Ihavandhoo: a tourist’s guide

Guide books about the Maldives are relatively hard to come by and it’s virtually impossible to learn anything useful about the upper-northern province. So, your local correspondent feels it is time to put Ihavandhoo on the map with a comprehensive guide to our delightful island.

Getting started
Located on the west side of Haa Alif, the northern-most atoll of the Maldives, Ihavandhoo is home to a thriving community of around 3000 inhabitants. After being somewhat neglected for several decades, Ihavandhoo only got electricity and street lighting three years ago.
Fishing is a lucrative business here, with fisherman from Ihavandhoo supplying a substantial proportion of the Maldives tuna exports. As a result, life is comfortable for most islanders and drugs, which have cast a shadow over many Maldivian islands, have not become a problem here.
Visitors to the island are few and far between and foreigners (save for a single Nepalese shop worker) are almost unheard of. Your correspondent’s arrival on the island provoked many astounded looks and a general sense of bewilderment. However, don’t let that put you off. This is an island just waiting to be explored.

Places of interest

• The Mosques: there are five mosques for the men and a similar number of smaller mosques for the women. They are beautiful and essential to our conservative Muslim community. Call to prayer takes place 5 times a day, starting at 5.15 am.
• The Jetty: nice for a stroll, some people watching, bumping into friends and watching a spectacular sunset.
• The Beach: white sand, turquoise seas and palm trees for shade. Actual paradise, as long as you disregard the assortment of fish heads, rusty tin cans, broken flip flops and nappies that litter the shore. We recommend the east side of the island because it smells better and there aren’t quite so many flies.
• The Island Office: the centre of government for our small community. The mobile bank rocks up here every so often and it doubles as a post office from which the sporadic post is delivered.
• Ihavandhoo School: if the island office isn’t the centre of the community, then the school certainly is. Opening hours are 6.30am to 9.00pm every day except Fridays. At all times you’ll find a gentle thrum of activity.
• The Court House: fortunately your correspondent has little knowledge of the workings of this building.
• The Power House and the Ice Plant: now we’re really scraping the barrel...  

Sports and entertainment

Maldivians are mad for football, volleyball and badminton. On any given weekend it’s highly likely that will be a school house sports tournament taking place. These make for good viewing if you’re prepared to get up at six in the morning. Otherwise, Grade 11 boys play football on the dirt pitch at 5pm every afternoon until sunset, although they're not that keen on spectators.



Sitting is an entirely legitimate form of entertainment here. Every household owns a joli, net seats slung on rectangular frames of four or five. They play the same role as park benches but are considerably easier to move and a very sociable way to sit. As an occupant of a joli it is possible to sit and do next to nothing for an incredible length of time.
As a guest on the island you will probably be invited to go fishing. Be sure to take up this offer, even if the trip is due to commence in just ten minutes and you have a whole list of other things you are supposed to be doing, because the invitation might not be repeated. Take sun cream because the sun is fierce and Maldivians have no shame in laughing at you if you come back looking like a lobster.  

Shopping
The other places that hold enormous interest for your correspondent are the shops. Fashion doesn’t hold high importance here, so we’re not talking clothes shops but that’s ok because food is much more exciting. The Big Shop (a nick name given by us) is, as the name suggests, the biggest shop on the island and a hub for the community. Shop here for rice, bottled water, juice and biscuits. When it has them, Big Shop’s fruit and vegetables are good but you’ll have to be quick as a vegetable delivery usually generates something of a stampede.
If the Big Shop fails you, other options include the Treasure Trove, for all those things you never imagined you could buy here; the Diet Coke shop, handy for its mysterious stash of Diet Coke, which is otherwise impossible to get in the Maldives; and the Corner Shop, so called because it’s on the corner of our street and it never has exactly what you want, although it can usually supply the next best thing.
Should you need to buy clothes, or any household items, there are a number of small shops where you can purchase a random assortment of clothes, fabric, kitchen utensils and building supplies. A local friend has told us that these shops run a sort of mail order service for clothing. You go into the shop and choose what you want from a catalogue and the shop owner will send to Male for the item on your behalf. This, we suspect, is how Hamid came to be wearing Dockers pants (trousers) and the rest of the guys came to own Lacoste polo shirts. 

Eating out
Ihavandhoo boasts five different cafes, known to Maldivians as hotels. We’d give you names and addresses but you’re probably better off just asking an islander to point you in the direction of the cafe most suited to your demographic. Our recommendations are Mini Tea and the one with the outdoor tables and pretty umbrellas round the back.
On the menu: fried rice, fried noodles and hedhikaa (short eats). We’d like to assure you that all the cafes use the finest, fresh ingredients but it simply isn’t true, so we won’t. What is true is that a plate of fried noodles is an experience you are never likely to forget if you have a low tolerance for chilli.
To drink order coke, juice, tea (with a heap of sugar), milk coffee or a Lavazza coffee, of which the owner is very proud. Alcohol is strictly forbidden on inhabited islands, so none of that thank you. 

Getting around 

Given that the island is only 800 metres across, visitors are best advised to walk round Ihavandhoo. Flip flops are the most appropriate footwear as the roads are all made of sand and closed shoes tend to fill up with grit rather rapidly.  
Should you find yourself unable to walk, or in too much of a hurry, ask an obliging friend to lend you a bicycle or give you a ride on the back of his motorbike. The bike may well be child-sized but nobody here will care how ridiculous you look cycling about with your legs wrapped round your ears. A wheel barrow can be commandeered should you wish to transport anything heavier than a shopping bag.

Only got 24 hours? Here’s how to spend it:

• Awake with the call to prayer at 5.15am. If you’re not Muslim go back to sleep.
• Reawaken at around 8am, have a cold shower (there’s no hot water) and some curry and roshi (like a chapatti) then head out of the house.  
• Make for the jetty to see what’s going on before embarking on a walk all the way round the edge of the island on the beach before the heat gets too intense. Insider tip: start at the opposite end of the jetty to the power house for the most pleasant experience.
• Meander round until you’ve passed all the boat sheds then turn back onto the island, past the football pitch.
• Pop into school and hang out in the staff room for a chat and to cool down under the fans then go to Mini Tea for fried noodles and juice before making your way slowly home for a siesta.
• Mid-afternoon return to the beach for fantastic swimming and snorkelling then watch the teenage boys throwing up dust on the football pitch as you wander slowly home.
• At 5.50 head back up to the jetty and take your seat for a splendid sunset.
• Once the sun has gone down it’s dark and there’s nothing much to do, so you might as well head home for supper and bed.

This itinerary is given with the proviso that you move at Maldivian speed. If you move at London speed you’ll be done by lunchtime.