Afternoon in Male

One afternoon we took a tour to Male, the capital of the Maldives. The largest city is only a 15 minute boat ride from the hotel. The main island is so small you can walk from one side to the other in about 20 minutes.

The tour guide explained all the sights on a map and then we were off. As soon as we made it between the buildings, we lost the cool ocean breeze and it became very hot! We walked past the president's office then headed to a old mosque made out of coral with ornate carvings on the exterior as well as the gravestones.

Next stop was the Sultans park. There were some old historic buildings with huge trees in the center. At the tops of all of the trees, there were hundreds of large bats just hanging upside down getting some sleep. 

The last stop before the shopping was the largest mosque on the island. I had to cover up in order to enter. Since it was not prayer time the place was empty but they said over 5,000 people attend Friday prayer there.

Heading to the market we first stopped at a fish stand. They had barracuda, dolphin fish, and swordfish on display but the main fish in the market was tuna.

The Maldives prides itself for its sustainable tuna harvesting practices.  Only the bait fish are caught with nets and all other fish specifically tuna (their largest export fish) are all line and pole caught. The varieties were huge from 18 inches long to ones that were 5 feet long. That gave me an idea for dinner that night - Maldivian tuna curry which was awesome!

We quickly walked past the vegetable market and got to the souvineer street so Melissa could get down to business. Our main tour guide wanted to take us to specific shops and we quickly figured out that there must be some kickback to the company as the prices were crazy. We pulled the tour guide in training Youseuf and told the main guide we would meet him back at the boat. This was much better as we hopped from every store until we found the perfect (and much cheaper!) authentic Maldivian lacquered vase to add to our collection. After our successful shopping trip, we treated ourselves and Youseuf to ice cream as we waited for the rest of the group for the boat trip back to the Sheraton.