Insider tips: 7 things you can only experience in the Maldives

• In the Maldives vacationers can spend their vacation without shoes.
• When jumping into the crystal-clear water, you are immediately surrounded by a multitude of colorful fish.
• In the underwater restaurant "Itaah", guests dine five meters below sea level.

I am neither a honeymooner nor a mermaid nor a diver. On the contrary: I have never been interested in getting married. In the sun, I can't stand it long on the lounger or in the softest sand. And as a windsurfer, I don't really want to know what is floating around in the sea below me, otherwise the fear of the next fall will torture me.

So what am I supposed to do in the Maldives? The 1192 islands in the Indian Ocean, which extend like a 1000 km long chain southwest of Sri Lanka to the equator, are currently experiencing an incredible boom. Even though the Maldives is a strictly Islamic state.

In addition to the approximately 150 luxury hotels, almost all of which are built on individual islands, over 20 new resorts have been added in the past two years. This hype made me curious, so I started looking for the secret of the Maldives – with amazing results.

Best time to go to the Maldives: pure vacation happiness

1. To the hotel with the world's largest seaplane airline

There is nothing appealing about airports for me, because you usually have to kill a lot of time in uncomfortable seats, queue in long lines or go through unloving shopping streets. The Male International Airport is different. Inside it is just as boring and ugly as many others, but after a few steps outside my heart leaps. The turquoise sea gurgles against the harbor wall, where one white boat after another moored and brought or took people. And already my transfer bus leaves for the sea airport.

The journey takes five minutes, then time no longer matters, even waiting for the onward flight doesn't bother me. Because the setting made of turboprop machines swinging in the emerald-green water, stewards balancing on the floats of the planes, coolies pushing the handcart loaded with suitcases to the landing stage and the seaplanes taking off and landing every five minutes is like a movie.

Trans Maldivian Airways is the name of the largest seaplane airline in the world, which bounces back and forth between 40 islands with 27 twin otter aircraft every day. Only ten passengers are sitting in my seaplane, which is flown by two pilots in slippers.

The view from the window lets you forget all the clatter and clank of the machine: the blue of the Indian Ocean is peppered with turquoise surfaces and white sand rings. The atolls with their scattered islets look like works of art, as if they had been painted on the water.

2. Vacation without shoes: Welcome to the paradise of the barefoot islands

Slippers? Superfluous! Chic sandals for dinner? Undesirable! I didn't want to believe it and stuffed it in the suitcase. But on a barefoot island like most Maldivian islands, you really don't need shoes. On the contrary, they only disturb. Because the hotel islands consist entirely of powdered-soft sand that glows white to soft pink and is cleaned and cleaned every day.

There are no better conditions for walking barefoot. The sand is not only on the beach and on the paths, but also serves as floor in the lobby, in bars and restaurants. Being bare-footed from morning to night and digging your toes in the sand with every step gives me a feeling of freedom and lightness – plus the ultimate vacation kick.

Exclusive luxury hotels such as the new 5-star resort Milaidhoo Island in Baa Atoll are committed to the casual barefoot lifestyle. They ask their guests to take off their shoes as soon as the holidaymakers enter the small island and only put them on again for the departure. "Europeans love being outside, so we designed everything so that our guests can experience the natural beauty of the island everywhere – and that starts with walking barefoot," explains Milaidhoo manager Shuhan.

3. Plant corals with a marine biologist

The close proximity to nature is also reflected in the Milhaidoo in a very special project, the planting of corals. Together with the marine biologist Nina, who works for the resort, I go on a snorkeling tour to collect broken, half-dead pieces of coral that fell victim to the hot water phenomenon El Niño last year. We fix the animals with cable ties on a cage-like metal frame that looks like a 3-D spider web.

The fastest corals grow 15 centimeters per year. As soon as the iron frame has overgrown, the artificial mini reef can be located outside on the large reef. Pippa and Will also planted corals diligently, as you can read on the name tag on "their" cage underwater in the breeding station under the footbridge to the 30 water villas. "For many guests, the name tag on the scaffolding is a great reminder that they have contributed to protecting the Maldives with their own hands," says the marine biologist.

Further information: www.milaidhoo.com/things-to-do/marine-biologist

4. Snorkeling instead of diving with the giants of the sea

Divers like to brag about huge and dangerous fish that they encounter deep in the water. As a self-confessed non-diver and not particularly brave snorkeler, I can now have a say. Because in the Maldives you don't have to dive to see the big ones in the ocean.

