Dear Diary - Day 6

It’s a bit disappointing coming to the Maldives and being inundated with rain, but just as surely as something is biting my legs, this place is Paradise. So far we’ve had two sunny days… and that has got to be better than Salford.

I know that people on Trip Advisor go on about the number of stars Meedhupparu claims to have, and just how unworthy it is of the stash of sticky-backed gold nursery school accolades it proudly advertises. But, in my experience, a five star hotel in Moghadishu has all the trappings of a 1-star Bangkok brothel. I couldn’t really care how many bloody stars it has; but rather that it gives us what we’re looking for. And this place does. In buckets.

It’s certainly not a gastronomic wonderland; but cooking for 400 people of mixed origin cannot be easy. The food is edible, and apart from seeing one cockroach in a salad we have had no cause to complain. We didn’t actually complain about the cockroach; Sims just said to one of the servers… “… There’s a cockroach in your salad.” They acted promptly and swapped the salads around. And the cockroach went on an all-expenses paid holiday to somewhere else.

There’s an interesting mix of people here on Meedhupparu. Mostly Germans, Russians and Chinese.

The Germans are, pretty much, stereotypical. “Two Beers!’. Without as much as a please or a thank you…  we’ve paid to run away from Angela Merkel’s Europe so that we can treat people like shit. We like doing that. We have heritage in that department. And we’re doing that here… Which is stupid really when you think that the only engine-powered vehicle on the island is a Toyota flat bed with no doors. They can’t exactly say “…We make the BMW and the Mercedes Benz”.  Well they could, but nobody would understand what the hell they were on about.

The Russians appear to be on some obscure, but obviously dangerous, KGB mission; fuelled by alcohol and memories of The Battle of Stalingrad. However they are, generally, tempered by their exceedingly large wives. In tight-fitting bathing suits. Apart from the Russian prostitutes who pose in their lurid bikinis for photographs that Ivor will not dare show his mum back home in Vladivostok.

The Chinese are great. Firstly, they don’t drink. That’s a bonus as far as the hotel is concerned. Secondly, they are sartorially interesting. We spent an afternoon watching a young girl parading around in her wedding frock having her photograph taken by, one assumes, her new husband. This was followed by a neoprene diving suit shoot, an evening-wear shoot and then a shoot that involved a rather large pink wide-brimmed hat. Thirdly, and finally, they have all the kit. Cameras with lenses the size of Linford Christie. Plastic coral walking shoes. Embroidered his and hers shirts. White gloves. Anti-smoking paper breathing masks. The lot.

The live entertainment here is fantastic; if you like listening to a Chinese girl in her forties giving it her all to an empty auditorium.  I was half expecting a chorus line of Russian prostitutes in sequined g-strings and feather boas giving it ‘tits and teeth’ but no, we got Sing Sing doing what her name suggests - to an electronic backing track and an empty dancefloor. Poor girl. I could propose that it’s because the area surrounding the stage is the non-smoking section, but I’d be on shaky ground. If “Live Entertainment” is the holiday deal-breaker…. Go to Skeggie or Blackpool.

And we’re only on Day 6!

Tonight, as we casually entered the dining hall we were met by a team of people wearing joke shop masks and bed linen. The floor of the hall was decked with leaves, twigs and those fruit things that cripple you if you stand on them in bare feet. As I did. An Asian DJ was playing Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”…. over and over and over again. Aha! Of course! It’s Halloween…

… in truth it appeared to be a great gig for the table waiting staff who, devoid of their uniforms and with their faces masked,  could pull whatever kind of shit they wanted to on the unsuspecting guest. Our waiter, a rather charming gorilla with a white face, was as attendant as ever although the misalignment of the mask and his eyes meant that service was a little bit like being in a 1960’s drug movie.

So, after the hallucinogenic episode that was dinner, we went to watch the “Fish Feeding”. (21h00 every night… North Jetty… Be There!) And, after a lot of persuasion from Sims, I finally acknowledged that the thing that looked like a black “Creepy Crawly” swimming pool cleaner was, in fact, a manta ray. Bloody hell; they’re impressive things. In a dark, wide, and very flat kind of way. Not good stock for a chip shop I’ll suggest.

Without my trusty watch, and not having worn shoes for a few days, I am getting vaguely confused. What with the magic wristband I am, truly, in heaven. I have just realised that in every shot in this post there is a beer. Proof of the magic wristband at work. 

As I sit here in the dark, radiating heat from my bright red shoulders and legs, I can honestly say that this is the best place I have ever been to in my whole life. All that’s missing is a barbeque, some A-Grade meat, and a bit of charcoal…

And if one more fat balding pale person in long trousers says to me “…well this isn’t as good as Fuckinshuhuru where I went with Barbara two years’ ago.” I’ll shove a bottle of all-inclusive house vodka up their rusty starfish.