Welcome to the Soneva Fushi, truly God’s cerulean paradise on earth.
Maldives is that perfect canvas where the heavens have generously used large paint brushes to splash vast areas of ocean and beach, with solid colours of cerulean blues and whites. And it is in this perfect miraculous artwork, we wholly immersed ourselves during our brief Holi vacation break.
Laveena and I spent hours walking on the soft and powdery white sand beach, relaxing and reading on our wooden deck chairs, soaking in our private villa pool, studying the curious behaviour of the hermit crabs, photographing the wader bird and swimming in the calm ocean, with our colourful aquatic neighbours - the guitarfish, yellowfin tuna, the butterfly fish, bat fish, angel fish and even the black tip reef shark.
We stayed at #SonevaFushi, a luxury resort located on an island similar to the one I had imagined while reading Daniel Defoe’s book, ‘Robinson Crusoe’. The densely forested eco-friendly, 100 acre remote and tropical island is quietly tucked away in the Baa atoll. Although we did not encounter any cannibals and mutineers like Robinson Crusoe did, we did have a Mr Friday, the gentle Mahmood from Egypt, who went out of his way to make us feel like super-duper special, VVIP castaways.
As we bared our feet and happily embraced Soneva’s ‘no news no shoes’ policy, Laveena and I decided that on this visit (our second at Soneva Fushi), we would spend most of our time outdoors - inhaling the intoxicating aromas of the jungle, hearing the constant chirping of insects, taking in the distinct smells of the salt in the air, laying down on the quiet beach outside our villa and surrendering ourselves to the absolute and pure sounds and freshness of the ocean.
This was island life, where the open sky at night was clear and infinite, free from pollution and dotted with a countless twinkling stars.
At Soneva Fushi we had a wide variety of dining options including at Out of the Blue, Mihiree Mithaa, Once upon a table, So Hands On and we chose wisely.
Our favourite meal was at ‘Fresh In the Garden’, where Chef Derrick worked his ‘abracadabra’ wizardry in the kitchen and presented us with a 10 course fine culinary treat which we rated as one of the best we had ever had. It’s one of those meals worth taking a flight to experience.
We spent our evenings at #sonevafushi in deep conversations with other happy guests, we befriended and fed the island rabbits, foraged for herbs, danced under the moon light, sang aloud in the open air shower in our villa and we sinned in decadence in the ‘so chilled’ chocolate room, feasting on a wide choice of cocoa treats, ranging from tonka bean to salted caramel, from cardamom to lemon grass, from 75 percent dark to pink berry. Yes we did sigh with guilt but we still went right ahead and tried them all.
And then we cooled our already satiated sweet cravings with copious amounts of different flavoured ice cream. Dollops over creamy dollops, scoops over delicious scoops, in bowls and on our fingers, which eventually were licked squeaky clean.
Our time at Soneva Fushi is a memory we will forever cherish and one which we believe has enriched our ‘travel hungry’ lives in many different ways. Our days on the island, spent so effortlessly in the happy and blessed company of each other, we captured in photographs and through these priceless images and through animated conversation, Laveena and I hope to relive our time at Soneva in the Maldives over and over again....until our next visit, to a place we now think of as our perfect island home.
