Blue Water

Today is a beautiful day. I am sitting watching the sunlight reflect off the ripples on seawater, wondering if the clouds on the horizon will sweep in later this afternoon. It is a great time of the year to be in the Maldives, cooler weather, light breezes and the afternoon storm before a bright star-lite night. Festive season is nearly upon us all and there is an underlying mood that settles into oneself and those around.....excitement, anticipation, planning, longing for places familiar all those things creep in around this time of the year. Goodness knows I do not miss the hurly-burly of Christmas shopping but I do miss the making of a good Christmas table and the noises and smells that go with cooking Christmas lunch for all the family. Now I have someone do that for me, but I can remember saying to my family after a particularly long and hot Christmas lunch that I wouldn't mind next year going to a restaurant but now I'm not convinced having spent the last few Christmas's abroad. But time change and capturing past times is not always what it is cracked up to be in your mind, and I am happy to take on these new moments in time.

Progress

Little Zac

My friend Khun Mint
My mate Miecha
Artist's assistant


My buddy, Crane
My South African pal, Claire

The Eugenie, Bangkok
Celebrity Squares @ Casa Colombo
Party in Maldives
This is it's real colour!
Another sunset in the Indian Ocean

My artist in residence husband and I have had a long-held ambition to simplify our lives and to put our passion for travel and making new friends into practice. We are doing just that and it has been 18 months since we started in earnest. Looking back over our first year, it has at times been challenging but the wonderful experiences we have had and are still having, speak volumes, we do not need any convincing that we have done the right thing.

Since my last post, we have been in the Maldives staying in one of the most beautiful resorts out in the Indian Ocean, travelled back to Sri Lanka, stopped off in Bangkok to meet our newest grandson, Zac and finally as I write we are in Phuket, Thailand.

So here are a few pics from those travels. Our blank canvas is filling up with fun, friends and family, oh and elephants.

Casa Colombo, Sri Lanka

Flightdelays....flights cancelled....are we ever going to be out

of Male Airport.....savour...Emirates.....up-grade....smooth flight....what a night!

Arrived into Sri Lanka and forgot that the airport is an hour's hairy taxi ride from Colombo....what a fright!

Wide-eyed, white knuckle drive into town. We had

booked a trendy looking hotel along Galle Road, a bit of a change from the historic Galle Face Hotel, where we had stayed on previous visits. I'd come across it on a web-search and thought it looked very arty and I was so right, love that. We arrived to a driveway strewn with rose petals, I know, I know, that's a bit over the top, even for me, but there we were a little travel-worn standing on a runway in front of our hotel. Bazaar, is this a Bollywood set?

In fact it was close, Tripadvisor, Small Luxury Hotels, Asia Pacific Hotel Awards and the beautiful people of the who's who of Sri Lanka all enjoying themselves. We had arrived at Casa Colombo Hotel and they had just won "a 5 Star award at the hotly contested Bloomberg International Hotel Awards held in Shanghai this year, as having the Best Hotel Interior in Sri Lanka. The 5 Star award is the highest award given to leading properties in the world that are engaged in hospitality, retail, leisure and residential.
In addition to this prestigious award, Casa Colombo has also been nominated by the well-respected ‘World Travel Awards’ Committee for three categories, which are - Asia’s Leading Boutique Hotel 2011, Sri Lanka’s Leading Hotel and Sri Lanka’s Leading Business Hotel. The results of these nominations will be announced end of November 2011.
Furthermore, Casa Colombo was awarded Exceptional status by Tripadvisor.com, which is rated entirely by guests who have stayed at Casa Colombo. This recognition shows that Casa Colombo not only excels in its aesthetic appeal, but also surpasses and delights its guest in exceptional customer service and care." quote/unquote Daily Mirror http://www.ft.lk/2011/06/23/casa-scores-again/

We must have looked a little like deer caught in the headlights as we were quickly gathered up by a very personable GM, who introduced himself as Horst and 'of course you want a cocktail'....I instantly liked his guy.

