In a guest house in the Maldives on fishermen's islands

The most authentic Maldives are to be found on the fishermen's islands: the experience in a guest house is not for everyone, but if you are allergic to resorts and love a small dose of the unexpected, it will be the only one possible.

It was August 2011 and, sitting in an armchair at Male airport, I was scouring Dutch forums and Craigslist ads, hunting for a flat to rent in the Maldives. I had just been there for the first time in a resort and was already determined to go back as soon as possible, but dribbling off the costs and the resort lifestyle. A couple of weeks earlier I had managed to book two weeks in a village in the Felidhoo atoll for a reasonable fee, but still far beyond my means. Waiting for my return flight, I had come across a travel forum in which two Dutch tourists were praising a bed & breakfast on an atoll off the tourist track: an alternative option to the resort, to be able to go back there spending much less and having more authentic experiences, without umbrella cocktails served by Sinhalese bartenders (Maldivians, like all Muslims, are forbidden to serve alcohol), without overwater or an equipped beach.

My destination, I was to discover later, would be one of the first (there are now hundreds) guest houses built on a fishermen's island, where in the morning I would eat mashuni, a slightly spicy paste of tuna, onion and coconut, together with an invigorating cup of ye-ye coffee, a diabolical sachet of instant coffee, powdered milk and sugar. And then it's off to tongues of sand on which to roast without even the shadow of half a palm tree, endless dhoni crossings to the nearest desert island, or even far away, who cares, we're on holiday. Fishing trips at sunset, joined by the singing of the muezzin, while a small angry barracuda struggles on its line waiting to be released back into the sea.

A manta ray swims in the Indian Ocean ©Richard Whitcombe/Shutterstock

Fast forward to today: Airbnb has made finding a guest house much easier and more reliable. Finding one in the Maldives, or any corner of the world, is relatively easy. Many have a website, Facebook page and Instagram profile that will captivate you with videos taken a few hours before of a whale shark swimming placidly, daily doses of dolphins darting in front of a boat, schools of manta rays filmed by drone. It's also easy to find it run by Italians, with a vegan option on the menu, seaplane transfers that will have you gliding gently to your destination in fifteen minutes, rather than being tossed around for hours in the waves on a fast boat packed with Maldivians, perfectly at ease catching the peak waves while you try to hold back your gags. I personally went through this experience with a fever of 38.5 and food poisoning that I had brought from home, so I retain a particularly traumatic memory of it. On the neighbouring island there was a hospital, in a couple of days it passed anyway.

Being on a fishermen's island in the midst of a gastrointestinal drama also means that you will regret not having brought the whole medicine cabinet with you: the pharmacy at Male airport will willingly sell you a packet of a hundred aspirins, but a banal anti-emetic might be more difficult to find. Conversely, leaving the ones you brought with you on the island is really the least sign of gratitude to the community that allowed you to spend a few unforgettable days on their island.

Fishermen examining tuna in Kaafu harbour on the North Male atoll in the Maldives ©byvalet/Shutterstock

Guest houses are not for everyone. They require you to come to terms with your fragility, your insecurities, your hypochondria, but on almost every island, even the most remote, there is wifi and streaming TV. There is no shortage of air-conditioning unless you want to voluntarily deprive yourself of it and many other signs of globalisation will chase you there: modernity cannot be escaped in these parts, but you will still get a whiff of YOLO (you only live once) experiences.

A guest house holiday will allow you to cross a few items off your bucket list of things to do at least once in your life. Swim with sharks at night, surrounded by carangidae that use the light beam from your flashlight to hunt, while the current sweeps you away at a speed you can't quite comprehend in the direction of Sri Lanka, under a twinkling sky of constellations (don't worry, a boat is already on its way to pick you up). You will have the opportunity, if you wish, to taste food that until a few minutes before was alive or that you caught yourself.

You will get back in touch with your circadian rhythm: you will wake up at dawn because on the fishing islands there is no tourist time, that domesticated time zone that is often adopted by the resorts to make it more plausible for us to dine in the light and wake up at punishing times even on holiday. You will fall asleep serenely, exhausted by hours of snorkelling: the muezzin will wake you up twice a night chanting live, amplified by loudspeakers croaking all over the island, but you will experience the thrill of falling asleep again almost immediately, a utopia in your bed at home, made possible only by real fatigue. The kind that hardens the body and regenerates the mind.

You will have to pack long clothes that cover your arms and legs, no overly low-cut kaftans, no kissing in public. We are guests in other people's homes, respect above all else.

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