Looking back it’s like a dream. The picture perfect days (my husband says the Maldives is the one place that lives up to the postcards!) swaying palm trees and best noodles I ever tasted (see Part 1 here). Oh yeah, the noodles…
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The Conrad Maldives Rangali Island has a ridiculous array of of restaurants (12 in total!) to choose from and we plunged in on our first day to watch our noodles freshly made by hand. Now I don’t know if it was my obsessive photographing that made me all the more hungry but when I scooped up these beef noodles freshly made at the new Chinese restaurant Ufaa by Jereme Leung to taste it was a little like dying a little, in a perfect culinary way. We devoured the noodles and just when completely sated we were offered up the most incredible dumplings. Bye bye beach body, hello foodie heaven.
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Had to sip a little coffee and take an exploratory walk along the beach front afterwards before paying a visit to probably one of the Conrad’s most famous restaurants, the Ithaa Undersea Restaurant for a mid-morning cocktail. You’ll probably have seen this photographed – rated “the most beautiful restaurant in the world” in 2014 – and it’s such a feature that you can pay a daytime visit to check it out with a glass of champagne and small dish. Tbh, it’s such a photo frenzy, eating and drinking come secondary. Gus absolutely adored this, especially when the baby sharks started making an appearance.
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[ezcol_3quarter]A little note to the island’s much loved and very friendly mascot heron George. Gus was in paroxysms of delight as George would boldly came right up to us outside the undersea restaurant and even joined us at Vilu restaurant on on the beach later that day for dinner… Below George and Gus are perched just out the underwater restaurant where all the fish are gathered below![/ezcol_3quarter] [ezcol_1quarter_end][/ezcol_1quarter_end]
Gus’s little surf suit by Boden – an absolute lifesaver as it really took the worry out of him burning! (Also on sale just now.)
Further down my bikini top also by Boden.
[ezcol_1quarter][/ezcol_1quarter] [ezcol_3quarter_end]After the day’s activities of bamboo stick massage – trust me, took one for the team there 😉 – noodle eating and underwater restaurant visiting Gus and I whiled away the afternoon on the beach, sloshing in a tiny inlet not far from our water villa, checking out the little birds who had staked out their territory in and around the sunbeds, collecting shells and tossing coconuts in the water… [/ezcol_3quarter_end]
Dress | Beach Cafe
Sandals | Palmaira Sandals
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Outfit below
Trousers | Beach Cafe
Top | Revolve (similar)
Sandals | K Jacques
It was really fantastic being able to eat somewhere different every night, the standard of each restaurant so high. We loved the Mediterranean menu at Vilu – the breads were incredible and that was just to start! – where we had a tour of the incredible underground wine cellar replete with dining table, jerombaums and $52,000 bottles of champagne. One night Gus fell asleep before food had even arrived, so the waiters sweetly fashioned a little bed for him out of two chairs and we had a super relaxed meal eating a whole load of lovely seafood. Our last night we had the most dreamy and fantastic meal on the beach with an incredible selection of grilled and BBQed fish and meat. And all the desserts 😉
Pretty tough to face the last morning after such on-repeat days of sun, sand and eating in a picture perfect postcard of a place. Always important to make time for a good breakfast before back on the seaplane and facing the journey ahead… Our Maldives trip couldn’t have been more perfect and special and created a whole new set of wonderful memories for me and my little family. Gus is already asking to come back for his fifth birthday! Job done 😉
We stayed as guests of the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island – find out more here.
All shot on the Olympus Pen F with 17mm & 45mm lenses
