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.