Italian designers employed by an American hotelier supported by Japanese investors have taken an uninhabited coral dot on the Baa Atoll of the Maldives and created a whimsical world where the architecture echoes the creatures of the Indian Ocean, the giant clams and turtles, the mighty whale sharks that cruise just off the shoreline.
From the air, one can see the whole island is shaped like a fish. “Welcome to Miriandhoo,” a smiling King Brendan says, as I step into his dominion beside an illuminated sign flashing WESTIN. My visit precedes the lockdown which closed the resort from April until October, but the portcullis has now been raised and Brendan Corcoran, the general manager, was expecting to be close to capacity over the festive season.“People feel safe here. They are confident that Westin Marriott has rigorous and consistent standards when it comes to being looked after,” he says.
The pandemic has been disruptive, but isolation is something the Maldives trades upon, each of the island resorts its own socially distanced bubble.
The country was among the first to reopen to tourists in the summer, a strict antivirus shield in place. All arrivals must have proof of a recent negative test, their temperature checked, and their luggage sanitised before they cross the border. Outbreaks, when they do occur, can be contained and confined in what is one of the most geographically dispersed countries in the world.
Westin Miriandhoo is one of dozens of isolated corporate kingdoms on the Maldives’ atolls, branded jurisdictions created by the Islamic republic’s “one island one resort” policy. At the airport, along with measures to stop Covid, customs agents check no alcohol enters this Muslim land. But on Miriandhoo, like all the tourist-only resorts, temperance is not required. National religious doctrine has been replaced by global business dogma.
Brendan orders a bottle of petit chablis at dinner in The Pearl, the Japanese fine-dining restaurant that hangs over the reef. “Do you feel like a king?” I ask, after he tells me how he has ordered all the clocks to be changed to his island time, one hour ahead of the Maldives. “I am the boss and I can do what I want,” he jokes in his Irish brogue. “But I am part of a corporation that has its own values,” he adds, remembering his Marriott masters in Maryland.
“This island is all about well-being,” Brendan adds. “We offer tranquillity and serenity based on living well – the food, the fitness centre, the yoga, the Heavenly Spa.”
The spa team has always worn masks while conducting treatments, hygiene a priority before the pandemic, but regular deep cleaning and spaced appointments now offer extra reassurance.
The word for relax in the Dhivehi language of the Maldives is araamu, and that is close to the noise one makes when expert fingers stroke away the stresses of modern life as you watch fish flirt in the coral through a glass floor. Unanchored from political or cultural heritage, this place floats in an intertidal zone where all are equal and assumptions are washed away. At breakfast, plates are piled with Chinese dumplings, Indian curry, Japanese wasabi, English sausages, American waffles, Italian ice cream, and Maldivian tuna, seeds and nuts and leaves and fruits and bread.
It is a glorious banquet, assembled from every corner of the planet, and (Brendan assures me) unaltered by the logistical challenge of the pandemic.
“The Maldives were made for the internet,” Brendan explains, as a distant container ship traverses the horizon and a seaplane glides to a halt. “When I came here, 13 years ago, we were still faxing for supplies. Now if I need something, I order it online and it appears.”
It is a triumph of human ingenuity, but uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. “Having to cart everything off the island, you are confronted by the consequences of what you are doing,” Brendan tells me with a sigh. Plastic water bottles have been replaced with reusable glass, by Brendan’s royal decree. Single-use toiletries are being phased out. But diving with turtles on a reef, I notice a tangle of plastic floating by. It is a reminder there are responsibilities, even in paradise. Especially in paradise.
Once you have passed through the membrane of Miriandhoo, dreary reality is replaced by tranquillising unreality. It is a worry-free bubble into which those with the price of admission may enter, turn everything off and let their screens go dark. The perfect place for a hard reset in the midst of a pandemic.
Framed in the mouth of the white whale once again, King Brendan stands in a pressed white shirt and waves goodbye as I leave one coral realm and head across the ocean for another.
“UNITY AND STRUGGLE. EXECUTING ORDERS. SEEKING TRUTH. CONSTRUCT EXQUISITE WORKS.”
Back at the international airport for the transfer, I am disoriented by Orwellian slogans plastered upon large screens disguising a building site. It turns out these represent the brand values of China’s state-owned construction company, delivering a slab of their country’s investment into the islands, billions of dollars in loans the islanders are unlikely ever to be able to repay. The Maldives find themselves caught up in a high-stakes game of geopolitics, with Chinese and Indian interests vying for control of their strategic position alongside the main shipping route to the Middle East and Europe.
Allegations of corruption pollute the air, with the new government accusing previous leaders of creaming off cash from dubious contracts. The development of Hulhumalé – a man-made island close to the capital Malé and the airport, built upon piles of Chinese cash – has been particularly controversial.It was constructed to house 240,000 people, around half the country’s population. As my water taxi bounces across the lagoon, I stare at the clump of 16 ugly high-rise social housing blocks sprouting from the artificial reef. The government marketing people describe it as the City of Hope emerging from beneath the waves.
As my boat ties up at Furanafushi Island, a Chinese couple are taking pictures of themselves by a large letter “S”. I step across the white sand beach and into the dominion of Sheraton, another of the children of Marriott flying its own corporate flag in Maldivian waters.“I wouldn’t say ‘king’, but maybe… city mayor.” Over dinner with Emilio Fortini, the Italian general manager, who speaks English like an Australian, I ask him about the values that define his mayoralty.
“Active fun,” he replies with a broad smile, before his face darkens and he adds, “social responsibility”. The first phrase chimes with the Sheraton mission for the Maldives Full Moon Resort and Spa, looking to attract honeymooners and young families with an menu of water sports and entertainment, backed up by a recent and impressive $20 million (£15 million) renovation. The second strikes me as personal.
“The tide is changing!” Emilio exclaims. It is meant literally and metaphorically. The artificial island across the lagoon is blamed for changes in tidal patterns that may threaten the ecosystem of the coral atoll, but Emilio also believes attitudes are shifting. “We want to do what we can in our little bit of paradise,” he says. Mayor Emilio has recently moved chunks of living coral from the site of a new port and planted them in the resort’s lagoon. “Lockdown allowed us to rescue the reef and create the largest man-made coral structure in the Maldives,” he tells me proudly.
If the kingdom of Westin is about tranquillity and privacy, the mayoralty of Sheraton is about friends and flamboyance. This is the realm of the Instagram set, with stunning photo opportunities across the island.
The tower blocks of Hulhumalé threaten to spoil the backdrop, so Emilio has decreed a stone breakwater be transformed into a green wall, palms and tropical succulents obscuring the concrete and cranes.King Brendan and Mayor Emilio both offer fantasy escapes. But they both recognise how 2020 has been a reminder of the fragility of our existence. The future is unpredictable. The tide is changing. The sea is rising. We are all standing in the mouth of the whale.
