Whilst I might have ambitions to be a restaurant critic (mainly as I love the idea of having a genuinely admired/ revered/ sought after opinion that is based entirely around being a very good eater and drinker.) this blog and my mindless witterings are not and have not ever been designed to be a “review” style site, but in my last post you will no doubt have noticed and raised a discerning eyebrow as I stepped into the world of the influencer. I mentioned and even hyperlinked both Qatar Airways and a hotel we stayed in Sandies Bathala….I know, move over Kim and Kanye, I’m coming through. Anyway, I have let this sit in the internet for nearly 3 weeks now and you wouldn’t believe it, no one, not one single hotel or airline have been in touch to ask me to trial their products? How does this life of influence work? What do you have to do…If going on holiday is all you have to do, I am about ready for another!
As you may have heard we managed to escape February lockdowns and isolations and hopped on a plane to The Maldives. It was glorious and being lucky enough to be completely devoid of the emotion of guilt, it felt wonderful knowing so few people could be enjoying the same experience.
After a year of claustrophobia and sleeping in my own bed, it was genuinely spoiling to have the warm gentle Indian ocean winds reopening our hearts to travel, fun, and adventure. But can we talk about The Maldives for a moment? It was genuinely beautiful, super amazing, I loved being with my boys and Lexi for a week and we are so lucky to have gone, but holy heck it’s boring and despite desperately wanting to enjoy it, I thought snorkeling was simply terrifying.
It may surprise you to know despite having great ambitions to be an extreme skier, climb mountains, cross deserts, or do my very best impression of Bear Grylls, truthfully I am quite proud when I get my leg through my boxer shorts without falling over every morning. So the idea of sticking my face into the sea and letting sharks brush past my nose was just a little bit too much for my nerves. To make it worse some bright spark told me that sharks aren’t even the scary ones, in the Indian Ocean there is fish with teeth like a hungry fat 4-year old that hates snorkelers. Something called a Triggerfish swims around its nest (WTF they have nests!) and waits for middle-aged men who are slightly out of breath, catching sunburn and trying not to be sick into their snorkel’s after a long lunch to float past, he then pounces and sinks his pearly whites into my soft bits forcing some kind of tortuous seawater facial enema inhale. This was all getting a bit too much.
But I had Archie and Jack in tow, sometimes literally, and I couldn’t show fear to them so I had to get on with it, and twice a day get myself out onto the most magical eye waveringly beautiful reef and do my best impression of discarded flotsam trying not to get eaten by the local savages. It wasn’t just the fear that put me off, I have been led to believe from years of watching Pixar that it would be quite hard to find Nemo. First dive, 3 mins in, he was right there. Easy peasy. We found Nemo. Hundreds of them. Job done. Rounds complete. Let’s move on. I just couldn’t even see what was challenging about the whole thing, so I gave up and retreated to the comfort of my first all-inclusive bar experience, which turns out to be nowhere near as awful as it sounded and proved jolly useful in making me forget the misery of being underwater.
So if you didn’t hate me for going on holiday before, you can properly hate me now. I didn’t even enjoy it for what it’s supposed to be. Don’t get me wrong, I loved going away and being on holiday, but I’m not rushing back to The Maldives and I am done with snorkeling. This video is a fabulous memory and is as much as I suspect I will ever need.
Great stuff, Tom. An honest appraisal of a fun family holiday. These are what you’ll all remember in 20 years time. Keep it up!
Ian