A resort manager points to some of the antiques that may find their way into a cultural museum. [Photo by Matt Hodges/China Daily]

It is illegal for tourists to bring alcohol into the country, but fortunately Loama does a mean Long Island Ice Tea. You can't exchange yuan, or most other currencies, so bring dollars and credit cards.

Chinese, excluding those from Taiwan, made up 30.2 percent of the 1.2 million tourists who visited the Maldives last year, up 9.6 percent from 2013. No one else even came close. Germans were second at 8.2 percent and British third.

The country served as a colonial outpost of the British before it transitioned to a republic in 1968, and a renovated army barracks now caters to those on a shoestring on Addu Atoll's Gan Island.

But who wants to be reminded of bombs and bullets when you can have your own subaquatic Garden of Eden?

Book anything other than an ocean villa and you miss the point. It entails spending hours on the balcony watching baby sharks, mantas and parrot fish swim up to say hi before you dive in to roam like Disney's Nemo around a pristine 100-hectare lagoon and superb coral forest. Natural fish spas are also a buzz.