Yep you heard that right.. we are in what many consider “heaven” and still there have been some problems.
Let’s rewind a bit..
As soon as we arrived on Male, some random guys at the airport tried to scam us. They tried to sell us a local SIM card with an additional fee for credit cards, but we didn’t fall for such a trick, we hesitated for few seconds and then found out there was the actual shop selling those SIM cards (no fee added)
Then we checked in an Airbnb we had booked for 2 nights on Hulhumalé island next to the airport and what seemed online like a great Airbnb hosted by a Superhost, was instead another big scam.. dirty sheets, ants in the kitchen, amenities missing and everything looked old and bad maintained. We were tired and so upset. But still they refunded us half of what we paid for our stay.. so overall being cheaper it could be considered kind of okay.
7 am on the second day in the Maldives we went straight to the ferry terminal that was said to be the one that should have brought us on Ukulhas. Nope.. wrong side of the island. 14kg on our backs and we jump on the first bus that brings us at the right ferry terminal..
5 hours on a loud ferry (but still we loved it).
We arrive on Ukulhas and we are greeted by the owner of our guest house.. free orange juice as “welcome drink” which turned out to be a mango powdered juice with milk 😞.. we check in our bedroom.. A strong smell of mold, stained sheets, big ants walking around and the shared kitchen we asked for turns out to be the actual kitchen of the guest house that they say they would let us use it as a courtesy…..
We ask for a better room, but it’s actually worse. We keep the first one and we ask for a change of sheets.
The day after we go grocery shopping.. and we are shocked by the prices. Everything is SO EXPENSIVE. It’s actually cheaper to eat out. Plus finding vegan options is almost impossible. Bread has milk, fruit is so pricey and there’s practically nothing to have a decent breakfast. I feel so defeated.
We buy one mango and a can of chickpeas for 4.57€.
We go back to the guest house to cook some rice we have and we enter the kitchen.. it’s so dirty, old and rusty. And there’s practically only one pot to cook. I start boiling the rice and that’s when we see the “orange juice” which actually has milk in it.
I kind of have a breakdown. It’s not my first time, when traveling, to end up eating something non vegan.. but still the despair doesn’t get old.
It doesn’t matter how attentive you are. You’ll always end up eating or drinking something that’s not vegan. It doesn’t matter how high you keep your guard.. people don’t care. Even if you tell them some people just don’t care.
And even though it’s so upsetting it’s still part of the journey I think.
So all of this to say that we’re back at the Indian restaurant and probably we’ll eat here most of our meals cause it’s cheaper than cooking for ourselves.
But mainly all of this to say all that glitters is not gold