:::: MALDIVES

MALDIVES

SHOULD I WISH AKINO NAGAMINE TELLS ME, I

could book the entire resort for a night or seven.All

130 villas. I'm at One&Only one of the more posh

resorts in a country where posh resorts are strewn across the sea like some magical dust. And Nagamine, who works in sales and marketing at the resort, is at ease speaking of all things plush and those who demand them. And she's pretty adept at rally driving an electric cart along bleach-white coral sand lanes that connect the spa with the waterfront,villas with the swish Middle Eastern restaurant. The four seaters, she tells me in her best Top Gear critique, are easier to maneuver than the eight seaters. Nagamine doesn't bat an eye when she says it would cost more than a million dollars a night to reserve the resort and we might be looking at two years down the road. Forget next June already. Christmas and Easter are out too. Swerving to avoid a smiling houseboy on his bicycle rounds, we change the topic-we can't change gears-and head out to a collection of water villas, which are as spacious - outdoors as in. A split-level deck is encircled by netting suspended as hammocks, the lagoon just a splash away.

Reethi Rah, or beautiful island'' in Dhivehi, quadrupled in size once 1.5 million tons of sand was added. It's now home to a dozen beaches, each of which is hand-raked in the morning well before any guest in the 130 villas wakes. Guests here don't check in but instead disappear for the day. Villas are so secluded, it often looks like no one else is here but there is one subtle hint, at least at the villas on the island: each comes equipped with two bicycles to tour around the island under your own equatorial steam. Someone's in residence if one or both are missing.

Exclusivity is key on these islands-a resort like one-only even adjusts its clocks to one hour ahead of the capital Male so guests can enjoy an extra hour of sunlight each afternoon (don't even tendon losing the hour in the morning: remember, no one is up at that time of day). Come nightfall, I quickly learn to get as far away from all artificial light as is possible: the equatorial, middle-of-the-ocean sky is littered with what must be thousands, maybe tens of thousands of stars. More than even the vast seascape, that sky makes you feel small.

Yet, superlatives are as common as coral in the Maldives.

One-only for instance, describes itself as "an intoxicating mix of sleek sophistication and island charm That line is not I speaking of the 18,000 bottles of wine on the island, including champagne by the glass or the magnum, but of drinking in the views, whether day or night.

WITH SHORT, DARK HAIR AND BLACK EYES AS

piercing as his advice, Dr. Kannan Nettah looks too young to be a doctor, ayurvedic or otherwise. Mylate after-noon meeting with him

at the Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Landaa Giraavaru is

simply another piece in the paradise puzzle:when in paradise, you spa. Originally from Kerala, now practicing in Mumbai and temporarily back in the Maldives after earlier having spent two years here, Dr. Nettah is going to pinpoint my dosha- less painful than it sounds-to prepare me for a two-hour treatment the following morning.

After reviewing the five elements of the traditional Indian system of medicine and having me check off-how they apply to my life, Dr. Nettah nods knowingly at the conclusion of my dosha type:pitta But he didn't really have to mention my graying temples or the wrinkles on my forehead, now did he? All is forgotten after my treatment-something called dlakishi, a series of oil and herb massages by two therapists (how I ever coped with only one I wi11 never know) followed up with a spell

in a steam room and a shower with what appears to be two types of mud, which leave me as clean as the day I was born.

All, that is, except for the fact that Dr. Nettah advised against too much sun and to avoid pungent, or spicy, food. Problem is, I live in Thailand.

Beach sense Left: A One&only's So I do, as the good doctor suggests, At Meddle Eastern manage to avoid the sun at Blu, a restauFanditha restaurant.

annals and rant perched at the waters' edge. As I tuck Jumpsuit Louis tuck into a midday salad-non-spicy, Vultton sunglasses, Christian Dior. you'll note three baby Sicklefin lemon sharks glide through the clear shallow water and, after an hour of intensive study and experimentation, I can confidently in- form you that lemon sharks do not care for bread sticks.

This, the newer of the Four Seasons in the country, is located on the Baa Atoll and overlooks a 2-kilometer -long turquoise lagoon that reveals an exclamation point of a sand spit at low tide just off-the sand-floored bar at Blu. Each of the bungalows and villas here on land is hidden behind coral wails and blue doors, while the above-water accommodation is staggered so that guests only stare out at a sweep of electric-blue sea.

At the end of the afternoon, after being politely reminded that, yes, today happens to be check-out day, I hop aboard a float plane-barefoot pilots and all-to visit the Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Kuda Huraa, en route back to Male and a late-night flight. From a float plane, the atolls look like they're bubbling up from the ocean, all indigo blue and aquamarine green. A stunning natural sight. Only 12 kilometers from the capital, Kuda Huraa is designed to reflect a Maldivian village, with wales of layered coral (stone in this case as it's none too environmentally friendly to build a resort out of coral these days) separating the villas, which are circular in shape with grass roofs tied off-at two points at the top. What strikes me about Kuda Huraa though is the small spa, perched on its own island, a two-minute bob awayby dhoni. Yet, as it always seems to do in the Maldives, a fireball of a sun is setting and, from across the atolls, I can almost hear my boarding announcement. Besides, once it's dark, I can't fathom what color the sea is anymore and there's no point in being in the Maldives if you can't dream up another shade of blue now is there?