Part IV
After an hour or so of exploring the impressive TK lounge, we were about ready for our 2am departure to MLE. Truth be told, I was sorta anxious to finally depart IST given the instability of the prior month or so. Walking through the terminal, you would never in a million years know what happened in the prior month or two. The boarding process had already begun at the gate when we arrived. We bypassed the main line and headed towards the J-priority line to quickly boarded the A333. Without boring anyone with the details, the A333 business section has seats arranged in a 2-2-2 format. We were seating in 4J and 4K in the second to last row. The lie flat seats had a pretty large footwell that offered more than enough space for my feet. Since we had been up for 15 hours or so, we were mostly interested in sleeping, despite the 13 or 14 inch IFE system that had a huge movie selection.
TK A333 Business Class by
Barry Lincoln, on Flickr
TK A333 Business Class by
Barry Lincoln, on Flickr
Leaving IST... by
Barry Lincoln, on Flickr
Leaving IST... by
Barry Lincoln, on Flickr
We fell asleep within 10 or 15 minutes of take-off and enjoyed some much needed rest. We woke up a couple of hours before landing and were served breakfast (Star-K from kosher caterer in IST). Wasn't much to write home about but was definitely filling.
Airshow - Approaching MLE... by
Barry Lincoln, on Flickr
Landing at MLE is a unique experience that I imagine has been discussed before on DDF. Ibrahim Nasir airport is tiny, has one runway and no taxiways. Airplanes land, taxi to the end of the runway and make a U-turn to taxi down the same runway to get to the terminal. As J passengers, we deplaned first down the mobile stairs into the terminal. Before departing IST, we were provided with fast-track immigration cards that allowed us to use the special fast-track line. Immigration took no more than 5 minutes, a couple of passport stamps later we were waiting for our luggage to emerge from the primitive looking baggage carousel. While waiting, it was hard not to notice the list of items that are prohibited from import into the country. Those items include alcohol, pork and pork-related items, porn, materials contrary to Islam, etc. Outside of my talis, tefillin, siddur and and random sefer I wasn't too worried. But given others' experiences, I knew that even those items were harmless. After about 15 or 20 minutes, our luggage finally emerged. We gathered our bags and proceeded through customs to the arrival hall.
As we proceeded through customs, an official-looking officer motioned to us and pointed to the secondary inspection line. Throngs of people are passing through and we were singled out for some odd reason. I got mega nervous - not because of my talis etc, but because of our cooler and frozen pom meals. I didn't want to have to begin explaining why we needed to bring in our own food and open up a mega can of worms. That said, the officer was not the least bit interested in our cooler (which incidentally looks kinda like a square duffel bag). He wanted to inspect our Samsonite hard suitcase. I'm thinking to myself, what could we possibly have in our suitcase that could get us into trouble. I was baffled. They only scanned the suitcase and when it emerged from the xray scanner, they made me open it on the table for everyone to see. They rifled through our suitcase and found..... a bottle of grape juice that I had packed in a ziploc surrounded by our clothes. After several minutes inspecting the bottle, he let us through. The only thing I can imagine is that when the bags were removed from the planes cargo hold, they were scanned and any bags requiring secondary inspection were tagged with a red sticker (subsequent review of our suitcase showed a red sticker). As we were about to leave baggage claim, the officer saw the sticker and motioned for us to the secondary inspection station...
With that said, we were immediately met by two Conrad reps as soon as we entered the arrival hall. They led us to a quiet corner and introduced themselves. They asked for our passports to expedite the seaplane transfer and took our luggage to the seaplane desk. They emerged a few minutes later, returned our passports and said that our luggage was a bit overweight. We'd have to pay an overweight fee of ~$50 - no big deal really. They then escorted us to a waiting van that would take us to the Conrad lounge until our seaplane ride was ready. We were joined in the van by a single guy that turned out to the the Conrad's in-house revenue manager returning from some time off in Male. While I don't have pictures of the lounge, it's a great respite after such a long journey. The staff all recognize that pretty much everyone has had a long trip and they try to accommodate everyone's needs, from drinks to food to a free massage!! It felt like the lounge was at 70% capacity - a ton of Asians there with what looked like their extended families. We were offered a 15 minute complementary massage that we took advantage of. Felt great, especially after the long trip. In addition, the spa staff on-hand said that if we were to book a spa appointment at the Retreat Spa or Overwater Spa now, they would include a facial at no extra charge. Not a hard sell at all but still good to know.
An hour or so later, our names were called as the seaplane transfer was about ready. We boarded the same shuttle for the five minute drive to the seaplane terminal where we were directed to a room that was showing a pre-flight safety video. 15 minutes or so later, we were finally escorted outside to the waiting seaplane...
TMA Seaplane by
Barry Lincoln, on Flickr
It was our first time on a seaplane and the experience did not disappoint. While the flight was incredible, it wasn't worth the $1100 we paid for it but alas...
TMA Seaplane by
Barry Lincoln, on Flickr
Views from the Seaplane...
MLE Airport by
Barry Lincoln, on Flickr
Male, Maldives (TMA Seaplane) by
Barry Lincoln, on Flickr
After reading up a bit on Male, it is apparently one of the most densely populated places on the planet, with 150,000 people living in 6 square kilometers... crazy.
Seaplane Pic by
Barry Lincoln, on Flickr
More to come on our Conrad arrival, accommodations etc...