culture

Holiday or honeymoon on the Maldives

The Maldives is one of the most famous honeymoon destinations in the world and for a good reason. In this article I will tell you a bit about the country and give you my guess as to why people like to come here for a honeymoon.

The Maldives is a country (yes, not a city or a region in another country as some people tend to believe) consisting of about 1200 islands in 26 atolls. An atoll is a ring of coral reefs or coral islands, or both, surrounding a lagoon. Despite being a total size of 90.000m2 the Maldives is 99% water, and has just 298 km2 of land. It is located west of Sri Lanka and south of India, deep in the Indian Ocean.

The Maldives has a population of about 300.000 people. A third of the population live on the tiny capital island of Male which is just a couple of kilometres across. The rest of the population are spread out on the atolls and there are basically no other towns in the entire country.

100% of the Maldivian population are Sunni Muslims and since the 2008 constitution it is not possible to be a Maldivian citizen and a non-Muslim. The annual population growth is about 3%.

Polygamy is legal and a man can have up to four wives, but it is not common practice to have more than one wife.

The Maldives has three industries of which the country live: Fishing, ships and tourist. Tourism accounts for 20% of GDP and about 90% of government tax revenue. Every traveller pays 8$ ”bed tax” per night they spend in the Maldives.

The Maldives has a ”one island – one resort” policy. This means every resort always has an island to itself. The guest house business (for cheaper accommodation) is also developing slowly, but it lacks public transportation and the places in which you can currently find cheaper accommodation (say 50 – 100$ per night for a basic room with/without breakfast) are ”public islands”. This means it is the home of Maldivians and wearing a bikini or shorts is strictly forbidden. A modest/Muslim dress code is required.

The Maldives receives about 600.000 visitors every year (most spend minimum one week). Most of them come on a fairly expensive package tour which includes full board (breakfast, lunch and dinner included).

So what makes this place a popular honeymoon place?

Well it’s very beautiful. If you dream about a small bounty island with coconut palms, very white sand and warm, turquoise water…this is it! You will have plenty of time to look your sweetheart in the eyes for endless amounts of time (as much as you can pay for). The activities here are very limited: sleep, eat, read, swim, sunbath, snorkel and dive, trips to other islands or Male, fishing, spa treatment, surfing, and other water sports. Obviously cultural activities and sightseeing is severely limited on a small island and so is shopping.

I believe the Maldives is attractive to people who are looking for complete relaxation with no decisions needed to be made (usually there are only one or two restaurants in the resort). Hence you see a lot of old couples here and honeymooners and I am sure most of them have a fantastic holiday.

****
A few recommendations for responsible travel in the Maldives:

1.Drink desalinated water at your resort rather than imported mineral water or bring your own bottles and boil the tap water (which is desalinated) and drink that.
2.Take your bottles, plastic and batteries home with you. The Maldives does not have facilities to dispose of them.
3.Minimise the use of air-conditioning in the room
4.Ask for your towels not to be rewashed every day.
5.Keep the use of running water in your room to a minimum – water is expensive to desalinate and uses fossil fuel to do so.
6.When diving and snorkelling, do not feed, touch or otherwise interfere with the corals and fish.
7.Don’t purchase turtle-shell products.

Bon voyage!!

Bakken – the world’s oldest amusement park is in Copenhagen, Denmark


A short 15 minutes drive North of Copenhagen is the world’s oldest amusement park, Bakken. It is located in the middle of the forest and thus the location is wonderful for a visit any day. There is always entertainment and happy days, and to many Danes Bakken is the symbol of genuine Danish culture in line with allotment houses and cold beer.

Bakken has attracted people from the city for over 400 years. Originally as a Mecca for believers who thought that Kirsten Piil water source had a life-giving force. Soon all sorts of street performers and bag players lured to the pilgrimage place and eventually the numerous tents became permanent.

Pierrot was a sort of ambassador of Bakken since he arrived in 1800. Pierrot appears in front of his little green house every day in season and on Sunday he has guests on the outdoor stage.

Bakken has many of the amusement machines that other amusement parks have – like roller coasters, 5D movies, haunted house, race-cars, archery, darts, football, handball and many more things.

It is also possible to buy a picnic basket in several of the restaurants, and walk or ride a tour in the park (Dyrehaven/ deer park) with one of the horse carriages.

It is definitely worth a visit.

Price: There is no entrance fee to Bakken. But you have to pay for the amusement park rides that you would like to try.

Opening: This year Bakken opened with the big motorcycle parade on March 25 and close again on August 29. Bakken is open most days from 12 o’clock midday – midnight.

To get there: You can take the s-train from Copenhagen to Klampenborg. It is a short walk from Klampenborg station.

