Maldives: A Hulhudheli Island silversmith (note the bellows operated blowpipe), South Nilandhoo Atoll, 1980

The tiny island of Hulhudheli lies in the South Nilandhoo Atoll. Here, lives the country's only group of hereditary silversmiths.

Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.

Copyright:

CPA Media Co. Ltd.

Photographer:

Andrew Forbes

Credit:

Pictures From Asia