Saturday, December 4, 2021
Dubai, UAE
A Day of Varied Activity:
We awoke in our beautifully comfortable room in Reuben and Tabita’s home in Damac Hills after a very restful night. It is supremely quiet here with no disturbance at all to inhibit rest. After showering and getting dressed for the day, we went downstairs to a huge breakfast, no brunch. In fact, Reuben is a foodie who fed us generously for the next few days with all the enthusiasm of someone who loves to cook and entertain. Accordingly, there were eggs and sausages (wonderfully delicious pork chipolatas that he had bought from Waitrose—yes, the Waitrose, my favorite supermarket chain in the UK!), a variety of cold cuts and cheeses, croissants with butter and fruit plus coffee.
The plan for the morning was that I would focus on re-packing and sending my excess baggage to India through the services of a cargo company called Prime. They would be providing door-to-door services that would include forwarding and clearing my goods through Customs in India. I suggested that Llew use the time to go off with Reuben (who had a few days off as a result of the National holiday weekend) to his former haunts in Dubai. He was keen to see the bank building in which he had worked and the apartment building in which he had lived—both of which were in Deira-Dubai, the very heart of the city. So off they went.
Packing and Sending off my Excess Baggage:
I don’t know if I will ever be able to convey the anxiety I experienced for the next couple of hours as I went minutely through all my belongings to make choices. I had to decide which items I would carry with me, accompanied in a suitcase not exceeding 30 kgs. and which items I would get the movers to pack up for me to be sent by cargo to Bombay. It was entirely nerve-wracking and I was glad I had the time, space (Reuben has a large home and so I could spread out) and the privacy to go through all my belongings without feeling as if someone was looking over my shoulder. This was no mean task and I often had to quell my feelings of being overwhelmed and remind myself to stay calm as I had all the time in the world. Llew and I had made the decision to send my goods by sea cargo (which the movers had told me would take about three months to arrive) as opposed to air cargo (which would take 15-20 days). The price of the latter was double that of the former.
Providentially, while I was in the middle of my travails, Tabita received a call from a friend of hers—truly the voice of an intervening angel—warning her that I ought not to send anything by sea cargo to India. It appears that, as a result of Covid, thousands of containers had piled up in the Bombay docks and were fully neglected. The friend had been waiting for over five months for her own goods to reach Bombay from Dubai. Tracking the progress of the items had led her to realize that they were in the Bombay docks but were simply not being touched. Of course, it was then a ‘No Brainer’ for me to switch carriers and to go from sea to air cargo. I informed the movers who had arrived by this time and the operation of packing and mailing my goods began.
In about two hours, Llew and Reuben returned and Llew was able to take decisions with me and assist in the final stages of sending out them out on their way. His own mission had been far less successful than he had imagined as the traffic in that congested part of Dubai was, he said, hard to believe. Despite his best efforts, Reuben could barely get his car to move a few feet every fifteen minutes. Eventually, they took the call to abandon their mission and return home. Llew got a few pictures of the neighborhood that he remembered well (as little has changed in that part of Dubai) and, somewhat disappointed, returned home.
The movers finished the job with tremendous skill and expertise. I was amazed at the speed and efficiency with which they taped the cartons—one of my suitcases went directly into a carton—and the proficiency with which they used a synthetic kind of sacking to enclose the entire carton. There were two cartons I sent off and after signing the paperwork, we saw the movers off. It left me feeling far more light-hearted than I had done for days.
With Reuben back and both of us not quite hungry yet, we decided to take a bit of a rest before we planned the next part of our day. I was keen to see the famous Palm of Dubai and to get to the end of it—to the Atlantis. The Atlantis is a resort hotel of sorts that originated in the Bahamas but has a branch in Dubai. I did not recall seeing much of it on the last time I was in Dubai because night had fallen by the time I took the metro to get to it and there was barely anything I saw.
Evening Sight-Seeing Tour--The Palm, Atlantis Resort, Souk Medinat Juneirah and Ibn Battuta Mall:
It is good we had Reuben to ferry us around in his car and to explain things to us—nothing like having a ‘local’ guide to assist when one is traveling. We started off by making the longish drive (about 45 minutes) from Reuben’s home to the Dubai waterfront and to inch on to The Palm. This new-ish feature of the Dubai skyline was the brainchild of an architect who thought of making the most of the sea-views possible by visualizing and creating a township in the shape of a huge palm leaf. The main stem would run through the center of the township and the fronds of the palm would be the avenues on which upscale housing would be created—with each house taking advantage of a direct sea-view. Indeed, it is an ingenious idea!
As we drove along the main stem of the Palm, we received an idea of the luxurious villas, more like mansions, that have been designed and built to house the wealthiest people in the world. We drove right to the end so that Reuben could park his car in the parking lot of the Atlantis Hotel and made our way, by elevator, up into its lobby.
