Islands of Silver and Gold

Nilandu Atoll, in the west-central Maldive Islands, is about as far from the late twentieth century as it is possible to get. The Maldives, an isolated coral archipelago scattered in a five hundred kilometre swathe across the Indian Ocean south-west of Sri Lanka, have been open to international tourism for close on twenty years now. Chartered jet-loads of visitors fly in from Europe and Asia, landing at Hulule International Airport. This tiny coral islet, artificially extended at both ends with hard-core brought by sea from India, looks for all the world like a fixed aircraft carrier against the azure waters of the surrounding Indian Ocean.

From Hulule, most visitors transit directly to customised tourist islands. Here, against a setting of pristine white coral sands, craning palms and crystal-clear lagoons, they can enjoy a designer Robinson Crusoe lifestyle, dining on imported haute cuisine flown in for the occasion. The main attractions are sunbathing, snorkelling and swimming. For a week or two it's paradise - then back to business in Düsseldorf or Turin.

There is another Maldives. The people of the archipelago call their country Divehi Rajje, or the Island Realm, with good reason. There are almost two thousand islands, the largest of which are only a few kilometres square. About two hundred are inhabited by Maldivians, an Indo-European people closely related to the Sinhalese who are thought to have migrated to the islands about two thousand years ago. They are a sophisticated people, with their own script (based on Arabic numerals, the most recent of three scripts independently developed in the islands) and a long history of independence. Almost uniquely amongst the peoples of South Asia, they escaped colonisation, signing over control of their foreign affairs to the British in exchange for promises of non-interference at home. These were honoured, and affection for Britain remains strong - English is the widely-spoken second language, and many houses in Malé, the national capital, sport names such as Hyde Park, Windsor, and even Dunroamin.

Originally Theravada Buddhists, the Maldivians became Muslims in the twelfth century as a result of long exposure to Arab shipping and commerce. Islam is universal, but of a more gentle cast than that of the Middle East and Central Asia. There is no tradition of war and conquest, and the Maldivians are more akin to the Malays in their outlook than to the Iranians or Afghans. Their houses and mosques are made of brilliant white coral stone, and in the heat of the day it is possible to develop a tropical variant of snow-blindness if you go out without sun-glasses.

The Maldives sit atop an undersea mountain range called the Laccadive-Chagos Ridge. Coral reefs growing from the top of the highest peaks in this range form rings of islands known in Divehi as atolu - from which derives the English word 'atoll', probably the only Maldivian word to have attained international usage. Between the various atolls - there are nineteen of them in the archipelago - are deep channels, unprotected by reefs, swept by dangerous currents, and sometimes fifty to sixty kilometres across. To visit outlying islands may take weeks in a small fishing boat, depending on the vagaries of the weather. Yet, if you have permission, inclination and time, such a journey can be beyond price.

One such trip, rarely made by outsiders, is the voyage to Nilandu. Here, in an isolated ring-shaped atoll some hundred kilometres south-west of Malé, cluster about twenty islands, only five of which are inhabited. Once within the confines of the lagoon it is possible to see most of the surrounding islets, but beyond Nilandu itself - nothing but the boundless ocean. With the exception of a few men who have travelled beyond the archipelago, the people of Nilandu have never seen a mountain [the highest elevation in the Maldives is about five metres] or a river. For that matter, they've never seen a pig or a dog, either. The pig is considered an unclean animal, forbidden to pollute the pristine sands of the Maldives since the conversion to Islam in 1143. The last dogs to be seen in the islands were sent as a present by the King of France in the 17th century. A horrified Maldivian Sultan ordered them incontinently drowned!

Most people live by fishing and coconut farming. So rich in fish are the deeps off Nilandu that the fishermen don't need to use hooks. Following time-honoured convention, they scatter small bait collected in the lagoon across the waves, then - as the sea begins to boil with bonito tuna - they flick lures of sparkling tin, unbarbed, into the water. So greedy are the fish that the boats can be filled in minutes, without wasting time on unhooking the catch. Later, only the prized middle section of the fish will go into the evening curry - the rest is thrown back into the sea, causing the azure waters, briefly, to turn red with blood.

Andrew Forbes / CPA	Andrew Forbes / CPA
Traditional Maldivian dress and jewellery.

Not all of Nilandu's inhabitants are fisher-folk, however. On the eastern rim of the atoll lies the tiny island of Rimbidu. Here, in one of the quietest and cleanest villages in the Maldives, lives the country's only group of hereditary goldsmiths. Melting down Victorian gold sovereigns and Marie-Therèse thalers as casually as recently-imported mini-ingots from Dubai, they manufacture an exquisite range of chains, necklaces, ear-rings, finger-rings and amulets to adorn the small-boned, dark-skinned and surprisingly assertive Maldivian women. Mahmoud Loutfi, a jeweller who has travelled as far as Al-Azhar in Cairo, bemoans the decline in style and standards he claims to have seen in his sixty-seven years. The nascent tourist industry has made no difference, he says. "Tourists never come to Nilandu, and even in the capital they don't want gold. They buy coral or - with a meaningful sneer at the western horizon - silver".

Following the direction of his glance, it is possible to detect the palms and corrugated roofs of a neighbouring island, perhaps six kilometres distant. This is Huludeli, home of the Maldivian silversmiths. Where Rimbidu is clean and quiet, Huludeli is littered with fish scales and flies. Whilst the goldsmiths and their families are simple, austere and dignified, the silversmiths and their families seem untidy by comparison. What these two parallel communities do have in common, apart from their extraordinary isolation, is great skill in their specialised craft, and an abiding distrust of each other. Mahmoud Loutfi, for the first and only time in our conversation, looks startled when I reveal our next destination to be Huludeli. "You shouldn't go there", he insists. "I have never been myself, but my father warned against visiting".

Two hours later, having left a worried Mr Loutfi wringing his hands by the beach, we landed at Huludeli to a warm welcome, hot cups of tea, and general amazement. Outsiders don't visit Nilandu very often, so it was important to warn us, whatever else we did, not to visit - another meaningful glance - that unspeakable island on the eastern horizon. When the hideous truth was revealed - that we had just come from Rimbidu - there was much worried shaking of heads, and we were taken down to the village mosque for evening prayers and a blessing from the khatib. Maldivian women, incidentally, have their own mosques - namadu-ge, or prayer houses - which men are forbidden to enter. I asked, and received a polite, but firm, negative.

Later, sitting on the shore by the western rim of the atoll at sunset, I pondered on the strange, Gullivers' Travels world of Rimbidu and Huludeli. Here, on the very edge of the abyssal plain sundering the Maldives from Eastern Africa, is a kind of paradise. After dark the isolation seems total. The islands, lacking electricity, are illuminated only by the occasional flickering oil lamp. Palm fronds rustle, and streaks of phosphorescence fleck the lagoon. In the distance, beyond the reefs, the great waves boom. It is like being in a different universe. How strange and yet how human, then, to find paradise marked by generations of mistrust between two isolated guilds of master-craftsmen.

This article was originally published in the Asian Wall Street Journal.

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