Radhika, Revanth, Aniketh and I spent last 5 days on a pristine private island resort “Kurumba” of Maldives on Indian Ocean, to celebrate our “25th Wedding Anniversary” event.  Yes, we made it to 25 years, with lots of ups and downs, thankfully fewer downs. Aniketh had suggested the idea of Maldives, after we collectively decided to choose a vacation with an Island theme.   We had planned for Hawaii in 1991 (15 years ago) but we could not make it.  We are pretty glad that we chose this theme, as we found this type of vacation to be truly relaxing.   There is no frequent packing/unpacking of luggage was required, as we were staying in the same villa for the entire vacation

We nailed on Kurumba after weeks of intense research on TripAdvisor.  There were so many positive reviews on this resort, and pretty much all of them were quite true. Service was impeccable and customised to every visitor out here.  They remembered our interests and personal tastes and took care of us accordingly during breakfast, lunch, or dinner. They made Idli, Dosa, Chutney and Sambar for every breakfast, and few curries for every dinner, though we did not insist for it, given that we are cool with global cuisine. They have actually hosted us a complimentary candle light dinner on our anniversary at “The Mahal”, arranged for cake, and decorated our room.  Apparently, they do this for 25th wedding and 50th wedding anniversaries only.  It was very special and endearing to us.

Entire Kurumba island resort is so tiny; it just takes 20 minutes to walk around the island and walk was blissful (as you can see from below pictures). Yet, it has everything one would need to indulge on a vacation and actually has 9 restaurants (including an Indian one).  They have plenty of activities to engage through out the day and in the evenings too. Yes, the location was as picturesque as it was displayed on Kurumba’s official web page and trip advisor reviews or any google search, which you can also see form below snaps too. It was quite tough to select few snaps for sharing, given that every moment and view out here was a Canon 6D photographic moment.  Out of 1000 pics I took, i have saved 150 for long term archive, and shared few of them here in this blog and the video too.

We explored most possible water sports including Snorkeling, Fun Tube Boarding, Jet Ski, Canoeing, Dolphin Safari, etc, or just gazed at clear turquoise waters, and brightly lit stars in the sky (when idle).  I am glad that I got over the aqua phobia (thanks to the assistance and encouragement from the Kurumba staff) and snorkelled around house reef which has plenty of colourful corals and fish.  We swam along with school of bat fish, which was pretty exhilarating.

Highlight of trip was to spend almost an entire day as a picnic on a small sand bank which was of 50 meters wide, in the midst of the Indian Ocean. Since we were only one of the two couples to book the event on the day, entire strip was reserved for us, and coincidentally it also fell on our special day of 25th wedding anniversary.   The feeling here was surreal, and worth remembering for the lifetime (scroll all the way down for the pics). I am not sure, if we would get to visit such a place once again in the lifetime, unless of course,  if I choose to visit Kurumba again.