Discover The Maldives
BY DAVID ASHFORDDiscover why a trip to The Maldives is a must for any
stressed-out man in search of sun and salvationI
’m balanced precariously
on one leg, my hands
linked above my head in a
hydrotherapy pool at COMO
Cocoa Island resort in The
Maldives. I’ve been told that
yoga, when done correctly, can
be a transcendent, borderline
divine experience. But as a bloke
who’s more comfortable bending
it like a particular high-pitched
style icon on the football pitch
than contorting my limbs in a
yoga studio, I had dismissed
this as the new-age posturing of
hemp-garbed hippies.
Until today when I jumpedinto a pool of warm water in a
class led by Dr Aashly Jayan, the
resident yoga instructor who
carries a touch of the mystical
about him. Aashly, who wears
yellow flowers behind his ears, is
doing his best to make me a yoga
convert – of the water-based
variety anyway – propping me
up when I teeter and moving me
gently through the pool’s hydro
stations. Finally, he cradles my
head as a heavy cascade of water
pounds my scalp. As baptisms go
this is hard to beat. I’m a born-
again yoga disciple.
Hydro-yoga is just one ofmany experiences that invite
divine comparison in The
Maldives, perhaps the closest
approximation of heaven on
earth. On long grey days in the
office under deadline pressure,
I’ve longed to dive into the
default desktop wallpaper of
my Mac and inhabit a calmer,
more exotic world - I just didn’t
picture Dr Aashly here with me.
On Google maps The
Maldives are a collection of tiny
specs in a vast blue ocean. There
are more than 1200 islands with
only 320 of these inhabited, and
tellingly, 110 of those are (mostlyUNEARTHLY DELIGHTS