making the most of our day in Male

---

we wake up being sad knowing that we should be getting on a plane today to head to India. We decide to make the most of a sad situation. First we go have a nice breakfast down by the water, then we come back and decide to head to one of the beaches for the day. After getting ready, we went downstairs to find how to get to the beaches only to find out all the beaches are controlled by resorts and the cost is $130 per person. Well since we had to pay $400 for the hotel for the night, we really didn't want to pay that since it would just be what we did for the last week on the sail boat. Instead we decided to just hang here at the pool and just get a massage.

we went back to the room, I watched a movie on the TV. Shelly napped a bit then went to the gym. Then we had our massage. It was great. It was a mixture between a Thai massage and an American massage. After this we went to the pool area and read for a couple of hours. The pool is on the top floor and overlooks the water and the airport (on another island). They have these comfy sofa lounges to sit on. Around 4, Shelly came down and cleaned up and headed over to the Indian Consulate. She went in saying she was so sorry for yesterday especially with the hotel getting mad. She said she even cried.... We didn't get the visa BUT, they did tell us to come back at 10am and they would see if we could get them early on Tuesday. The lady kept telling Shelly she could lose her job by doing this.

After Shelly told me the news, we got online to see our flight options. We're pretty sure we will get the visas Tuesday, will it be 10am or after 4pm. Either way, we don't have many flight options. the flight we really want that is direct and leaves at 2:45pm is full and doesn't even show up. our other options are thru SriLanka and we arrive at 8:50am on Wed morning to India. Our plan is to try to call SpiceJet (if we get the visa at 10is) and beg to get on the direct flight. If not, we have 3 options for the SriLanka flight 3:45pm, 8:00pm or 2:45 am. all connect to the flight that gets us in at 8:50am. The 3ish would be my hope and we just spend the night at a hotel in Colombo SriLanka. Who knows and who knows what the price will be when we actually can buy it. This visa is costing us a chunk of money. :-(

We then decide to go back over to the airport island and have a nice dinner. We go to the same location (Hulahale Hotel) but this time we go to their best restaurant. We were the only ones there. The restaurant is on the 4th floor overlooking the water. There was a gold fish bowl on the table. Shelly didn't like watching a fish and asked them to move it. The hand towel they gave us to clean our hands was served in this little dish and they poured lemon water over it. I grew into the hand towel. So cool.

We each ordered a small bottle of wine, me white, Shelly red. These small bottles held about 2 glasses of wine. The wine was - not bad - not great, but not bad. The dinner on the other hand was wonderful. We both had Indian dishes. After dinner, we took the ferry back to Male and crashed.

Keeping my fingers crossed all goes well on Tuesday.

---