The immigration form asks for your address in the Maldives and as is usual, provides enough space to put in one half of one complete address, so you put in the name of the first hotel which is in Male, the capital of the Maldives.

The officer, knowing that no tourist is going to spend seventeen nights on Male, asks where else you are going, writes on the form the other four islands you are visiting and accepts your assurance that you have confirmed bookings on each.

Then after collecting your backpack from the carrousel and passing unhindered through the green channel you are confronted with a small army of greeters with placards for various hotels, resorts or persons.

Not amongst them, as is often the case recently, is either your name or your hotel.

So you wander through the crowds staring at each and every placard you see like a lost child looking for its mother. Eventually you see a familiar name and relax knowing you have not been abandoned at the airport.

Briskly your greeter strides off (you will not see anyone else in the entire country moving at such pace throughout your stay), and you scamper after him trying to steer your eccentric luggage cart between the masses without clipping too many ankles.

Fifty metres later he stops at a kiosk and buys for you tickets for the ferry.

That is right, although the Chinese are very kindly paying for a long bridge to span the kilometre-plus waters between the airport island and the island of Male, it is a few years short of completion and you need a boat.





A fair size boat it is, you and maybe fifty others climb aboard at the bow, drop your luggage in the provided space and pick a bit of upholstered bench.

The engine growls, the boat reverses out of the jetty and then heads for Male.

This stretch of water has a large atoll lagoon on one side and a lot of Indian Ocean on the other and the waves roll in. They break on the armoured shore of a small island you pass en route and pitch and roll all the airport ferry boats plying the route, yours included.

But after a few minutes you pass through a gap in the breakwater and the relative calm of the airport ferry harbour. The boat docks and everybody with their luggage steps off the boat onto the pavement.

Now this is a standard two metre wide pavement to a standard width road which is crowded with not only the everybody and their luggage who just got off your boat but another everybody and their luggage who want to get on your boat to go to the airport. Nobody can overflow onto the road because of the impenetrable barrier of motorbikes parked handlebar to handlebar stretching as far as one can see in either direction.



When your airport greeter put you on the ferry he informed you that you would be met at the other side and then presumably sent a detailed description ahead of you because you hear your name called and turn to see greeter number two standing a few feet away and looking directly at you.

Unfortunately that few feet encompasses the great wall of motorbikes. You walk along the pavement and the greeter matches you walking along the road until you come across a gap in the defences. Now he tries to flag down a taxi, which he tells you can be difficult at this time of the day. Several bits of hand waving later a taxi pulls up, a brief negotiation ensues, money changes hands, your packs go in the boot, you go in the back and your greeter says he will meet you at the hotel. He came on his motorbike.

This part of Male has a one-way system and like any good taxi driver the world over yours knows a few short cuts up narrow alleyways such that you never travel in any one direction for more than a hundred metres. Once you are thoroughly disorientated the taxi stops, as it has several times before, but on this occasion your door is opened from the outside and you climb out to spot a complete stranger lift your backpack from the boot and walk off with it. You follow him as he turns the corner into a narrow alleyway made all the narrower by another solid row of parked motorbikes with your most recent greeter sitting on one of them, a big smile on his face. He points you toward the door your bags disappeared through, you do likewise, you have arrived and the welcome drink is being offered.