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The Maldives Day 6: Arrival at Kuramathi

Day 6 in the Maldives started with a transfer to our second stop - Kuramathi Island Resort! To get there we had to go back to the airport and take a small seaplane. This was my first time flying on a plane this small. I think it held about 14 people really jammed together. I thought it would be a much rockier flight, but it wasn't bad. Plus we got to see the Maldives from above! It was only a 20-minute flight so pretty quick. 



It was gorgeous! And kind of crazy looking from above. So many rings in the ocean that were beautiful. 


It made me think of a petri dish or something. 

It was crazy! I loved it!









We landed out on the water

And took a quick boat ride over to the island

Someone was waiting for us when we arrived and took us to the check-in desk at the other side of the island. Kuramathi is almost 2km long, so a bit bigger than the last stop. At first I was a bit sad and missing our tiny island, but honestly if we were to go back I would definitely come back to Kuramathi and skip our first stop. I enjoyed Vadoo, but Kuramathi was so much nicer even if it is bigger! They have a buggy service that drives around all day and most of the night to take you from one side to the other. Our room was down at the first side by the sandbank which was much quieter than where we got off the boat. That was the popular, busy side of the island with a lot more guest houses and accommodations. 

After getting checked in they took us out to our room and it was amazing! Giant bed, huge bathroom with a large bath you could soak in and look out over the water, an inside shower and one outside as well. It was wonderful. This is the pool and our deck! 

Having some sprite in fancy glasses. I think I need to get some fancy glasses so I can feel all frou-frou drinking my non-alcoholic beverages. 

It was quite a bit more humid on Kuramathi than it was on Vadoo, but it was almost lunchtime by the time we got settled so we headed down to the bar that is close to our place and had a nice, cold beverage. I checked the weather and it said it was 85° but feels like 96°! Crazy!

Then off for lunch at Palm. Kuramathi has 9 different restaurants, 3 buffet places where if you just get the normal all inclusive you eat there for every meal, or the extra all inclusive, which is what we did, where you can eat at any of the restaurants as well. We did that since they said they couldn't guarantee vegan options on the buffets except for salad. We only had breakfast at the buffet places and lunch and dinner in the restaurants. It was wonderful! The first day I had pasta and veggies which was tasty. We got a salad as well, but I forgot to take a photo, but it was so so good! I actually had the salad and pasta every day for lunch...

Now at the last place I wrote how everyone treated me like I didn't exist which was annoying. They only talked to Raymond. Well that wasn't the case here. Everyone was super friendly and talked to both of us! The one guy at lunch came over and talked to me while Raymond was using the facilities. He was super nice and we talked to him for a bit. At first I said thank you because he was clearing our dishes and he asked out do you say "thank you" in your language? I said just thank you - English is my first language. He was just like really?? Where are you from?? Apparently he couldn't place our accents and it was only when Raymond said certain things that he could tell we were from there. It was pretty funny, but he was super nice. We talked to him a bit about working there and how he picks up bits and pieces of so many different languages from the guests. He was really nice. 

Then back to our room to swim in the pool! We should have done that before lunch because it was so much better once we got in the water! The heat and humidity were tolerable once again. They had given us earplugs for the tiny plane ride since it could be loud (it wasn't really that loud) and Raymond's ear was bugging him afterward. All clogged up and not so good. 

Still we enjoyed an afternoon of swimming



You can't really tell but there were tons of hermit crabs walking along the beach! So many!!


Lots of fishes



Our bungalow from the pool. It was nice because for most of the day you could sit in the shade on the deck if you didn't feel like swimming. Or to dry off before getting food. 


Hermit crabbie in the middle!


And some more

Seriously it was gorgeous, although the opposite side, the sunrise side, the water was much more beautiful. The colors were unreal. Though we did have the big reef for snorkeling on our side - that is what is beyond the lines out there in the water. When it is high tide you can swim out and then it is not very deep to look at the fishes. 

Our first sunset!



Again going behind some low clouds. 



Raymond doesn't really care...



After sunset we headed down to the other end of the island to go to the doctor (they were closed in the afternoon) to get Raymond's ear checked. Luckily it was just some earwax that the ear plugs compacted and blocked everything, though they did say he had a slight infection and gave him some ear drops to put in every day. 

Then back to our room for more swimming - this time at night! The pool had lots of tiny lights in it that would change colors, but just looked like the stars in the sky. It was wonderful swimming around and stargazing. I wish we had a pool like that. Or lives somewhere where we could just swimm by the water all day and night. Oh, I loved it so so much! 

For dinner we tried Siam Garden, the Thai restaurant. Our waitress was so much fun. Super friendly and talkative and I loved her! She came over to ask us if we wanted the Thai tasting menu, or discovery menu or whatever it was called and we were just like no thank you (it was all meat). She was just like wait...have you been to Thailand? Have you had Thai food before? We just laughed like yes and yes! We ate all the food in Thailand last year and love Thai food! We started with some spring rolls. 

Then we both ordered the Pad Thai. When it came out our waitress was just like I think you guys need some veggies. What about one of the veggie dishes? Let me get more things for you!

So we got the Pad Broccolis See-Eiw which was amazing!! So simple, but so tasty

Afterwards we were pretty stuffed, but the waitress convinced us to try a dessert - fried bananas and ice cream. Raymond ate the ice cream and man I was so stuffed! The waitress tried to talk us into more ice cream, but we were just like we can't! We can't eat anything else!! Really they always tried to get us to eat so much food! We just gave everyone our room number when we ordered something and I guess it pops up that we were on the all inclusive plan so they really tried to get us to take advantage of it! It was great and the food was really tasty. You definitely wouldn't starve if you visited here. 

Our waitress also took a photo of us. It was so humid, but they had lots of fans. Most of the buildings were just open air structures, all the restaurants and such, with fans. It was really nice and a great first day at Kuramathi!

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