Male is the smallest capital in the world- 6 km2! 133 412 people live there which means 23 000 person/1km2! Streets are very cramped and crowded. Everywhere you will see motorbikes. They are quite dangerous when you are trying to cross the road. They don’t care about people 😉 Buildings are high so they can fit all of this people.
Sightseeing
This one is funny one 😀
(link to map: http://tnijurl.com/male/ )
The city is very small. It won’t take much time to see it. On the top of Male, you have the main market and a lot of attractions is located close to it. There is the most important Mosque for Maldivians and Police Building. There is fruit market and fish market. And some other old buildings just to walk around.
We were walking around the city whole day. Without the plan, just to see the city and regular streets. The city is very loud and crowded. It’s hard to cross the road or to just walk. After a long wandering becomes exhausting. But it’s definitely worth to see. It’s uncommon to be in such a small capital, in such a small town on such a small island. This very interesting to see how many people can be on the streets 😉
Hotel
We arrived at Male on Wednesday at morning. We decided to stay one day at Male and on Thursday take prom to our island. We decided to rent a room here at Lvis Boutique (Hotel). Price was very good with breakfast it was 50$ and they promised to pick us up from the airport.
When we landed at Male a guy pick us up, paid for our ferry to the city and say bye bye 😉 after we arrived to Male another guy found us, ordered a taxi, said where he should leave us and paid for it. We get to the hotel and another person welcomed us, helped with our luggage and took us to the room. It was very nice and very helpful as we just arrived after 14h trip. Receptionist told us where we should go, where we should eat and how to get next day to the port.
Room was very clean and cozy and the breakfast was very nice too. We can recommend you this place 🙂
Currency exchange and souvenirs
We discover a very and nice place where we exchanged money and bought souvenirs. The owner is making business with Polish guy from Mielec 😉 He’s buying energy drink 'XL’ and selling it in the Maldives. When we were buying a lot of souvenirs we could bargain with him and got a really nice price.
Food
We eat in three restaurants. Two times in one 😉 All recommended by our hotel. And the food was veeery good and cheap. For a meal for one, it was around 5-10$ depending what you want to eat.
The first one is a local restaurant where you are paying one price 5$ and you get to eat it all 😉 Everything was local and very spicy. The soup was so spice that I eat only one spoon 😉 It’s called Cafe de’ Argan. You will found it on map 😀
Second place was The Olive Garden. We were there twice. Food was very good. Local and European. We where eating local 😉
But… on our last day, before our flight back home we wanted to eat lunch. We were looking for some restaurant and we almost went to Akoya Restaurant. But some guy spotted us and told us that the food in Akoya is expensive and it’s better to go to The Olive Garden and he can take us there and give us a good price. Because during last 7 days we met only nice people we trusted him… We went with him to Olive, he spoke with the waiter and we get a menu. And the prices were 3 times higher than when the last time when we were there by ourselves! It was a very big difference. We’ve get really mad. We’ve left this restaurant immediately and went to Akoya which was next door. Someone in Akoya told us that this is normal practice to scum tourists and we need to be careful.
Food in Akoya was awesome 😉 Red burger and pizza with tuna 😀
Beach
There are only two beaches in Male. But no bikini beach. And at one there is construction site 😉
The city is very colorful and interesting. When you are going to the Maldives you need to stop in Male just for one day. To feel this city.
Police station
Shop with headscarves and hair ornaments. I bought here hair clip with plumeria flower 🙂
