Is a naked-toed luxury holiday worth the price
of a small compact car? Could you not get a cheap flight to
somewhere beachy, take off your shoes, find a wooden cabin and a man
to cook you curry, for a fraction of the cost?
-----------------
They’ve stolen my shoes. After thirteen hours on a plane, a
smiling man has placed them firmly into a bag labelled “No News,
No Shoes” and pulled the draw-string tight. I am now barefoot in
the Maldives.
I feel distinctly uncomfortable. Some people have a thing about
their thighs, stomach or numerous chins. Personally, I can’t stand
my feet. They’re big and hairy, a combination that’s rarely
attractive outside a zoo.
This winter-sun season, “Barefoot Luxury” is the new buzz-word.
Every expensively exotic beach holiday worth its sand is describing
itself as a purveyor of “Shoeless Chic”, “Sand-In-Your-Toes
Simplicity,” “Robinson Crusoe Relaxation”, or “Stripped
Tootsy Extravagance”. Okay, I made the last one up, but you get
the picture.
There’s even a new tour company called ‘Barefoot Luxury’ whose
brochure attempts to sum up the concept:
“As our name implies you may experience the true nature of the
places you’re visiting by walking barefoot, but luxury will never
be more than a step away."
Initially, I’m sceptical. The simplicities of nature, with all
mod-cons? Staying in grass huts for £2,000 a week sounds like a
good deal for the tour operator. What’s next? £1,500 to pick
turnips in Norfolk? £4,000 a week to shovel manure in Shropshire?
Wouldn’t you be better off staying at home with the heating up and
your size nines in a bucket of gravel from B and Q?
There’s only one way to find out. I must prepare to expose my
hirsute toes to luxurious sun-drenched beaches, in the interest of
journalistic research.
After much painful deliberation, I’ve decided to head to the Maldives,
the birthplace of Barefoot Luxury, via its cousin “Robinson Crusoe
Tourism.” This term was coined by a Danish academic study,
commissioned by the Maldivian government in 1971, which foresaw that
in an ever-shrinking, stressed-out world, high-end customers would
pay top dollar for isolation and natural surroundings. The resulting
developments set the standard for environmentally-friendly tourism.
Resorts can only be built on deserted islands, and must be of a high
standard, all with their own generators, desalination plants and
produce deliveries, minimising any impact on the surroundings.
It worked. In 1972 there were just 1000 visitors to the islands.
Thirty years later, there were 380,000.
It’s not hard to see why they come. These 1200 atoll islands,
bisecting the centre of the Indian Ocean, look like they’ve been
created by a ‘Paint Your Perfect Paradise’ computer program,
with empty white shores caressed by nodding coconut palms,
surrounded by a blue neon sea. Each atoll (from the Maldivian word
‘atolu’) is surrounded by coral reefs, housing vast shoals of
fish the colour of Smarties. The temperature rarely budges from 30ºC
during the day, 25ºC a night, and 27ºC in the sea. All in all,
it’s a mote more agreeable than Croydon.
I’m visiting two developments run by Soneva Resorts, founded by
Indian businessman, Sonu Shivdasani and his Swedish wife Eva, a
former model. Their Maldives
properties have introduced this “No News, No Shoes” policy in
the last two months, whereby you are asked to remove your footwear
before stepping onto the island. Back in London,
it seemed like a gimmick. My scepticism grew when Soneva Fushi’s
manager, Marc Aeberhard informed me that the company was seeking to
“redefine luxury”.
“For us luxury is about intangibles – space, tranquillity, and
pure nature. We want people to ask “what day is it today?” In
modern living, that is the ultimate luxury.”
Yet any cynicism vanishes the moment I step onto shore. The ivory
sand is as fine as table salt and perfectly warm. By my side, a
middle-aged Englishman stares at his feet as if he’s never seen
them before. It must be said that they are not the prettiest in the
world. I look at my hairy monsters with new-found affection.
“How nice,” remarks the Englishman, letting the sand run between
his big fat toes.
Soneva Fushi (meaning “small island”), is 60 miles by seaplane
and boat north of the international airport in Malé. The island is
only a mile long and a third of mile wide, and is thick with
tropical trees and plants. It offers Maldivian-style grass huts,
(the size of my London
flat), with lavish décor and sumptuous outdoor bathrooms.
Everything has been designed with naked toes in mind – from Indian
sandstone to plantation teak and smooth pebbles in the outdoor
showers, the floors are a joy to walk on. Outside each villa is a
pine needle hedgehog, against which you rub the bottoms of your feet
to rid them of sand. The pleasure this gives is not printable in a
family newspaper. Suffice to say it’s good for sole and soul.
It doesn’t take long to realise that bare feet are a great
leveller. Everyone seems to have dressed-down accordingly, with a
pleasing lack of flashiness for an expensive resort. As Michael and
Harriet Maunsell from Islington remark;
“It relaxes you immediately. There’s no competition. You can
forget your make-up and jewellery. You don’t need to make sure
your shorts are ironed!”
Stress levels are lowered further by the fact that there is very
little to do in the Maldives,
beyond contemplating your toe-nails. There are no museums,
monuments, ruins, cultural centres or shopping malls. Just the sea,
beach, and endless sunshine. Oh, and a gastronomic restaurant and
five-star spa.
One of the attractions of Soneva Fushi is its shady “jungle” - a
stroll along the sandy paths through the tropical fiscus, coconut
palms, cork wood, stone apple, and hibiscus is the perfect antidote
to sunburn on the beach. It feels coolly exotic, yet wholly safe -
the paths are swept hourly, and lit at night, in a way I find real
jungle never is.
