Holiday Times : United Arab Emirates

Had been to the Dubai on a 10 days vacation from January 12th to 22 nd 2014. I landed and stayed in Uncle's Home at Sharjah travelling to other places on need. The winter was about to end and it was a pleasing weather all along the stay like in  good old days at Bangalore.

This post is mostly of facts on what I have observed to be different from our country and interesting facts I heard from people there and is not a writeup/travelogue. 

Travel

The travel time is 3.5 - 4 hrs from south India by air, depending on which state you take off from.  There are direct flights to Dubai as well as Sharjah with their air ports 30kms apart.I went on tourist visa provided by a travel agency costing around 6k INR.  First time visa holders were subjected to retina scan at the airport.

Need to mention that it was my uncle, who works there for the past ~9 years took me to all places and shared his wisdom about the places and culture . It is really difficult to commute without a car. He owns a Mitshubishi Pajero, very different from Indian versions, in which I loved travelling.

Location

To be more generic it was a tour to the UAE.For those who have confusions about UAE/ Gulf/Dubai etc, there are six countries under the Gulf Cooperation council (GCC) in the middle east Asia namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the  United Arab Emirates. Visa on  arrival for citizens among these countries.

Dubai is just one of seven emirates (states) in the UAE. Abu Dhabi being the capital and Sharjah, Fujairah, Ajmaan, Ras-Al-Kaimah, Um- Al- Kwain are the other emirates.

The size of UAE can be compared to a size half of Tamil Nadu. Historically it was just a  Desert land with fishing and pearl hunting as  bread winners, until oil exploration started. Though Dubai generates some revenue with tourism and trade, still  the country's economy is purely oil driven. Dirham, the local currency,remains pegged (fixed) to US dollar value as 1USD= ~3.6Dhms

Monarchy, driven by the Khalifa (President/King), UAE owes all he credits to its founder, Sheikh Zayed who integrated the individual states under single crown in 1970s. 

Geographically, the whole country is a Desert with few cities civilized here and there.  notable ones are the Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi. The metropolitan of Sharjah and Dubai are almost same cities just separated by a line on road , but with great cultural differences.
Desert soil in the UAE is fine sand forming patterns and dunes with wind direction which might even completely change the shapes and location over night.

Sun seemed to appear larger in the west. I was able to view and click some of  colourful sunsets around there.

Dubai

Dubai is all of western and open policies. Architectured by UK minds, it is a busy city with well planned roads, Sky scrappers , Theme parks, themed malls and entertainment. That defines it. A truly multinational, open economy with Arabs as sponsors for all investments. Sponsors , here is just name sake. The investor is the one who pays yearly for the sake

Without any doubts, UAE has the best of civil , electrical , HVAC, Oil exploration engineering.  Dubai has motorable tunnels with sea and airport runways ceiling them.

The Dubai creek dividing the city into two, can be crossed by  numerous ways with tunnels, Metro, Floating bridges etc unlike here, where our politicians eat all our money leaving one bridge in our towns to cross a river that too built by Britishers. 

Navigating in the city would never give a feel it is a desert. They spend enough money to maintain landscapes and flowers on road sides which are grown elsewhere  and brought to city.

 

Dubai Airport has multiple terminals and they are massive. Three terminals with each  having over 50 gates.

The state run luxury operator "Emirates",  with direct flights to so many intercontinental destinations, operates  from its exclusive terminal. They own one of largest fleet of airliners along with 45   AirBus A380s. 

Dubai aims to be the Air transit hub to west next to Frankfurt and London and grows towards it.  

The Jebel ali port , claimed to be the world's largest man-made harbour and the biggest port in the Middle East.

The state of Dubai has fully automated metro services running from Jebel Ali to Al Quasis close to Sharjah. Unlike the tradition of stations being identified by respective area's name, they are in names of corporate sponsors on yearly contract viz Etisalat (The state run telephone operator), Emirates (Airlines) , Dubai Mall etc  
 
They take all measures to generate revenue. Dubai has Airport free zones, where multinationals can set industries without taxes and some less law constraints where they can manufacture, export and re-export goods without marketing inside the country.

Sharjah

Sharjah is relatively conservative emirate,  supported by Saudi. No alcohol and a bit crowded. Less housing rents and entertainment facilities make it primarily to be used as a residential city for people working in Dubai.

