Dubai has many similiarities with Singapore and notable differences too. First some similarities..
* Dubai has backwater river (called as Dubai creek)
* Many of its important buildings sit on the banks of it
* It has a very good road system.
Now the differences
* Its much much hotter than Singapore
* Driving is extremely a rash business
* Its dusty.. Everywhere.
On 29th April Night, I ladned in chennai and the next morning I was on my way to Dubai. With enough homework and necessary maps, I felt comfortable about the trip.
UAE (a total of 7 countries including Dubai) has a unique way when it comes to Visa. Visa need to be sponsored by a hotel or airline or by a person who has residential permit or even by a consulate of Emirate. From singapore getting a visa for an Indian is tough. Becuase a singaporean can fly Dubai without a Visa (Visa on arrival to be exact). I didnt have time to send my passport to India to get this done. Ranjith saved this trip by getting a right hotel in dubai for my Visa. With that another overhead was solved.
When landed, I understood how hot the sun can be and how it can torture people. Later I learned that this is much better and June can see 50 degree celcius of heat waves. Am glad its not June. Took a taxi and I fleed to to the hotel. A beautiful and new hotel.
In notime I had to rush to the nearby pickup point for my Arabian adventures Desert safari. So refreshed, grabbed a burger at McDonalds and ran to the pickup point
just to wait for more 20 mins as they were late.
Arabian adventures is the largest tour operating company in dubai. They do many tours but this ‘Sundowner’ is the top thing to do in Dubai as the visitors say. They have a fleet range of 150-200 and most of them will be active on any day. Just one of them (A Tavera kind of) picked me from a hotel. Surprisingly except me rest of the tourists were from South Africa including driver. But they were very friendly they talked throughout the trip. Infact they enjoyed my company, I have to say.. 😉
They drove around 60 Kms on road and we reached “Dubai Desert Conservation”. A funny thing here they deflated cars tyres to half. Another important thing I noted, it was damn hot, but we werent sweating. Even after 5-10 mins straight under the hot sun.
Well, then the fun started. My guide was showing Camels and their practice grounds for the camel race. You know what, these days they dont employ a camel runner to continuously push it to run by the use of a stick. But a small robot takes the place of the driver and continuously beat the camel to run faster and faster. Its the most famous entertaiment of theirs and people earn millions of dhirams in one day. (1 dhiram = 12 Rs)
When he was showing all those, I felt like am travelling down vertically.. Infact thats true. Its the start of the sand dune. And the 4×4 jeep did its best adventures in it. It
was so thrilling to ride in that bumby desert paths. Its not suitable for those aged 40+. Without seat belt I would have travelled from the front to back and vice versa in less than 3 seconds. That much it was.
In the same way we travelled for another 30Kms. Awsome experience.
Then we stopped for refreshments and I took few pics. It was hot but beautiful. So I compromised myself and got some sunscreen lotion and headed to sand dunes.
Then the next stop was a camel farm. They look really funny. I just wanted to take a pic with that and even now am suffering for what I did. looklike standing next to that got me some germs and I had high fever and cold. Even now. I would blame the weather too. :p
Camels were cool. They werent afraid of people. They posed. They stood with us. They even smiled at us. (Illusion may be..) 😀
Then the highlighting thing..
We stopped at a middle of a forest and it looked a camp. whatever am telling below were all free.
There were camel rides; I opted out thinking of those poor creatures.. :p
I drunk their coffee (less than 10ml) and it was raw..raw taste and stronger than our ginger tea.
Got refreshing towels of their own style.
Belly dance was arranged with Hukka smoking style. With lovely range of traditional dubai food items. I ate tummy ful (starters itself).
They served drinks for everyone. The best thing was belly dance after the dinner.
I would say it would be difficult to learn as Bharatha natiyam, I bet. The music I liked at the first time. For me liking at the first time is never happened. A poor listener.
But not only this, their songs were mesmerizing. I liked it a lot.
After this, there was a star gaze. Means no lights for 5 mins in the desert.
You have to feel it, after that lovely drive, lovely food, lively dance, this feel at the desert. Quietly. Just the stars.. Nothing else you can see anywhere.
With that my safari was over and the guide dropped me in the hotel. I felt the symptoms of fever.. :))
Next day I have headed for the city tour which I thought would last for 4 hours. But the whole day wasnt enough.
