The word on the magu is that the days of taking the ferry over to the airport with an empty suitcase and coming back with one that weighs a tonne and goes “clink, clink” are coming to an end.

The first rumour to get around Malé was that spouses could no longer apply for liquor permits of their own. No more will spouses be able to pop across to the bonded warehouse with their very own permit, or indeed, someone else’s. A bit of a shame, because if you read the fine print on the permit, you’re not supposed to share your grog with anyone else, not even your wife.

Seeing as my partner and I aren’t married, and I’m unable to get a dependent’s visa here in the Maldives, I wasn’t ever likely to get a spousal liquor permit anyway.

The latest rumour, however, is that all expat liquor permits could be a thing of the past. The story has been passed around by two separate sources, but I suppose we have to wait and see whether any recent arrivals are able to get their permits. It seems to take at least three months to sort out an expat’s work and liquor permits, so it could be a while before anyone knows for sure. If the rumours turn out to be true, one wonders when the decision will be announced to prospective foreign employees. Expat life in Malé is boring enough as it is.

Meanwhile, out in the Maldivian blogosphere, no one is talking about expat liquor permits. There are the usual news reports of a police crackdown on rum running, but the main thing getting people worked up was this piece in an Indian business paper, in which a columnist quietly remarked that President Mohamed “Anni” Nasheed had discussed regional security issues with local reporters “over a glass of Sula Shiraz” during his first state visit to India. Apparently none of the journos present snapped off a photo, but that hasn’t stopped the comments page from overflowing. A few bloggers have even found their way to Doing Nothing Atoll while searching for photographic evidence of Anni’s alleged tipple.

It might come as a surprise, then, that the same paper’s recent interview with the Maldivian foreign minister Ahmed Naseem, in which he states that an astonishing 30 per cent of local youth are using drugs, has not attracted nearly so much attention. I doubt even 30 per cent of youth in Hamsterdam are drug users, but the local blogs are quiet. One man’s drink is obviously more important than the poison of thousands of other men.

It’s a little-known fact that the Maldives is home to the world’s dumbest stalker. His name is Rasheed*.

A couple of weeks ago, my girlfriend was walking home at night, listening to her iPod, when a stranger came up behind her and asked for her phone number.

My girlfriend hadn’t heard him, so she pulled her earphones out and he asked her again. By this time, she had reached the front gate and locked him out.

About 10 minutes later, the home phone began to ring. The national phone carrier here, Dhiraagu, will give you the phone number for any address you give them. It won’t, however, allow you to block calls from certain numbers or provide a “call return” service. He probably had to try about four different numbers to get our flat, and he kept on calling it until very late into the night.

The stalker seemed to lose interest for a while, after I answered his phone call a few weeks back. But a few nights ago, someone called and asked to speak to “the lady”.

Stalker: “Can I speak to the lady, please?”

Me: “I’m sorry, who is this?”

Stalker: “Can I speak to the lady, please?”

Me: “What is your name?”

Stalker: “My name is Rasheed, can I speak to the lady please?”

Me: “Umm, Rasheed, do you know my wife’s name?”

Rasheed: “No, can I speak to the lady?”

Me: “Umm, Rasheed, you’re really not very bright, are you? Please don’t call us again.”

* It should be said that Rasheed is not necessarily Maldivian.

When you’re living on a tiny, crowded island surrounded by the vast Indian Ocean, the working week starts on a Sunday and there’s really nowhere to go out drinking, what else can you do on a Saturday night but go fishing?

Every week, a fishing dhoni leaves from the southwest wharf in Malé and heads off in search of fishing grounds. Anyone who has visited the fish markets in Malé or been snorkelling or diving in the Maldives knows that this bit of the Indian Ocean is teeming with sea life, and much of it is edible. In fact, I find that snorkelling here makes me crave seafood — I can close my eyes and picture the sea critters on a pizza pescatora at Luna.

The dhoni took us out past Vilingili into the waters north of Malé, where the smoke and industry of Thilafushi could clearly be seen on the horizon. Popularly known as “rubbish island”, Thilafushi got some bad press last week when the Guardian ran a story about the Maldives’ one and only garbage dump. The local press even picked up the story a week later.

We tried not to think about the heavy metals that could be leaching out from Thilafushi as we watched the sun set over the Indian Ocean. The boys on the boat gave us all a handline each, with a huge hook and a chunk of fresh tuna for bait. Tuna fishing is the second-biggest industry in the Maldives after tourism, and almost all of it is caught by line or pole fishing, so it’s reasonably sustainable.

None of us will be getting jobs on a commercial tuna dhoni any time soon, but we did bring in a few barracuda, snapper and even a red emperor. The boys cooked them all up for us on a little home-made BBQ, served up with some rice and a thin broth. Onions, lime and chillies were optional. If only I’d brought along some of this month’s beer rations. Oh well, next time.

