Short Eats & Yé Yé

I’m an entire country behind in my blog now, thanks to a great week spent with friends in Thailand and spending the last few days knocked out of action by a cold. Since leaving Maldives, I’ve explored Bangkok, given elephants a bath in Chiang Mai, kayaked in Krabi, endured a 12 hour bus ride across the Malaysian border, and slept through an overnight train ride to Kuala Lumpur (where I am now). I’m sure I’ll catch up eventually, but for the moment, I have one more post from what I’ve been thinking of “My Barefoot Month” volunteering with the whale shark program, as well as my favorite pictures of the sharks themselves.

On the rare occasions when you see them coming head-on, they're all mouth

And even from the side, they're still mostly mouth

Even on the days off, snorkeling was the favorite activity

Sadly, my time in the Maldives with the research program has ended, but it was a fun and rewarding experience that I could easily see turning into a vacation habit. Aside from accomplishing my goal of seeing and swimming with whale sharks (62 encounters in four weeks), I also got to meet some wonderful people from several countries, dip my toes into Maldivian local culture, and re-energize my spirits after three months of constant traveling. The lifestyle on the local islands is slow to the point of being glacial and it made for a very nice change of pace when the only reason I was hurrying was to be in time to see the sun set from the beach. At the same time, my days were still very active and full, thanks to loading and unloading the dhoni (“boat” in Maldivian) and spotting and swimming the sharks, with enough time left over for the occasional nap on the roof. Knowing my urge to keep traveling, I’d probably be climbing the walls after another month, but I left wanting more.

This is how I choose to remember the ferry rides between islands: blue sky, breeze, and rainbow

One interesting and unexpected side effect from my time in the Maldives is that it has really changed my perspective of “resort culture” and cured any desire I might have had to stay in a luxury hotel if I ever come back. Yes, the resorts are beautiful and yes, they will pamper you to an absurd degree, but they are so disconnected from any reality of local culture (reality, in general) that after seeing some of the local islands, I can’t imagine visiting without seeing more of that side. The resorts are like trying to live in a magazine spread, while the local islands are like hanging out with friends around a campfire (which, by the way, we did on the beach, and it was awesome). So, if you ever decide to visit the Maldives, check out some of the local guest houses and see what’s available, at least for a couple of days. They’re likely to be much less expensive, more sincere, and in the end more memorable. In the corner of the Maldives I visited (South Ari Atoll), a fun option would be a guest house or the new hotel in Dhigurah. If I had just come and stayed in one of the resorts, I feel like I would have missed out on so much, not least of which would have been the tasty delights of short eats and Yé Yé.

The old guy on the packet pretty much says it all - "I'm wired!"

As I mentioned in the last post, “short eats” is an absolutely brilliant relative of tea time, usually mid-afternoon, when you can get coffee or tea and a variety of snacks to eat. The best part is that when I first heard the name, it sounded petite and quick to me, like tea and a couple of crackers, but the reality is that it can last an hour or more and provide as much food as you can find room for, in order to provide you with the energy you need to make it to dinner. Both resort staff canteens served short eats -- usually some assorted pastries (left over from the guest breakfast), cornbread fritters, or cake -- but the best days were when we went to the local cafe on Dhigurah and feasted on real espresso and a wide variety of delicious spicy snacks, most of them containing tuna and all of them fried. It really improves the afternoon when you can get out of the sun for a while and eat your way through a few plates of home-cooked snacks, have a coffee, and then finish it off with a little after-meal betel nut. In the Maldives, betel nut is widely available as a palate-cleanser, but it’s not served whole like I’ve seen it in China. Instead, it’s shaved and dried into chips, then wrapped up in a minty leaf with some spices, chewed for a while and then swallowed. This results in less spitting of blood-red juice everywhere, but you do spend a lot more time picking little wood chips out of your teeth for the next couple of hours. To me, the betel nut experience is reminiscent of the Fruit Stripe bubblegum I grew up with; you get an enormous rush of flavor for 15 seconds, then spend a lot of time wondering why you’re still chewing on this flavorless lump.

A munching, crunching school of green parrotfish

"Hello Mr. Moray, how are you today?"

Well, no need to look so grumpy if you're having a bad day

A school of yellow-tailed snappers

Aside from a better class of snacks, the other reason I like the local cafe better is because they have an espresso machine. Real coffee is hard to come by in both the resort and local staff canteens. Instead, they have Nescafé, which I gave up on as totally unsatisfying by Day 3. Luckily, one of the MWSRP staff turned me on to a better substitute to feed my addiction; Yé Yé instant coffee mix. This magical powder claims to be a 3-in-1 blend of instant coffee, milk, and sugar, and I find it delicious, but don’t be fooled into thinking it’s actually coffee -- it tastes like coffee in the same way Jolly Rancher green apple candy tastes like apples. In fact, if you make the mistake of reading the ingredients of a packet of Yé Yé, as I did while drinking my first mug, you’ll notice that coffee is the very last ingredient listed in this “instant coffee mix”, while sugar is the first. Even more puzzling (or entertaining, or disturbing, depending on how you value your health) is the second-to-last ingredient: silicone dioxide. So while the package claims to contain a 3-in-1 mix of coffee, milk, and sugar, a more accurate description would be a 3-in-1 mix of sugar, milk and sand* (*mix may contain traces of coffee) But it’s yummy and cheap and makes you feel like a champion, right up until the sugar rush wears off. I considered buying a bag (they’re sold in bags of 50 packets) to send to my office in DC, thinking if the doses could be managed correctly, productivity could be increased by 1000%.

Fernando keeping watching on the roof while I hide from the sun

Not the best shot, but one of my only ones from below a shark

The MWSRP staff and October volunteers on the way back to the local island

Unfortunately, Yé Yé is indicative of a more serious problem in the Maldives - the diabetes rate is nearly 10%, which puts it about the same as the United States. The traditional diet is mostly a healthy mix of protein and carbs (tuna and rice), and the modern diet isn’t much different, so obesity doesn’t seem to be much of a problem, but the Maldivians seem to love their sugar to an unhealthy degree. Soda, sweet fruit juices, and energy drinks are the only cold beverages available, and every cup of coffee, tea, or cocoa has so many spoonfuls of sugar added that they require several furious minutes of stirring to dissolve. Breakfast tends to be the worst meal of the day, and I’ve seen bowls of cocoa puffs covered in sugar, topped off with a drizzle of honey. Since leaving the Maldives, I’ve noticed that this love of sugar seems to be pretty common in SE Asia as well, and most of the drinks, snacks, and breads are far too sweet for my taste, although the main dishes are very much to my taste - spicy and savory.

So that does it for the Maldives pictures and stories. It was a fantastic month that far exceeded my high expectations, I met a lot of great people and got to swim with a lot of sharks and mantas. Thanks to the MWSRP for the opportunity and I hope to have the chance to do it again someday (maybe even next year if I have any frequent flier miles left).