An evening in Himmafushi

Yesterday, Friday been the Maldives weekend, I went to the nearby Himmafushi island in North Malé atoll. 

My primary reason was, as usual, to take a break from the concrete and congested capital island Malé and get fresh air to breathe and feel the gentle sea breeze on my face and body.

I stayed for 2.5 hours. Visiting the island after 17 long years proved to be sentimental. 

I have visited India’s Goa and beautiful beaches of other countries such as Australia’s Bondi but I don’t know why I am attached to Maldives. I guess there are certain things I would never understand about myself and that’s okay. For some unknown reason, Maldives’ environment has become a very passionate thing for me.

It’s true that if ever I migrate out of Maldives, I will choose Sri Lanka’s island-like Jaffna for the rest of my life but the thing is I am sentimentally attached to the Maldives – not least because I am very attached to my family and friends. I don’t know how to explain my attachment to Maldives just as I don’t know how two of my friends are attached to concrete jungles; one of them prefers Colombo while another prefers Malé and cannot tolerate any quaint rural island of Maldives or rural areas of Sri Lanka like Galle.

I departed for Himmafushi from the 3.30pm speedboat ferry ‘Naseeb Express’ near Jetty Number 1 and departed to Male’ from the 6.00pm speedboat ferry. If you like, you can call their number (960) 7858144 or visit their website naseebexpress.com for further information. One way costs MVR 100 (roughly USD 6). Fortunately, ‘Naseeb Express’ operates every day of the week and the duration of the trip is just 15 minutes. I called their number on Thursday, told my name, said I wanted return tickets, and paid MVR 200 to a staff while boarding yesterday. 

I spent most of the time on the waterfront, enjoying a fried tuna noodles and ‘hedhikaa’ (Maldivian snacks) at an Indian restaurant which had reasonable prices and delivered tasty food. 

There’s the awesome world-class ‘jail breaks’ surfing point which I bodyboarded during my younger days. It’s so named because of the Asseyri jail there and we have to drop in to the surf by hiring a Maldivian ‘dhoni’ boat as people are not allowed to pass the territory and beach of the prison. I took time to pose in front of the drug rehabilitation center for emotional reasons.

Himmafushi has other industries too but now it’s prominently a ‘guesthouse’ tourism island, especially attractive to surfers, both local and foreign. 

The island has been reclaimed with more than 200 plus home plots distributed. However, the beaches are still awesome and the blue lagoons are crystal clear. During a perimeter round, I saw many happy families and friends indulging in beach barbeques, perhaps the cultural 'Maahefun' meal before the onset of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan just a short week away.

I noticed that despite all this development, the island still has preserved some of its beachside ‘ruh gandu’ – rows of shade-giving coconut palms.

I hope to visit Himmafushi again to enjoy the places I didn’t visit yesterday – not least to try delicious dishes offered by the other restaurants on the waterfront. I am just a hopeless foodie with a wanderlust!

NOTE: This is part of my travel writing which I started from Dhigurah, Vilimale, and Kudagiri. I have visited so many islands of Maldives, such as tsunami struck Vilufushi, and kind of regret why this idea of travel writing didn’t occur to me before. It's good that I was inspired by Nobel literature prize-winning travel writer V. S. Naipaul's travel writings. Anyway, I have resolved to write, photograph, and even videograph my visits to islands in Maldives and other countries in future.