In the south of the Ari Atoll live whale sharks all year round, the largest sharks of the present day, which are up to 15 meters long and weigh twelve tons. The mostly male cubs are only around six meters tall in their nursery in the outer reef, but the view through the snorkel mask to the gray-blue giants with the white spots and the wide, blunt snout is so gigantic that you can never see it again forgets.

Like jumping into the aquarium

My pulse soars, even though I've already seen quite a bit of fish in the crystal-clear sea in front of my water villa – it's like jumping into a colorful aquarium: blue doctor fish, trigger fish circle me in the crystal-clear water, flat butterfly fish in their yellow – and orange tones, halter fish with their flag-like dorsal fins, angelfish with their thick kiss lips and the colorful, iridescent parrotfish, which scratch loudly at the corals with their beaks and several hawksbill turtles join them.

Now three manta rays are floating towards me. I know that they only eat plankton, but the look in their open mouth with the gill trap and their span of almost three meters frightens me. But the three seem to be in the mood to play and circle me instead of being cleaned by the small cleaner fish in peace – the real reason why they come to the reef called Rasfari Point in front of the Coco Bodu Hithi resort in North Male Atoll , I stand dead and admire the aesthetic flap movements of their fins in super slow motion.

From December to the end of April, dolphins can also be seen on the way to the so-called "Manta Spa". From June to November, hundreds of manta rays gather in the world's largest manta gathering in Haifaru Bay in the Baa Atoll because there is particularly delicious plankton at that time.

5. Feed five meters below or above the water

If you don't feel like snorkeling, diving and swallowing salt water, but still want to watch colorful fish, you can also do it comfortably with a meal. In 2014, the first restaurant located five meters below the water surface opened on Rangali Island in the southern Ari Atoll. “Itaah” is the name of the hotel “Conrad Maldives”, the curved, 12.5 cm thick plexiglass walls that reach to the floor give a clear view of the sea. No wonder that guests have to make reservations well in advance to dine there.

Since November 2016, there has also been a second underwater restaurant on the islands – in the newly opened Hurawalhi Island Resort in Lhaviyani Atoll. The largest underwater restaurant in the world is currently 5.8 meters below sea level and offers eight couples particularly profound romance when dining.

Speaking of novelties: if you want to get in touch with fish, you can also dine over water on traditional dhoni boats that lie in the sea off the island of Milaidhoo in Baa Atoll. One of these typical wooden boats is designed for outdoor seats like me, who like to be in a breezy dress under the starry sky.

The other boat is for fans of air conditioning systems who don't want to sweat in the tropics. You can watch the underwater world through a glass floor between the wooden planks. The "Batheli" restaurant serves the only traditional island cuisine in the Maldives, which of course includes a lot of fresh fish such as the famous yellowtail tuna.

6. Good for late risers: Two hours of free time a day

I don't care what time it is on vacation. Although I have to admit that I rarely experience sunrises due to this setting. It's a good thing that some Maldivian hoteliers have a heart for late risers and, because of a legal loophole, came up with the crazy idea of ​​simply changing the time.

So the clocks in the Maldives tick differently – depending on which island you are on. While some are based on Indian time, i.e. plus four hours to the Central European zone, other hotel islands simply set the clock back by an hour or two. The reason for this oddity: there is no law in the Maldives that prescribes a uniform time.

The goal of the time difference is to give guests more vacation time. So everything just happens an hour or two later. The sun doesn't plop into the sea at 6 p.m. from the purple-pink-orange horizon. Vacationers can splash around longer in the infinity pool and do not have to hurry to the sundowner.

Likewise, nobody has to get up at six in the morning to watch the sunrise. In this way you get free time of day, for example an hour in Coco Bodu Hithi in North Male Atoll or two hours in Finolhu on Kanufushi Island in southern Baa Atoll.

7. Picnic on the setting sandbar

Nothing works here without sunglasses: The small sandbar shines in such a bright white from the turquoise tones of the Indian Ocean that it almost hurts your eyes. However, this is not the only peculiarity of this unique patch of sand: it is only there from December to May, then the sea swallows it up to spit it out a few months later.

During this time, the sandbar is in great demand – for a picnic in total seclusion and loneliness. Couples who are looking for maximum romance can be sailed here and then snack on delicacies on a palm leaf under a makeshift sunroof. The picture-book setting in the middle of the ocean is also popular for marriage proposals and cuddling moments from honeymooners.

The dreamlike sandbar in me triggers thoughts of the rising sea level, which threatens the flattest country in the world. The national territory of the Maldives consists of 90 percent water areas. And most of the islands are only one meter above sea level on average. The highest point is 2.4 meters high on Vilingilli in the Addu Atoll in the very south. Unthinkable if this island paradise would be swallowed up by the sea forever.