The official website: http://www.bakken.dk/

Video: Insight into Danish culture: Summerhouses

Summerhouses are a core part of Danish culture. We just love them and they are an essential part of our lives.

There are 220,000 second homes in Denmark: 203,000 summerhouses, 14,000 allotments and 2,300 other types of recreational properties.

44 percent of holiday homes situated in Jutland, 16 percent of Fyn and other islands, while the remaining 40 percent is built on Zealand.

One cottage is an average of 3.5 rooms, a living area of 67 square meters and a land value of 700,000 crowns (2004).

Over half of the country’s homes were built between 1960 and 1979. It was built as many houses in 1973, where also the building of houses boomed.

Summerhouses can be divided into three groups: Over half of higher quality houses are built of wood, a quarter of the second homes are older homes in poor quality, often lacking bath and appropriate heating, while the last group consists of large and expensive homes.

6.8 percent of households in Denmark own a summerhouse. The majority of summerhouses are owned by 50+- generation – especially older couples without children.

Two out of three homes are located more than 50 kilometres from the year-round dwelling, and every third house is more than 100 kilometres away.

84 percent of second homes have a bath, 80 percent of owners can easily heat the house in the winter, almost all (93 percent) have a television, two out of three have a washing machine and /or dishwasher, and one in four have Internet in the summerhouse.

78 percent of owners have a summerhouse to get away from everyday life and relax. Therefore they prefer the house to be in nature or close to the sea.

The video above shows you my mum’s summerhouse in Ebeltoft. It is really lovely and I spend quite a lot of time there…I love being close to the sea and the house is 5 minutes walk from the beach 🙂

Source: Center for Housing and Welfare: ‘Holiday in Denmark. Who has them and how are they used?

“Hygge” – an insigt into Danish culture

Danish "hygge" in the summerhouse

“Hygge” is a very essential issue in Danish culture. There is no literal translation of the word, but when something is “hyggeligt” it is definitely comfortable and cosy.

Different cultures obviously have different views on what is cosy and comfortable – and in this way the Danish definition is rather unique.

“Hygge” is also often associated with the female gender and referred to when women meet or there are women among the people who meet. It is more likely to hear men say that it was fun to meet a friend than “hyggeligt”.

So what does Danish “hygge” entail. Well a lot of times it involves food – whether this being snack food or dinner or cakes. Generally we enjoy ourselves and feel cosy when we eat. It also covers things like: candles, dim light, fireplace, intimate atmosphere (anywhere) and a lot of other things (add more yourself :-))

So when you visit Denmark just remember that one of the main things for us is that a social gathering has to be “hyggelig”.

“Hygge” (written like this is also slang for goodbye).

No television (TV) – saves me 3 hours a day in Denmark

I have not had a TV for many years already and this has led to the funniest comments from friends and acquaintances over the years. The most common comment being: “What do you do with your time?”

While living together with Thomas I used to answer “we argue”. It was an ironic joke to illustrate that there are many things to do besides watching TV. Instead of watching TV we used to have long dinners and talk, hang out with friends, write articles for the website or make pod-casts and videos, do sports, read books, go on trips on the motorbikes and many other things. Needless to say we would have had even more activities if we had children with whom I am sure we would have wanted to spend as much time as possible.

In Denmark I get exactly the same question when people visit me for the first time. They enter my living room and say “Where is the TV?” and are very surprised when I say that I don’t have a TV. I rarely find enough time to do all the things I want to in a day – I really don’t need a TV to clutter up more time.

But I do often wonder how people find time to watch TV? Most people I know tell me that they are really busy and it is normal in Denmark to arrange to meet up with friends at least a week in advance – to make sure that both parts have the time. Interesting.

According to statistics from 2009, Danish people watched TV on average 3 hours and 2 minutes a day: http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2009/10/14/180601.htm

The article suggests that people watched more TV in 2009 than 2008 because the selection of TV programmes were bigger and that the financial crisis kept people at home instead of spending time out.
But I honestly don’t think this is the reason. I think it comes down to habit. Danish people are simply used to being entertained by the TV instead of spending an evening playing games with their spouse and children, reading books, going for a walk, talking, creative activities like painting, listening to music etc.

And really I think it’s fine that people entertain themselves with the TV – I just hope it is not at the expense of other things.

I guess the best way to evaluate an activity is to ask “Does this activity enrich my life today and will I look back at it in 10 years and think that it enriched my life?

And in the case of TV – “Does watching TV enrich my life today and will I look back at it in 10 years and think that spending more than 1095 hours a year (10.950 hours in 10 years) watching TV enriched my life?

Enjoy life.