Gw kira rasanya akan sama aja. Ada rasa kangen ya wajar karena jauh dari tempat yang selama ini kita sebut familiar. Tapi ternyata ada rasa rindu yang pukulannya berbeda. Di kasus gw, gw cuma kenal satu orang Indonesia. Beliau bilang kalau mau temen jalan-jalan bisa lah berkabar biar jalan bareng. Tapi karena gw ada kerja dari senin-jumat, sedangkan beliau nggak, jadinya waktu kami seringkali nggak pas. Sedangkan di akhir pekan, gw habiskan bersama suami. Bulan pertama masih terasa integrasi. Berusaha mengenal supermarket mana yang jual apa. Cari ini itu di mana. Menghafal jalur transportasi umum. Mengenal, membaca dan memahami nama daerah atau tempat dari huruf cyrilic-nya untuk sekedar "kalau nyasar, bisa kasih tau suami lagi ada di mana" karena seringkali online maps dihambat pemerintah. Bulan kedua sudah mulai mengenal banyak hal. Sudah punya kartu atm untuk pembayaran. Visa panjang juga sudah di tangan. Mulai berhati-hati dengan banyak hal, mana yang boleh mana ya...
Can you spot me?
How can I miss it already? I never had such an expectation when it comes to a hotel/guesthouse. I mean, why should I? It's just a place to stay when we're away from home. As long as it's clean then it's good enough.
Until I stayed at Island Break. This guesthouse is an exception. We stayed there because it is bundled with our PADI diving course. I was too focused on my first diving stuff so I didn't really care where to stay. H asked for a guesthouse recommendation, anywhere doesn't matter as long as their food is good.
How good that can be huh? I guess it would be pretty standard, no?
Good lord! I am in love with this guesthouse the moment I stepped my feet in. Why? I don't even know why. Lol. I mean... alright let me tell you my experiences here. When we arrived by speedboat, it was pretty late because our flight was delayed for almost an hour before we could actually land. So we missed our 1100 speedboat and had to wait for the 1600 speedboat. In an hour, we arrived at this small cute island called Fulidhoo.
fish fillet
folhi
To be able to say names in Divehi is a little bit of hard work for me.
They picked us up at the pier, brought a little open-car-electric-taxi that I don't know how to call it, put our luggage and everything there, and walked with us to the guesthouse. Well of course someone is driving that little car to the guesthouse. Someone else was picking us up from PADI. It's Adele, briefed us about PADI and everything.
HULK, the electric car to carry our lugage
first floor
Before we even walked to our guesthouse, one of them said "Oh look, it's stingray coming." And then the shark was coming too. I have never seen them that close. My jaw dropped and I was in awe. When we get to our room, I love how simple the room was. Everything was just perfect. So we went down to see the sunset at the beach and they asked us what we would like to have for dinner. We said, "Let's try the local food!" We ordered a fish fillet for both of us, then Folhi for dessert. Man! That was really the best! It has a familiar taste as Indonesian food but still, I can taste the difference.
stingrays and sharks are coming every day, so social.
The next day we ordered Mashuni, a kind of breakfast of Maldivian style. We love to try local food. And it's another mind-blowing moment for me. This mashuni is made from tuna mixed with shredded coconut meat, onion, a bit of chili, and something else. They warned us many times that their food is spicy and I couldn't help but said "I am Indonesian, give me your best of spicy food!" Though I am actually not into spicy food, their spiciness level is still way below mine. So when I said, "Do you call this spicy?" the next day they add chili powder for us and made it even spicier lol!
Not-so-spicy mashuni. and the next day they add chili powder 😂 still not so spicy lol
But enough about their awesome food, spending day by day there with them and seeing only 4 of them (It's actually managed by 4 brothers but one of them got sick so he had to be treated at the hospital. But they have one help too, someone from Bangladesh). I see them every day for the last 10 days. When I said something like, "Can you make us iced americano and iced cafe latte?" Ibrahim made it for us. Even when I told him, "This fish fried will taste better with sambal kecap." I described how sambel kecap is, and he came back with it to our table. He made sambal kecap without kecap manis, that tastes 90% like sambel kecap. Just the way we like it. Impressive work!
It was actually funny when I first encounter Ibrahim because he served a coconut drink and he saw me try to scrap the coconut meat using the straw. He laughed and "Give it to me, I'll open it for you." Then we talked a little that he was in Indonesia for a few years and he asked my name. I told him my name and so I said, "And you are?" He laughed then said, "None of Indonesian can pronounce my name correctly so just call me Ibrahim" LOL Alright!
our regular spot for lunch, by the beach
they took it seriously!
Actually, I know, the way they're serving the guests is pretty normal for a guesthouse. But I like how warm it was. Like, I slept in their house, instead of their hotel. It was so warm for me. Fulidhoo's stay made me feel like people taking care of me, instead of me taking care of people LOL. For once, it feels great to be taken care of. We even planned on going to Fulidhoo again for an advanced open water course lol. We're probably going to stay at the same guesthouse lol. Can't say no to our regular mashuni in the morning!
wow, the HULK is so interesting.. wanna try :D
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