In the last few days of 2008, expats living in Malé appeared to have three main choices for their new year’s eve celebrations: a dry night out watching some local DJs, heading over to the airport hotel for their shindig, or getting away to one of the resorts with friends and family.

We joined a table of expats by the pool at the airport hotel, and had an enjoyable night out. The buffet was excellent, but the hotel management could learn something from Hanoi’s C.A.M.A. crew about drinks vouchers and DJs.

Your $66 ticket gave you just one standard drink, and after that the bar would only take vouchers — and would not give you any change. Twice I went to the bar to buy beers with a $20 voucher, ordered two beers, and both times I was told I had to buy four. It’s hard enough paying $10 for two Lions, but being told you had to buy two more and let them go warm because they won’t give you change is just plain stupid.

The Sri Lankan DJ told us it was his third new year’s eve playing at the airport hotel, and he played pretty much what you’d expect from a hotel DJ anywhere in the world — up until midnight. Not long after the countdown, and the lucky door prizes, the DJ seemed more interested in playing old Sri Lankan folksy favourites for his mates on staff. The best track he played all night was from British/Sri Lankan act M.I.A., a nice surprise until he pulled it off about a minute into the song.

Not long after midnight, the DJ started announcing that the last ferry to Malé left at 1.30. Repeatedly. The staff quietly stopped selling drinks vouchers, and the bar staff wouldn’t take cash, if you were lucky enough to get their attention. The message was clear. Go home.

Things were worse for those who’d chosen to stick around on Malé. There were a couple of events planned for the night, with local DJs and bands. However, early on in the night, word got around that the police were going to shut the events down at the request of the religious ministry. The minister of Islamic Affairs, Sheikh Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed, said it was haram for men and women to dance together and asked the police to step in. Although the events went ahead, the rumours got around and the high numbers of police at the events kept the punters away.

There are quite a few local DJs based in Malé, most of whom make a living playing out at the resort islands. Telling Maldivians that music events are haram is like telling them they can’t eat tuna — it’s how the country makes its money. This is the contradiction at the heart of the modern Maldives, a country struggling to maintain its Muslim identity while it lives off the income of luxury beach tourism. And tuna fishing.

Suggested viewing: Rachid Taha’s cover of “Rock the Casbah”. With added Mick Jones.

One of the world’s finest cocktail hours can be enjoyed in the Maldives, according to this recent piece in the Sydney Morning Herald. When I moved here, only a few of my friends knew where the Maldives were (they were mostly Brits), and those who did thought the country was all about drinking cocktails out of a coconut shell with a little umbrella on top, under a coconut palm, on a white sandy beach, at sunset.

You can, of course, enjoy your sunset cocktail in the Maldives, but only on a resort island. There are essentially three different “Maldives”: the resorts, the other inhabited islands, and Malé. So while foreign tourists can drink at a resort, alcohol is banned in Malé and across the rest of the country. The foreigners who live and work outside of the resorts have to apply for a special permit to buy alcohol and drink it at home — otherwise you can take the ferry over to the airport hotel and drink as much as you like, at resort prices.

After three months in Malé, we finally got our liquor permit in time for Christmas. Unfortunately, the month of December had been scrubbed out, but after a quick run to the trade ministry we were able to fix it and put in our order on Christmas Eve. To place your order, you have to go to one of the distributors in Malé — behind an unmarked gate and up a set of stairs.

A day later, you have to head over to the airport island to the bonded warehouse, which is actually hundreds of shipping containers packed full of alcohol. After about an hour in the customs office, filling in more forms, our monthly alcohol ration was brought out to us in a wheelbarrow. Sixty beers, two bottles of wine and a litre of vodka. Sixty beers sounds like a lot, but between the two of us, that’s only one beer per man per day… perhaps. And it’s the silly season. We weren’t allowed to keep the wheelbarrow, but luckily we had been warned to take a large suitcase with us to carry all of the grog back to Malé. You’re not supposed to flaunt your booze in public.

We get to replenish our supplies straight after New Year’s Eve, but rumour has it that things are about to change. Some people believe the new president, Mohamed Nasheed (aka Anni) will try to open up the country, although it seems unlikely that Anni would go as far as to repeal prohibition. Another rumour has it that Malé may have its first licensed premises when the Holiday Inn opens next year, right near the president’s office. If it ever opens, and it gets a licence, expats probably won’t be able to enjoy a Thursday-night beer at the hotel bar. At the Holiday Inn in Lahore, only resident, non-Muslim foreigners with a liquor permit can order alcohol, and only in their rooms.

Maldivians who have developed a taste for the demon drink — either when travelling abroad to work or study, or working on a resort island — have to truck with the rum-runners. It might sound like the name of a Pogues album, but Maldivians who are caught with sly grog have faced the lash since June this year, when a replacement flogger was found 12 months after the previous flagellator had passed away. Those who had escaped punishment in the previous year were also due to be flogged, as a group, outside the criminal court. Kinda redefines the term “party whip”.

