Paradise in the Maldives—But For How Long?
The world's seventh-best hotel is on Mirihi Island, a low-lying beauty that environmental forecasters fear may disappear entirely.
Updated | Poking precariously above the water, Mirihi Island appears on the horizon like a beached turtle. The pilot of the tiny seaplane that is taking me to the Maldivian resort, recently voted the seventh best hotel in the world, is sitting within arm’s reach. He is not wearing any shoes.
After a splash landing, a posse of islanders greets me on the pontoon. They also are barefoot. Before I have checked in, a staff member politely asks me to remove my sneakers and leave them lying in the sand to be picked up and taken, together with my bags, to my water villa, a straw-roofed hut suspended on stilts above the water
