A swaying evening, at Hideaway Maldives

Under water, Hideaway maldives

Perhaps we were in a northern part of the Maldives waters.  I've seen some fish species I haven't encountered before in the south.

Dinner buffet, at Matheefaru restaurant, Hideaway Maldives

The resort's butler kept on reminding us to use the dinner credit to try the other restaurant.  However, the credit is just US$45 before service/tax.  So if you went try the other restaurants, we had to pay around US$100 extra after the credit offset.  It really wasn't too appealing.

Fortunately the dinner buffet quality wasn't too bad.  So we just skipped trying the other restaurants for dinner.  *P.S. tried taking all these photos at super dim light (about 5W light - the last photo showed what source of light it was).  Once again, a bigger censor on the camera was far more important than those twin or triple or xx times lens on those hand phones.  Take these photos on a new Fujifilm compact camera but with a censor of APS-C (2/3 full frame format).  It's just at US$400.  It's still much cheaper than those extra camera features of the high-end hand phones.

resting and hunting, Hideaway Maldives

Wibit, in Hideaway Maldives

The first thing of this resort caught my eyes was this Wibit floating game.  The whole unit was placed in a deeper water of the calmer sea area so that if you fall into the water, you won't get hurt by hitting the bottom.  It's a bit difficult for you to climb up if you don't have a good body balance, especially on your core of spine and thighs.  Even when you step on it still, you need to hold your core well.

Interesting that not only Thais but also many other foreigners prefer to go out for water sports when the sun is about to set.  If it's in a swimming pool, then it's fine.  I'd hope to tell them it's not safe to do anything with splashing sound in the sea when it's sunrise or sunset.  Usually many bigger marine life like sharks or mantas would be stimulated for hunting with splashing or high paddling noise.  

Sunset Pool Cafe, Hideaway Maldives

There are 4 restaurants in this resort.  As we were moved to this resort, the meal plan originally booked for Carpe Diem was on an All-inclusive 3 meal plan.  However, this resort has only full board and all-inclusive plan (unlimited choices for anything you can order from the menu).  Ended up the waiters/waitresses here were a bit confused for our set meal with AI drinks.  We could have a 3-course set lunch at this restaurant Sunset pool bar and meeru bar as well as a buffet dinner at the main restaurant Metthifaru or using a US$45 credit at other restaurants.

The lunch set menu was with a limited choices for a salad, seafood ceviche, cauliflower soup as starter, Steak panini, catch of the day or mushroom risotto as mains and one scoop of ice cream as dessert.

Fortunately all the dishes offered in this restaurant were beyond my expectation.  Besides, the ambience and the service were even much better than the other 3.

Water Pool Villa, HIdeaway Maldives

A week before taking on a trip to a new resort called Carpe Diem, I got an urgent note from the agent that the resort couldn't be opened in time due to the Gov't delay in issuing a permit for the security system.  So the resort offered to move us to a few other choices of resorts.  So we chose this one and earned back a US$1,000 a night.

This resort was once called Island Hideaway, and it was renovated with 50 water pool villas in addition to its 30 beach villas.  The whole island was so big that you had better take the buggy services to go to the restaurants.  Pros and cons - you would spend more time in the room but you would miss some scenes in other parts of the island.

The room is very spacious at 190 sq. m. Quite a standard Maldivian water pool villa design.  Chose a room facing south with the all day sunshine as the sun is moving south during this time of the year.  The weather was very fine throughout the entire stay.  

大眼雞(木棉魚), Big Eye Fish, Hideaway Maldives

It was the first time I saw this very old friend in the water of Maldives, or I should say "meeting them in person".  This is one of the preferred choices of my grand ma, parents and aunts in my kid's time.  It's also difficult to choose a right one.  If it's not fresh, it's very smelly and the meat very loose.  I recall how my sisters emptied their bowls of rice with this steamed fish juice mixed with soy sauce/ginger/scallions and oil.  Wish my father could also see it on the other side of the ocean.

In the shade, Hideaway Maldives

Ready for a catch of the day, at Hideaway beach resort, Haa Alifu Atoll, Maldives

It looks like quite HK style that the seafood restaurant would have some fish tanks for the customers to pick up the catch.  The only difference is that this fish tank was filled with 100% crystal clear sea water right from the middle of the Indian Ocean.

Bronze fish vs wooden fish, from BKK to Maldives

Sometimes we may have some Deja Vu at some scenes encountered.  This time, a day after I saw this fish sign of Laem Charoeng (a seafood restaurant of BKK), I saw a raw one in a restaurant of Hideaway resort of Maldives.