The lobby of the Atlantic Hotel is basically the only part of the hotel that casual visitors can access. This area is very much of a shopping mall and food court. To actually get to the lobby of the hotel, there is no access unless one is staying in it. We walked around the stores (all high-end, such as Tiffany) and made our way towards the Grand Aquarium which is one of the largest in the world. Although there is an entry fee to see it, we were able to escape that price by restricting our viewing to a huge, really huge, tank that was filled with marine fish such as sting-rays, sharks, etc. It was a very exciting sight indeed! A little later, we took an ice-cream break at Cold Stone Creamery before we made our way to the waterfront.
Overlooking the Atlantis is a beautiful bit of the Dubai shoreline. Since the rocks are rather craggy at this spot, there is no beach. But there is a lovely, wide Promenade which, in the Middle Eastern countries, are always known as Corniches and it was there that we stayed for a while to watch a spectacular sunset. A lot of local Emiratis were out with their families on what was a very pleasant evening—they enjoyed the sea air, the soft sea breezes and the backdrop (the hotel) which provided many photo ops. We too took a few pictures here before we piled back in Reuben’s car for the next leg of our sightseeing.
This time Reuben drove us to a place called the Souk Medinat Jumeirah. This lovely setting is an attempt to reproduce old Arabia as it might have looked in medieval times. Around several pools, they had constructed restaurants and eateries offering varied cuisines. There were also bars that overlooked a central courtyard. Surrounding it, all structures were built in the traditional style of the sand-colored Dubai wind towers with small windows and beams jutting out of the walls. With the soft light of the evening and the holiday lighting of the Xmas season, it was very atmospheric. Also surrounding the medina were shops offering all sorts of tourist merchandise in the form of scarves, jewelry, handicrafts, etc. Reuben then led us to a restaurant that had a balcony (fortunately open to the public) that offered a really stunning view of the Burj-el-Arab, the seven-star hotel that sits on its own island and is highly exclusive. There is an entry fee simply for crossing over to the hotel. It was also beautifully lit up and allowed us to take some very good pictures.
By this stage, we had discovered that Marks and Spencer at the Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai stocked the delicious chocolate eclairs that are among my very favorite dessert in the UK! Not all the M&S outlets have it—so I felt truly blessed to have been able to buy them and enjoy them before returning to India! Accordingly, we had made calls to the store requesting them to keep aside a couple of boxes for us—these actually happened to be priced down as it was the last day of their validity and would be sold at half-price after 7 pm.
As we reached there about 8pm, we went straight to the M&S store and found the sales agent who had kindly assisted us. With the eclairs in our bags, I looked forward to a really amazing dessert when we reached home. I think the chocolate coating on the top of the eclairs sold by M&S is definitely among the very best in the world. It is thick, exceedingly chocolatey and delicious—not thin and runny like the icing you find on most other chocolate eclairs world-wide. This is almost like a chococlate fondant but while fondant is usually tasteless, this is scrumptious. The filling is also fresh whipped cream—not the crème pâtissier which one finds in the US. Anyway, it was an unexpected gastronomic treat and I was thrilled!
Being at the Ibn Battuta Mall gave us a chance to see a most unusual Mall. As I have explained earlier in this travelog, Ibn Battuta was a medieval Middle Eastern traveler, one of the earliest the world has known, who kept detailed journals of his travels in varied parts of the world—he preceded Marco Polo by a few centuries! The Mall that is named after him is, therefore, appropriately inspired by varied parts of the world. You can go from one section to the next and, as you do so, you will be traveling through Tunisia, Egypt, Persia and the like—regions of the world that he had traversed. The ambience, the lighting, the interior décor, are all so stunning that it is impossible to imagine a place like this in any other part of the world where money is always an object. There were throngs of people all over the mall, but, in true disciplined style, everyone was wearing a mask and people were careful. Having just reopened doors to tourists and having spent so many billions on the Expo, the UAE does not wish to have to close its doors again! Hence, as closure could affect the economy at every level, everyone is playing their part in keeping the country safe and healthy.
We scoured around the mall and when we’d had our fill and were also foot-weary, decided to call it a day. Reuben drove us back to his home in the Damac Hills and as we sat down with drinks, he prepared dinner for us—he had ordered from a local Indian restaurant and the food was excellent: chicken tikka masala, mutton biryani, that sort of thing. It was all very good indeed and we were hungry enough to eat our fill. Kunafa and the chocolate eclairs, were our desserts and I have to admit that they were simply the best!
On that happy note, with a wonderful day of sightseeing behind us, and with my goods safely on their way to India, we went up to our rooms to sleep.
Until tomorrow, kuda hafiz.
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