Lunch buffet at Epicure, Cafe of Niyama Maldives

The trip to Maldives has broken my record of having taken almost 3,000 photos. The place is so beautiful that I even forgot introducing some of the meals I took at Niyama. Here is the review. When booking thru' my agent, I got a Half board arranged, which is good enough. As after a full breakfast, I can't eat much at lunch and then later a full dinner meal. Epicure is so thoughtful in having a light salad buffet at just US$20++. They serve sushi and hot sandwiches made to your order. In considering it's a 5 star luxury resort and in Maldives, US$20 is a real bargain. Back to the salad, it has quite a wide variety of veggie as well as tuna, chicken breast and other meats. More than enough to me and taste pretty good.

Far too much electronic

On my flight back to HK on SQ, the flight path map has been all the time mis-located in about 4-5 km difference. The below photo showed how the plane docked on the airport, not the flying position. I noticed quite several times the current GPS on various smartphones and tablets, esp. running on Android having this kind of GPS distance variance of around 3-4 km. Perhaps nowadays the electronic communication is much overloaded and jammed. As I consider this is the year of 2012, the technology shouldn't be like this.

From HK to Male with Singapore Airlines

I spent quite many times for planning a trip to Maldives and failed, due to the flight being so full for a few months or the resort being full too. Finally as I could make it, my travel agent suggested me have a more leisure transit time at Singapore Changi Airport (almost 4 hours) though the A380 flight from HK to Singapore has ample transit time of 2 hours and plenty of seats. No doubt A380 does have quite a lot of problems since its launch. So no need to bother with flying A380.

Singapore Airline offers a better firmer economy seat cushion than Cathay Pacific, and more leg room too. Service-wise, SQ is a bit better and very traditional in providing hot towels and meal menu before the flight. The meal tray and presentation is also pretty traditional. The front folding tray has a mirror (photo 2/3).

As for the inflight entertainment, it has a very wide selection of movies and music as well as games. However, the electronic system is not that smooth. Two of the four flights I took has some problems that I couldn't use it. Quite unexpected to see the RCA jacks (the conventional analog input for L/R audio and video) (photo 1), but wondered who would bring RCA cables onboard.

Journey retrospective: Maldives

Perhaps my family used to live by the sea. I feel so warm and touched whenever I am close to the sea. This place is so "sea". Every day the cloud, the sun, the wave, the fish come by and very different from day to day. Seen a sky without any cloud. Rain through a sunset, and a cloud in its happy solitude. What a wonderful world.....

fishes and the coral

Ibrahim Nasir (Male) Int'l Airport, Maldives

This airport is built on the island Hulhule and acts as an international hub for Maldives with domestic connection to various major islands in the south and north. The airport looks pretty raw but fun that the passengers walk to the plane (photo 7). As I watched other passengers walking to their planes and I was one of them, I had the feeling of expat-withdrawal (撤僑).