Villas that blend with golden beach and blue-green waters

“Where,” I thought as I looked around the bathroom of my beach villa at Cinnamon Island, Alidhoo, “is the toilet?” I had just checked into the resort after flying from Colombo to Male’ International Airport, waiting there a couple of hours and then boarding an Island Aviation, 16-seater propeller plane for the 50-minute, 300 km flight to Hanimaadhoo Airport. This is the northernmost airport in the Maldives, located in Haa Alif Atoll, the closest atoll to India.

At the airport, a butler from the resort, actually a Sri Lankan, wearing a sarong dashed with the distinctive orange that is the keynote colour of the fabric in the resort’s bedrooms, was waiting with a board proclaiming my name. He escorted me by car for a five minute ride to a jetty where a speedboat was moored, its engines throbbing. We ploughed across the brilliant blue waters of the atoll’s inner lagoon for 15 minutes to the latest holiday resort in the John Keells group’s Cinnamon chain: Alidhoo.

The arrival jetty is short and general manager Roshan De Silva, formerly of Chaaya Village and Hunas Falls, greeted me as an old friend as we walked its length to the reception pavilion. Although the butler commandeered a buggy to drive me to my beach villa, I later found that walking anywhere was easy since the island is round (35 acres in area) and its 100 rooms are on the periphery, either on the beach or off-shore in 45 over water villas.

So why my problem in finding the toilet once I’d been safely delivered to beach villa 137? This happened because, in an effort to incorporate something uniquely Maldivian in new resort designs, architects look for local inspiration. This is provided in the Maldives by something called a gifili, an open-air, cadjan-fenced well and small garden that is the typical bathroom of traditional island homes. In Alidhoo, this has been taken to extreme luxury with the bathroom at the back of the villa hidden behind two glass-windowed wooden doors.

These open to a path of terrazzo slabs dribbled with glass droplets and china frangipani petals, set in a border of pebbles. On each side of this entrance is a washbasin perched above a wooden top, flanked by a full length wall mirror. A pair of swing doors, like those in a western movie saloon, opens to reveal twin hand showers and a central rain shower. There is an open-roofed garden beyond a Balinese style proscenium arch. Cement reproductions of a frangipani flower are hung on the walls enclosing the bathroom space. The bath? Step out onto the wooden veranda deck by the sea to find a Jacuzzi tub in one corner.

The bedroom is full of fascinating knickknacks that make it more like a homely apartment than a hotel room. An imitation pirate chest contains a hairdryer; room corners are stuffed with decorative fish baskets. The ‘do not disturb’ sign is a mini-cushion and a mini-broom on the door indicates when guests are ready for housekeeping.

The frangipani motif is everywhere, on wall plaques and mirror frames, contrasting with the vivid blue oil paintings of seascapes.
There is a room-wide entrance hall with His & Her closets and a dimly lit (alas) vanity/work desk. There are two entrances (His & Hers?) to the bedroom from the hall where the double bed is backed by a fabric wall. Daylight floods in through windows framed by fixed, brightly coloured shutters. Four steps go down to the sitting area and the veranda door to the beach. There are seven duplex villas with a large parlour and upstairs bedroom with an extra toilet. The colours used in the beach villas reflect the golden sand, while those villas over the sea have interiors painted a glorious green, to match the sea.

Cinnamon Island has a reputation for shifting sands with the beach changing sides at different times of the year. Since there are free snorkelling and sand bank safaris by boat every day, and a huge swimming pool, it makes little difference if the beach has popped around to the other side of the island. Alidhoo’s abundant tropical vegetation is intact and even the dive centre, which is only five paces from the beach, is out of sight of the sea.

The spa is built under a banyan tree and the buffet restaurant, called The Village, is surrounded by so much jungle it could be in Sri Lanka. In contrast there is a large bar lounge, Bliss, a speciality restaurant, The Waves, both open sided and decorated luridly in disco hues.

A nice touch – breakfast is served in the villas 24 hours a day. With so many of the staff being Sri Lankan, the resort has a friendly, familiar atmosphere. Think around US$300 a night for a double room.

And where was the toilet? After a few minutes panic, I found it: in the snazzy bathroom behind one of the wall mirrors - which was actually a door! (www.cinnamonhotels. com)