Returning to Australia after so many years living abroad, it’s surprisingly easy to get yourself into trouble. You forget about how tightly regulated a free country like Australia actually is, compared to the personal freedoms (some might say lawlessness) you’ve enjoyed in communist states like Vietnam or Muslim dictatorships like the Maldives.

I’ve forgotten some of the basic rules of being Australian, so now I’m always worried that I’m doing something wrong. I’m worried that I’m going to be fined for jaywalking, I go to organic produce markets and I hold onto my coffee cup because I’m scared of putting it in the wrong bin, and I haven’t been behind the wheel of a car for the past two weeks.

I walked past a police station last week with an open bottle of beer in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other. The police didn’t even blink an eye, but I kept asking my Dad if we were going to be arrested.

Yesterday, I nearly copped a $200 fine for getting on the wrong train. I was waiting at Penrith station after a weekend at my brother’s house, and was relieved to see a train heading to Katoomba earlier than I expected. Better yet, it didn’t stop anywhere between Penrith and Katoomba. I didn’t realise anything was wrong until a ticket inspector told me I didn’t have a valid ticket. The inspector told me I was on a Countrylink train with a CityRail ticket, and had no excuse because there were signs everywhere telling me I was eligible for a $200 fine for doing just that. Well, there were no warning signs anywhere in Penrith station, not on the suburban platform where I boarded the train, or on the TV monitors or the announcements that the next train on platform 3 was going to Katoomba.

Fortunately, the ticket inspector could tell I hadn’t deliberately caught the wrong train just so I could enjoy the comfy airline seats, extra leg room or the bad, overpriced coffee from the dining car (do Australians still really drink Timms coffee bags? in 2008?). At least the inspector had enough personal discretion in his duties to let me off the fine — I’m not sure I would have had the same luck in on a train in Vietnam or India. The ticket inspector even waved me goodbye when I was the only passenger to get off in Katoomba. Good onya mate!

Last weekend, Caitlin and I joined a bunch of other expats on a day trip out to the Club Med resort just north of Malé.

Naturally, I’d never been to a Club Med before and I remember friends of mine successfully campaigning against the construction of a Club Med in Byron Bay back in the nineties. It was also my first experience of the “all-inclusive resort” concept.

I’d only been in the country for a week and as an expat surrounded by holiday-makers, I really couldn’t shake the feeling that I was crashing a private party of newly-wed and middle-aged Contiki alumni.

I was quite keen to try the snorkelling but by the time we’d finished with the enormous buffet breakfast, we’d missed out on the registration. That’s right, you’re on holidays but to take part in any of Club Med’s organised activities, you have to register beforehand and show up on time. And I thought that the whole point of a beach holiday was to forget what day it is, let alone what time it is, and just relax by the sea.

The resort’s snorkel guides tested some of the snorkellers (ie, the Japanese girls) to see if they could swim before they were allowed onto the boat out to a nearby reef. And the snorkellers had to wear a buoyancy vest at all times, which means they were stuck on the surface and couldn’t dive down to check out the coral close-up.

At least the kayaking was a little less regimented. The resort had a handful of kayaks and windsurfers that the guests could use, at any time  unless you wanted to learn how to use them, and then you had to have registered before breakfast…

All in all, it was a great day out and I got to meet a few of the other foreigners living on Malé. The vibe by the pool and bar was much more mellow, and it seemed as though most of the people there were ignoring the organised activities in favour of lounging by the pool and enjoying the cocktails. Just like you should on a holiday in paradise.

I’m not sure if the resort tells its guests what time to go to bed, as we were already heading back to Malé as the sun set over the Indian Ocean.

When I landed in Malé last week, it was the first time I had ever visited a country without even looking at a guidebook beforehand. Not that you really need a guidebook to find your way around Malé, as the island is not much bigger than Hanoi’s Old Quarter but with seawall on all sides. But I’m not just visiting the Maldives, I’m going to be living here.

In case you ever move to a country knowing as little about it as I did, here are some observations:

• don’t move to a Muslim country during Ramadan. Few shops are open during the day, and you can’t drop into a café for a drink. You can’t even drink water in public during daylight. NB: “Ramadan breakfasts” don’t start until 8pm.

• where the streets have no number: houses in Malé are referred to by name, not by their street number. Luckily for us, our villa shares a name with a street on the other side of the island.

• no big deal if your taxi takes you to the wrong street; the taxis don’t have meters and it costs 20rf to go anywhere on the island. It’s always tempting to jump in a cab and do laps of the town.

• this one is for any Hanoians who might be reading: people park their motorbikes out on the street overnight, unlocked. Probably the biggest source of culture shock for someone who’s used to scooters being a permanent decoration in their lounge room. Where would the thieves take your bike anyway?

• Every day is an AFD in Malé. Foreigners can drink alcohol in their homes, but they have to apply for an alcohol licence first. You can apparently apply for a licence to eat pork too.

• Shah Rukh Khan is on at least 24 Indian TV channels, 24 hours a day.