My energy levels have plummeted, but I do venture out bravely one
morning to go fishing. I have a dhoni boat to myself, where I eat
mango and sip espresso on the rolling Indian Ocean, with an
attendant poised, like a cricketer in the slips, to catch any fruit
that tumbles off the table as we loll on the waves.
“Barefoot luxury?” I think to myself. More like “Bare-cheek
luxury”.
But I’m not complaining. Especially when catching Maldivian fish
seems to be as easy as getting a parking ticket in London.
My only complaint involves Soneva Fushi’s Me Dhuniye ‘Sunset’
restaurant, which boasts an incongruous $120 degustation menu
offering “Lasagna of job fish sashimi” and “Espresso of sweet
corn and truffle”, and an even more OTT wine list, in which many
bottles cost $300 or more. The contrast between the resort’s
‘natural’ ambiance and this Monte Carlo snootiness couldn’t be
more acute. When the ‘luxury’ overpowers the ‘barefoot’
elements, the whole concept fails.
Fortunately at my second destination, Soneva Gili, the chef Lionel
Valla has sought to maintain a more happy alliance with the shoeless
concept. Here, the cuisine is stylishly simple. At the Saturday
night buffet, my tuna curry is prepared by my own personal chef,
after I’ve selected the ingredients. I mean, your own curry chef?
I bet even Gazza doesn’t have that.
Soneva Gili (“very small island”) is just 15 minutes by
speedboat from the international airport at Malé, and attracts a
more glitzy clientele. It’s famous for its seven ‘Crusoe’
residences built in the water which are only accessible by boat
(recently patronised by Sven Goran Eriksson and Gareth Gates,
although not, I’m assured, together). Marooned these villas might
be, but it’s unlikely Mr Crusoe would recognise them - the
interiors are as luxury as barefoot can get before you’d have to
put shoes on.
Arranged on two levels, these residences resemble huge grown-up
Wendy Houses, with multiple decks and rooms boasting huge daybeds
and wooden recliners, backgammon sets, DVDs, glass portholes so you
can see stingrays and reef sharks swimming beneath your feet, and
vast wooden bath-tubs built over the sea.
Whilst all appears ‘natural’, the attention to luxurious detail
is extreme. There is beautiful Thai cutlery, Sri Lankan crockery and
crisp cotton sheets. The tea bags are made of muslin, hand-tied. I
thought the bamboo bathroom rubbish bins so lovely that I bought one
for my girlfriend. I mean, when was the last time you bought your
loved one a bin?
On my last afternoon, I find myself at the spa, which also resides
on stilts 200 yards out into the Indian Ocean. My feet do the
talking. I end up with a reflexology massage. As I lie there, trying
not to flinch, I think that the last person who touched my toes like
this was a doctor saying “Congratulations Mrs Keeble, it’s a
boy!” Yet it’s wonderfully soothing. I awake at the end with
drool on my chin.
So, is BL, BS? Is a naked-toed luxury holiday worth the price of a
small compact car? Could you not get a cheap flight to somewhere
beachy, take off your shoes, find a wooden cabin and a man to cook
you curry, for a fraction of the cost?
Of course. But that defeats the point. As I recall from backpacking
days, finding such perfect simplicity is hard work, requiring time
and effort. The great thing about Barefoot Luxury is, it’s all
done for you. To the highest quality.
As holidaymaker Harriet Maunsell puts it:
“It’s as if they’re saying, leave it to us. We know what you
need to relax.”
There is a reason such ‘barefoot’ simplicity is expensive. In
some ways, the ‘barefoot’ element is an illusion. All this
‘naturalness’ and ‘simplicity’ is the result of a large team
of staff (at least double the amount of visitors in most resorts)
and a costly creative vision. It’s akin to experiencing some great
theatrical show, in which you never see the stage-hands, the
rehearsal process, or the producers.
These adult playgrounds (in the Julie Andrews, rather than the Hugh
Hefner, sense of the word), permit us to do things we haven’t done
since childhood – not wearing shoes, riding a bike after dark,
snorkelling in rock pools, or splashing about for hours in a
gigantic bath-tub.
Without getting too Freudian, this might be the essential attraction
of the Barefoot Luxury concept. It returns us to a state of blissful
childhood. The moment you take off your shoes and run barefoot in
the sand is all the more pleasurable because it reminds us of the
first time we did it as kids. And who are the cheerful white-clad
staff, calling us by our first names and acquiescing to our every
whim, if not surrogate parents?
As if to symbolise this point, the visitors’ books at both resorts
are full of happy little stick drawings, like primary school art
exhibitions. Whilst walking around the island of Soneva Fushi, I
discover a lovingly-crafted sandcastle with a home-made flag on top.
It should be noted that there are no children staying here at the
time.
“I suppose we do encourage you to slip back into childhood,”
agrees Soneva Fushi’s manager, Marc Aeberhard. “You’re allowed
to do things that ‘mother’ might have told you not to!” He
illustrates his point with an anecdote concerning the Deputy Mayor
of Zurich,
(“The very definition of stiff!”), who had to be forcibly
separated from his loafers upon arrival.
“He was so angry …” recalls Aeberhard. “But the day he left,
he actually jumped off the boat and started swimming back to shore.
He was laughing and splashing like a five year old!”
Ah yes. There’s only one real drawback to a barefoot luxury
holiday - returning home. Since being back in London,
I’ve been parading around the house, pied-nu, much to the alarm of
my postman. But what can I do? My feet have become used to being
luxuriously bare. The only problem is, next week they’re off to
some hotel in the Seychelles.
Without me.
