The Other Maldives

The man sitting opposite me on the Three ‘o clock Dhoni is magnificently fat. He is chewing and spitting sunflower seeds, and I’m convinced that a single powerful spppit might capsize the whole ferry, or at least shake it enough to empty its contents into the warm Indian Ocean around us.

To my left, Nahu, who I know vaguely as a senior teacher from Velidhoo, begins telling me that foreigners rarely use dhonis. Resorts arrange for pick-ups via speedboat or seaplane, from which the view of the archipelago state at dusk is almost worth the heartbreaking price of the trip. The ferry, by contrast, has no uniformed staff, and it doesn’t travel to resorts. It has strangely comfortable wooden benches arranged so that everybody faces the open center of the boat. It has a patched blue shade-cloth above its passengers, who chatter incessantly and share food. It has character.

A small boy comes to collect our fare. It is far more than the 12 rufiyaa I was expecting to pay, but this is the Maldives, where I have learnt that everything is notoriously variable, sometimes for better but sometimes for worse.

“So why are you going to Malé anyway?” asks Nahu.

I laugh. “Malé? That’s a day away! No, no, I’m only going to just here, to Holhudhoo.”

Her expression changes, and she calls anxiously to the fat man in Dhivehi.

“Where are you going?” he asks me loudly, attracting the attention of some nearby passengers.

“Holhudhoo,” I tell him.

“In this atoll?”

“Yes.”

“You are going there –“

“Yes!”

“- but this dhoni is not going there.”

My face unwrinkles and I am forced to be serious for a moment.

“What?”

As it happens, what I believed to be the Three O Clock Dhoni was in fact a Malé dhoni, which had been scheduled to leave at one. Naturally, it had arrived at three, the Three ‘o Clock Dhoni was nowhere to be seen, and I strolled onto this rustic vessel in a state of happy oblivion.

At once there is a flurry of excitement on board, no attempt is made to conceal amusement at my blunder. Two men rush to the ferry-master, others begin making arrangements for me, wherever it is that I may end up. A veiled woman rushes over to offer me sugary fried short eats from a ziplock bag. I relax.

Nahu is laughing. “I think perhaps next time you will check before you just go, no?”

My face re-wrinkles into a sun-smile. “Perhaps I will”.

I notice a small upper deck onto which I could probably climb to watch the sunset.

Then again, I think to myself, perhaps I won’t.