A fascinating scene was being played out in front of us and suddenly we were caught up in it all, downing margaritas, which were served in dainty dished cocktail glasses circa 1950's with our ever smily and very sexy young Sri Lankan butler, Arrun bringing us delicious tapas. We swanned around the lobby being introduced to the owner and his wife and owner/interior designer, after a couple of hours of all this we decided that the party could continue without us and retired to our suite. The interiors and the exterior of the hotel are stunning and I think that everything that needs to be said is in the post above, needless to say that we were pleased with out choice.

The shopping in Colombo is excellent if you want clothing, especially their cool beautiful cottons and hand-printed batik silks, you can find them, after a little looking and they are inexpensive, nearly said cheap. Unfortunately they are starting to import clothing from Thailand and China, let's hope with the booming tourism market that Sri Lanka is not tempted to go the same way as a lot of other Asia countries where there is a growing trend of cheap knock-offs and where every shop or market sells similar goods.

Anyway, would have like to do more shopping but our suitcase was looking like a pregnant pup and our tuk-tuk driver had gotten so friendly with us that he had tried to adopt us and take us into the hills to see his family, so we called it a day and went back to our beautiful little hotel.

At Casa Colombo they do not have coffee or tea making in your suite, which we a bit odd in this day and age but turned out to be very a very sweet way of starting your day...just a phone call to our 'ever-ready' Arrun and a pot of coffee with cool-looking round bottomed coffee mugs arrived on a tray....similar to the 'bed-tea' experience that we had in some of the hotels in India....I'm liking this and I think it should be bought back into resorts. Great way to start the day. Of course I must say here and now that this experience will never really replace my artist in residence husband's early morning coffee-making ritual.

Met a lovely lady at the breakfast on the first morning, Mary, a ballet teacher from the USA, who was there is visit for the first time her sponsored child, who is now a young woman of 21 whom she had been supporting, educating and writing to for the past 16 years. She's a solo-female traveller in an exotic less-travelled land for American tourists and I was very pleased that we had the chance to chat to her, it's great that the world has people like Mary.

Here are a few pics from our Colombo escapade.

Kihavah's Underwater Restaurant

There's a song that I hum when I'm happy....it's a Beatles tune...'I'd like to be under the sea in an octopus's garden', well, I've found it here at Kihavah Villas, they have such a place.

It's their underwater restaurant called, quite simply, Sea, looks like a wonderful place to dine, out of this world really. Fully submerged under the Indian Ocean and cleverly positioned right on the edge of the reef's drop-off, so you can see all manner of fishes and marine life just swimming on by.

One of the staff there told me that the other day a guest asked him if it was really just an aquarium....well, no.......the real thing.

It is a beautiful place to go when you are on the island, just to watch the fishes. I go down there whenever I can, lucky of me it is open for 'viewings' twice a day. They do an exclusive wine/food matched dinner. One of the guests I have befriended here and he's a foodie from the UK, said that it was in his top 10 of best ever dinig experiences, so I think that's an excellent recommendation. It's not a big restaurant, seats about 16-18 but they do it well I understand, all this is secondhand I must add, I haven't had the opportunity to dine there, yet so no pics of the food! Pete, the wine guru is a great guy, knows his wines, big time and I often rib him about him having the best working space in the entire world!

Here are some pics as a teaser, really it must be seen, so come on over my friends.

(That's me with Sam, she's a great gal from the States.)

