HOW THICK IS LUXURY?

Resorts take different routes to luxury and sustainability in the fragile ecosystem of the Maldives. DEVANSHI MODY took stock of the offerings on an isle-hopping tour before the pandemic struck.

- DEVANSHI MODY

SECOND COURSE: CHIFFON RAVIOLI. Phones out. Click-click. Everyone has an iPhone. “The iPhone is tedious,” I announce. “It takes five steps to delete one message!” A honeymooning Californian construction billionaire agrees, “Android is smarter. But I’ll always use the iPhone anyway.” As shall I. Why? There’s a smart choice. Why don’t we make it? This question will niggle at me as others continue clicking dainty French-style courses, dissecting the six accompanying wines. We are at Decanter, the underground wine cellar at The St. Regis Maldives Vommuli Resort, enjoying an exclusive wine dinner for 13, recalling The Last Supper.

The 13th guest isn’t in a white flowing robe turning water into wine but all tuxedoed up. I don’t immediately realise he was on the same seaplane to the resort, springing about taking pictures of blue-lassoed islets boiling out of the Indian Ocean of whom I’d said, “He can’t be going where I am!” I declare now I thought him a beach-bum. My mother is aghast—is this what she bred me to say?! David smiles, that’s what he is when he’s not being a forensic psychologist.