SUNDOWN on Feydhoo, and the open-air Café de Bodufanna on the quayside is the place to hang out. Rows of wooden fishing boats are moored, and the evening's call to prayer has been wailed from the village mosque.

Men and women sit at low wooden tables sipping black tea and playing a local board game, using scraps of coral for counters. I shoot the breeze with some lads who are into Snow Patrol and the Killers, did A levels at school on neighbouring Maradhoo and speak a precise, accented English. I buy them a round of Red Bulls.

So, here I am fraternising with the locals and sharing in a bit of everyday life on Addu Atoll, the southernmost and farthest flung of the 26 island clusters that make up the Maldives. It is the end of a day on which I have cycled through villages of coral-walled houses and stopped at busy harbours to watch the to-ing and fro-ing of dhonis bringing home the yellow-finned tuna catch.

A few other tourists have also stopped by for a drink or to nibble gulha (fiery fish balls), propping their bikes against an oil drum. It is an unusual scene in this tiny, Islamic Indian Ocean country, where interaction between visitors and host communities has been a missing element in the overall holiday package.

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Earlier this year, however, the opening of a new resort in the Addu Atoll, 40 miles south of the Equator, caught my eye. Herathera is connected by a causeway to the neighbouring, inhabited Hulhudhoo island, offering guests at the Handu Fushi Resort tantalising chances to taste the local culture. Furthermore, publicity material promised that it was possible to hire bikes and pedal from village to village, exploring the islands of the atoll.

I had always understood that tourism in the highly conservative Maldives was confined strictly to the uninhabited islands, to prevent local populations being contaminated by vices such as alcohol or immodest dress. I was keen to find out more.

I flew in via the capital Malé, down to the former RAF base on Gan, then skimmed across the shallow, pale green lagoon to Herathera aboard the resort's private boat.

Rows of spacious, individual villas are strung along the snake-shaped island, with views over the opalescent lagoon on one side and the cobalt Indian Ocean on the other. Give or take a bit of unfinished landscaping, the reverie is completed with a hemline of brilliant white beaches, palm fronds, infinity pools, barefoot bars with floors of sand serving extravagant cocktails... you can picture the scene.

So far, so Maldives. I wanted to see Hulhudhoo and some local culture.

Certainly, you can rent a bike and pedal up a ribbon of crushed coral pathway. But only as far as the staff quarters, I found. Beyond that is a smoke-belching bonfire of rubbish and, on the causeway across to neighbouring Hulhudhoo island, a gate manned by security guards. Guests, on or off their bikes, are not allowed through.

In the opposite direction, only staff on their way to work at the resort may pass. The resorts's general manager, Eric Aeberold, admitted: “Our intention was that there would be free passage between Herathera and Hulhudhoo, but now the island chiefs have decided that they would prefer that tourists come round by boat if they wish to see the village.”

This a few tourists do, on escorted excursions, and spend an hour or two strolling round the pretty harbour and quiet, sandy streets where tidily dressed people offer polite greetings.

There is an open-air market and mosque to check out, leaving time for tea or a soft drink before the five-minute hop back to the resort. “We came to relax and scuba dive and never thought much about straying away from the resort,” say Graham and Michele Wilson, from Yorkshire.

However, with a bit of persistence I find that it is perfectly possible to have the resort's boat drop me, plus hired bike, alone at Hulhudhoo harbour to spend a day exploring the island and neighbouring Meedhoo, which is linked via another causeway. The far north, at the end of a straight, beaten-earth track, is an idyll of white surf and empty, fine-sand beaches, strewn with driftwood and coconuts.

Lunching on grilled reef fish and mineral water at Corner Park café, I met John Agustin, a teacher from Kerala working in the village school, who invited me to join in an impromptu game of cricket.

As a lone tourist, I was conscious of being a curiosity. People wanted to chat, with many of them keen to pose for photographs. Nobody tried to sell me anything, or hassled me in any way. It was a similar story next day, when I took my bike back across the lagoon to Gan, to cycle the islands on the western side of the atoll.

The RAF abandoned Gan in 1976, leaving a runway and some warehouses and living quarters now derelict. However, the former sergeants' mess has been turned into a bizarre budget resort, the Equator Village, attracting independent travellers who come here for scuba diving at bargain prices. The location, on a scrap of stony beach, is not especially alluring; but, uniquely in the Maldives, guests are free to hire bikes or scooters and cross the causeways to the neighbouring inhabited islands.

In his office in Hithadhoo village, the Island Chief Mohamed Muneer told me: “The opening of the resort on Herathera is a dream we have waited ten years for. What it means for Addu Atoll is that there are hundreds of jobs locally - waiters, cleaners, boatmen, clerical staff, managers, who can now live with their families rather than being away for 11 months of the year.”

Muneer cautions, however: “Since the British presence on Gan, we have been used to foreigners in Addu, which is why there are not the same restrictions here as in the rest of the country.”

Things have certainly loosened up a bit in Addu Atoll, even if the era of tourists immersing themselves as much in Maldivian culture as in the opalescent lagoons, is a long way off.

I would have felt frustrated to have come to the Maldives and been restricted to a resort. But while staying on Herathera made it possible to enjoy simple pleasures, such as drinking coffee with locals or cycling to the fish market, this still felt rather like straying beyond school bounds.

NEED TO KNOW

Hayes & Jarvis (www.hayesandjarvis.com, 0871 6640246) offers a week's stay at Handu Fushi Resort and Spa from £1,199pp, including return flights to Gan via Malé, boat transfers to Handu Fushi and half-board accommodation.

When to go Year round, though January to April tends to be driest.

Parking “Meet and Greet” with seven days' parking at Heathrow from £85 with APH (01342 859515, www.aph.com).

Read Maldives (Bradt Guide, £13.99)

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