan) and to the german representative for TUI (Tina). She's such a nice person, and really devoted to her work. I wish more of the representatives were like her. Really doing everything for her guests. I really hope they appreciated her as much as we did. We didn't travel with TUI, as you know by now. We just had the good fortune to enjoy her company throughout our stay - and hopefully a while longer too.
We went on a few of the snorkeling trips. Velavaru's house-reef is quite a bit out, so there's a free boat in the morning and in the afternoon also. The trip is about 2 hours. It was the first time for me to go into the water directly from a boat, but after a few clumsy tries I managed quite well.
We also went on dolphin watching. We had bad luck and saw only a few fins though. A island trip to Bandhido and Vilu Reef, was a contrast to Velavaru. The locals don't really live like the tourists.... and Vilu Reef didn't turn out to be what I expected either. A little too crowded in my taste.
Tina took us on a snorkeling-safari along with about 10 others, and that was really nice. We got another glimpse of a few dolphins, but just a glimpse. The first reef had really clear water and was nice, the second reef was not so good and the third was really bad. A nice afternoon all in all.
To sum up the stay - it was great ! The food was good, not to mention all the desserts...yummy ;-)
This is only one of all the fantastic creations that we were treated with.
The weather was quite good, even if it was a bit windy. But as every vacation has to end sometime, so did ours. Time to go home again.
The departure was set to 12:30 but was delayed so we grabbed a quick bite to eat. We got away around 13:00 and had another stop at Vilu Reef and another one at Hakura Club, which made us come to Male 1,5 hours before our flight was to leave. Once more we were too late for a window seat. The plane 30 minutes late for departure also, but it was a direct flight to London, Gatwick, and we arrived late on the 23d. We went straight to the Gatwick express again. We had booked a hotel-room at Carlton Hotel. Arrival was around 01:oo in the morning and we headed directly for the bed. Not a good idea. It was absolutely freezing in the room, and we should have kept some clothes on.....we didn't get much sleep that night, the windows didn't shut all the way and with -2 degrees outside, the temperature in the room was low, to say the least..
The next morning we had a quick breakfast, and then we went to Madame Tussauds. Two hours later we got out and went to see the London Eye. That turned out to be all we had time to do before we needed to be on our way to Stansted and our last part of the trip home. We were there in good time, and had to wait in the lounge, and wait in the lounge, and wait in the lounge....Everytime we looked at the monitor it said "Wait in lounge", until the last time when it said "Boarding", and believe it or not, late at boarding - again. No window-seats this time either.
Back in Sweden again, late on the 24th, to snow and a few degrees below zero, but as always - nice to be home. Now we need to make plans for the next trip ;-)
Finally I found that Velavaru or Kommandoo seemed to be about the right size (and prize) for us. The problem now, was that there weren’t any places left around the time we want to go (middle of January). Ving had one trip left in April…. We could get Meeru, but that island didn’t quite fit into the definition “Paradise”. 225 bungalows are too many to fit my taste.
Now what ? I went looking abroad. Norway, Denmark, & UK. I found Vilu Reef on a site in Denmark, DiscoveryTravel . Way to expensive as it turned out. All inclusive was around 59000 SEK. A nice girl to talk to though (Estelle). She really tried to find something that would fit us. Even came with own suggestions (Mauritius).
On with the search. In UK I found a site with the travel I wanted, at a prize I could afford, the only problem was that they never answered my mail…..I probably should write their address also, but I’ll refrain from that. Maybe it was just a one-time error. At this point I nearly gave up, but on the other hand I didn’t really have any alternative goal. I was looking for Thailand, but found out that around that time, the trip wasn’t going to be much cheaper, so I went on to look for trips to the Maldives.
Almost by accident I stumbled into the site of Global Holidays and that’s where the search finally paid off. I found several trips there that matched my criteria’s and also some resorts I hadn’t checked out. At the end Velavaru seemed to be the right anyway, so I went along and mailed them some questions. A friendly guy (Alan) answered within half an hour, and we had some mails going back and forth during the day and at the end of the day the trip was booked ;-) Perfect service !
Now the only thing I needed to do, was to get the rest to work….Traveling from UK and living in Sweden, means I have to fix the small matter of getting to UK also. So I went to Ryan Air and started looking. Wow!! 249 SEK a person to London and 11 SEK back seemed like a real bargain. When the booking was finally done, the trip was not 520 SEK for two persons, but almost 1800 SEK (including taxes, insurance and other add-ons). Still cheap, but not as cheap as it appeared at first.
Ryan Air flies from Skavsta – Stansted (or Västerås – Luton), and connecting flight for us will be from Gatwick, so we will choose to go by train between the two airports (Stansted Express & Gatwick Express.) We have a 10hr gap, so that should not present a problem. It will take approx 1,5 – 2 hrs. Next item to take care of, is the fact that our return-flight from Male comes in at 21:20 and there is no Ryan-Air flight to Sweden at that hour, so we need a hotel room also. Browsing around a while to find a modest priced stay for the night, I managed to come up with Carlton hotel at Belgrave Road and booked us a room.
So now the trip in itself is planned from one point to another (I hope). What’s left ? Oh, yes, passport would be nice to have…..ours had of course expired, but with two months left that’s not really a problem either.
Last time we bought us snorkel and Cyclops before we left Sweden. We planned to borrow fins at location. At the end of our stay, one set got stolen. Yes, stolen…on an island with 50 bungalows. Hard to believe but true. We never found them. With only two days left we could cope anyway, but now we need a new set. So we went to see the same store (Dykhuset, Kungsgatan 73, Stockholm) where we bought the first ones (4 years ago) and precisely like last time we got a great service provided by the guys there. Cyclops and snorkel was not a problem. Very soon we had those, then we started to talk about fins. They recommended us to buy them now, to make sure we got a pair to fit our feet. Lucky for us. My fiancés feet are very narrow, and so she had problems to get the fins to fit. They sat very loose. The guys tried out several different ones, but each one presented a new problem. At the end she got a pair of diver-boots and fins and finally a good fit. The price of those things was way more than we had planned for, but we got a good discount on top of everything. That’s a good way to make customers come back ;-) And recommend others to do so as well…..Thanks guys! 
Now we’re in the middle of November, and we are starting to build up the expectations. Making packing-lists to make sure nothing gets left behind – and dreaming of Velavaru. There are a lot of pictures to help us, on www.velavaru.com for instance.
