If you travel to Maldives than your speedboat or seaplane can’t go to the resort directly than you must stay for 1 night and this how to explore Male city during your 24 hours transit time. Hi lovely people my name is Bima and thank you for stumble upon my photography blog. I went to Maldives twice and I love this country so much and if you asking me about Do I still wanna go there? than 10 times is not enough to exploring this such God’s masterpiece on earth for sure.
Due to my wedding photography business system so I need to travel both with my wife cause she is the only person that able to help me both for business and leisure. Some part she gonna help me to hold my heavy Nikon D810 but some other time she help my couple to do simple make up and hair do.
See the above snapshots, on that session I stay in the same resort where my couple stay cause due to Maldives’s geographic weather condition it is so hard for me to move from one resort to another one in super tight schedule. So when I shoot for Denise and Joel engagement session than we stay together in such 5 star beautiful resort called the Angsana Velavaru.
A year before I also went to Maldives for another pre wedding photo shoot, we stay in another glamorous majestic resort called the Lux* South Ari Atoll and this is what I’m going to share with.
When your flight landed in Velana International Airport over than 4pm and your resort is far from the airport than you must stat in Male City for 1 night cause there is no transportation at all to further destination, kindly check your international flight below and make sure you got the most suitable schedule for your own:
When you fly from Singapore to Maldives than flight schedule is a bit challenging, sometimes it could be 2 flights in a day but sometimes there is no flight with the same company so during my period I travel to Maldives directly in 5,5 hours from Changi by using Tiger Airways and it was nice, food was also tasty.
What You Need to Do After Landing in Maldives
Maldives airport is formerly named as Ibrahim Naser but back few years ago they re-branding the airport to be Velana International Airport. 15 minutes before your flight landed than the airlines stewardess will ask you to open the window and once you do that than go see your outside view, you definitely will see the unique Maldives’s sea water, it divided into 2 colour, the green and dark blue. Green colour mean shallow water and the dark blue mean deep blue sea and it was amazing view for sure.
This airport is not that big but they provide very good information from the immigration, food, and surely the money changer.
There are 3 (three) thing that you must do after landing in this airport:
- Walk out for airport terminal building and find a big lobby or entrance area where there are a lot of resort representative and re-confirm your arrival, if you book the resort than you will get a note about your resort desk number on that area
- Tell your resort staff where your transit hotel is and what time that you must ready on the resort representative’s desk tomorrow
- Ask them is there any option to leave your big luggage on he counter so you don’t need to bring your Coolife Luggage to Male City.
Cheap Transit Hotel in Male City
If you wanna get 1 night transit in Male City than you must take the Maldivian boat called Dhoni and pay arond MVR10, almost equal to $1 than you gonna landed in nice local looks capitol city called Male City within 10 minutes.
I browse my cheap hotel transit by using Agoda and here I stay for 1 night in nice-chick hotel called Lucky Hiya, this hotel is small even the elevator only can occupied 3 person with big luggage and when you entering the room and yes they were still small. Don’t expect to much on this hotel for the facilities but the cleanliness, staff hospitality, and breakfast are superb!
By letting your resort staff on the airport know about where you stay than they gonna make a phone call to your transit hotel about your check out time and they work together to arrange the right time for you to get breakfast and check out to catch your speedboat or connecting flight to the resort….this what make me love Lucky Hiya hospitality for sure.
How to Explore Male City During 1 Night Transit
I check in at Lucky Hiya around 1pm and want to find some local food and souvenirs to my mom and kids so after this let me share some simple tips about how to explore Male city within 24 hours. Male City is not that big and the best way to explore this capitol city is by walking but please be aware about the surrounding cause some traffic light are off and all Maldivian people are riding with a scooter in a rock and roll style.
They not wearing the helmet, speedy rider, and only turn the horn on many times to let you go from the street row. They not going to crash on you cause they definitely humble citizen but this is how they ride.
Pedestrian way are quite small, 60 to 70 cm so when you walk with your fiancee and there is some one who gonna pass you in than you must stop your walk for a seconds.
All you need to know is Maldivian is moslem country, they were 100% moslem, not in radical way but some store will close for 15 minutes during praying time, they have 5 times a day praying and I found my self that there are few store’s owner who close their door and lock while they praying….you still can see their store but you can not enter cause it is locked for 15 minutes.
1 – Find Local Looks Restaurant and Get Your Meal Together
Maldivian are so nice and humble, so what I’m going to do in this afternoon is get local lunch with my wife and sit together with all the Maldivian. I’m enjoying my lunch time so much and here I order hard lunch menu cost around MVR100 equal to $10 and that fulfil my hunger.
- 2 plate of basmati white rice
- Spicy chicken with local herbs
- Chicken and curry soup
- Naan bread
- and 2 bottle of mineral water
When you entering this kind of local food than you directly go to the glass meal bar and tell the staff by touching the glass, so it’s like a manual touch screen technology for me, LOL.
Order all menu that you want, pay in CASH (they don’t provide card machine at all), get your seat, and EAT WITH YOUR HADS LIKE LOCALS! I commonly eat like this in my home town in Indonesia so I get used for it and all the food is melting on your mouth and they were so tasty!
2 – Go Walk to President’s Office
Now it’s time for you to sightseeing around the city on foot, some street is small even only 2 scooter can pass away but regularly they have like 6 meter wide street. This street will consist of people, scooter and some parked car so stay aware with surrounding cause the traffic is a bit hard to figure out.
I saw not that not so many Maldivian has a car for their own even only people who provide a transportation business got a car at home. During 24 hours in Male City I only see 1 Mercedes Benz E Class and it belongs to the president of Maldives.
3 – See the Sunset Near the Harbour
When you walk to the President’s office and sit back for little while in the big piazza than you also can enjoy the sunset at the same place. I walk for little bit more further and find the harbour where my Dhoni from Airport to Male City landed and see a lot of double propeller seaplane coming back from their job.
There are also few cafes and local restaurant that you can visit for snacks and cold drinks while the sunset is coming down. You can continue your journey to get dinner but today I choose to bring all the food back to hotel and enjoy it together with my wife.
This is all about how to explore Male city in 24 hours that I could share to you, I know that there is not so many activities cause I go there for photoshoot but I hope this story will inspire your and give you an idea of what Male City looks like and how to enjoy this incredible place in very short period.