Kihavah Resort & Spa on Baa Atoll, Maldives

Recently arrived at thenewest resort in the Anantara group; we had been here during the last days of the construction phase and I was very pleasantly surprised, to see the final outcome and in a word, this resort is 'magnificent'. I had on my earlier visit raved about the native flora, so I was pleased to see that it had been lovingly retained and merges beautifully with the resort buildings. I haven't seen so much natural landscape preserved and integrated so well into a resort on the Maldives, so it's a credit to the owners and the construction team. Having worked on many building projects, I know how hard it is to keep the sites in tack, so full credit, you got it right. I'm not the only one blown away with theresort, I read every day more and more glowing articles, so I don't want to sound like I'm parroting on, but it really is lovely. It was my artist in residence husband's idea to paint the buggies into a 'Fleet of Hogan Fishes' and they look even more amazing now that they are in use and it gives me a good feeling when I see them flitting about the island, laden with guests and seeing the guests reaction to them; with many asking for their photos to be taken, with them at the wheel. Meet some wonderful new friends from Switzerland here recently and here's a pic from Yannick's photo gallery, with him in one of the buggies, very cute!

My favourite place on the island is the Sky Bar, know what you all are thinking but no, it's not just because of the obvious, it's that and the terrific views and mostly, the comfy lounges that some very smart guy, think it was the GM, decided to put up there.

Talking of smart ideas, I love the library...and I am not the only one, I was chatting with a journo from Eastern Europe and told he told me that he wholeheartedly agreed with me. Expounding it's virtues even further by saying that he was finding that he wanted to spend a few hours in the library rather than doing just about anything else, so it's not just me. It's not something that you would expect to see on an island in the middle of a trendy resort, good idea though and so are the bookcases in the villas, stocked with an interesting array of books, gold star for that idea too.

Here are a few pics from around the resort, to enjoy.

I am going to post another blog solely on the underwater restaurant but for now there are just too many photo opportunities to fill one blog.

Sala Resort Phuket

Stayed a night at Sala Phuket Resort & Spa on Mai Khao Beach, it was totally a last minute decision, it's close to the airport, as we were leaving next day for the Maldives, it was convenient and to our delight we found that it was a beautiful resort. The staff, especially the front of house were delightful. After being welcomed by the GM, a mate of our daughter's, we quickly realised that we had booked our flight to Bangkok at a far too early departure time, not only would we be waiting at the airport in Bangkok for 6 hours but, and more importantly, we would miss a 'Sala breakfast'. We had meet the chef on a couple of earlier social occasions and liked him instantly, young guy from USA, which is a country not really know for their culinary skills and I think I may have told him that, but he is so charming that he just would smile and say, 'lady, wait until you're tried my ribs'! Well that's an offer too good to refuse, but over the time we spent in the resort only a few minutes away, we never had the time to take him up on that statement, so happily I can report that we were lucky enough to be staying on a Wednesday..."Rib Night" so we had his ribs and his wonderful sauce and I agree they are the best ribs I have ever eaten. So was the Burnt Orange Margarita, what's that about, amazing, Jon if you're reading this, please ask your F&B manager to share his recipe, it's too good to keep to yourselves.

Our pool villa was very stylish, all white on white, with some arty sculptural touches, my personal favourite colour scheme. Loved Jon's personalised mini-bar, very nice. Loved the swing by the seaside. Loved that the room had a huge burner with wonderful aromatherapy & essential oil. My artist husband and I had been saving a bottle of French bubbles and decided that this was the place to pop the cork!

Here are some pics to share with you.

Koh Samui

We drove around the island each day, went to some great restaurants and stayed a wonderful 3 nights at Anantara Bohput.

On the road to Koh Samui

A few days off between Thailand and the Maldives saw us taking a drive, turned out to be a long hectic drive to catch a ferry to Koh Samui. We should have known when some of our friends in Phuket started asking us if we were going to fly, no it will only take 2 1/2 hrs to drive there, said others, so off we went armed with a lot of information, first hand of course. Thank goodness for my new iPad's navsat, yes, we set out a bit later then we had planned, always the way when you have to catch a ferry. But we made it with several hours to spare, and enjoyed our 3 nights over at the island. All I can say is that if you plan to go, take a flight.

Here are a few pics from our holiday.