Sharjah airport is really smaller. Mostly of state run budget airliner  "Air Arabia"  and other budget flights. Air Arabia fleet is only of Airbus A320s.

There is a considerable traffic jam sometimes taking hours to  commute  from sharjah city  <-->Dubai city  due to unplanned sharjah roads, claimed to be designed by Egyptians. It is really a bottle neck  where 8-12 track roads of Dubai meet 4-6 track Sharjah roads at peak hours

Abu Dhabi

The capital city with the mix of wealth and peace. Not much of places to visit but it a well planned one. Public transport is free.

Ruwais, a place close to the Saudi border in the south west of Abu Dhabi city is notable for its oil drilling and exploration activities.

Cars and roads

In a way  it can be called  as "Land of cars". Almost 60-70% cars are SUVs and gaint sized cars. GMC, Nissan, Toyota , Ford, Hyundai share the major pie other than traditional luxury vehicles.  No sign of two wheelers at all. Happened to see two motor bikes of courier delivery personnel all along my whole stay. The number of vehicles can be assumed from the fact that the vehicle registrations are in 5 digits while Mobile numbers are 8 digits. They fill 58 litres of petrol for 100 units of their local currency.

Important roads spread upto 12 tracks wide , Emirates road , the one connecting all Emirates and the Sheik Zayed road are the important ones. Driving is right sided , and every one follows proper lane discipline, Only  auto transmission vehicles with SUVs being the most common  around. 

Automated Tolls called Salik read RFID codes on car to collect toll fares just by crossing the toll arch and no waiting involved in the name of toll booths.

Arabs and wealthy people around also have their own cruise or small boats to go  into sea to relax.

The countries Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are connected by  road and could see cars flowing in and out casual.

Power and water

There are countries which try to generate power from water, wind, waves etc. My cousin working in the SEWA (Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority) says that  Emirates generate their own electric  power from oil.  Sanitary as well as drinking water is from respective desalination plants in their states.    

People and Places

The natives are known as Bedouins and the natives  population is less than five lakhs and major others constitute Indians , Philippians, Pakistanis, Egyptians. 

No matter how many ever years you stay there, by laws, no foreigner can get a citizenship or own a property in the arabian land.

Falcon is their national bird and symbol. 

 
With mosques everywhere, even in all Petrol stations. A dedicated FM station reciting Quran 24x7.

 First half of Fridays are completely deserted. Completely organized driver-less metro also doesn't function till the Prayers get over in the afternoon.

Food and Tradition  

Museums depict recorded development history from 1970s, i.e. after the oil business kicked off.

Their traditional food is spiceless. Arabian breads like  Kubboos, Hammus, Arayas, Olive oil, Chilli and Garlic paste, Falafel , Dumplings ,  Salad form their diet.

Unlike we switched to Jean from traditional dresses, arabs stick to their traditional dress. Males go with a dressknown as thawb or Gandoorah a long white robe over the body till feet with a head scarf.
Finding a native arab is locating a Black band over his scarf with the thawb. Others don't use the black band.

Places of interest I visited

Most of  tourist and vivid city life starts late afternoon and ends early morning just before sunrise.

* The Grand Mosque at Abu Dhabi , definitely one of man made marvels for the architecture and interiors. Aimed at building the biggest Islamic cultural centre, this mosque stands tall for the amount of art and wealth it holds. Those massive minervas, dooms and the chandeliers are fascinating . 

Could see many US naval flights monitoring the area and later came to know from my cousin that UAE has outsourced the  state Navy security on agreement  with the USA

* The Desert safari starts in the afternoon. We are taken to city outskirts to the proper desert area and it starts with a SUV ride jumping and bashing around in the sand dunes and finally dropping in a tent.  With a desert Sunset view,  are served snacks followed by a recreation activity, usually a Belly dance show along with dinner in the night.

* Global village, a  seasonal (October - April) massive international exhibition on culture, food , articles, arts and works of countries with their own stalls.

* Khorfakkan, a small peaceful town in Sharjah state which has a port and a clean beach.

* Miracle garden. A place of  epic gardening and horticulture to show the largest human made flower garden. I used to wonder how flowers are maintained in Lal Bagh, But they do it in a far bigger scale.Really a miracle in the desert.

* Had been to the Aquariums at Sharjah Maritime Museum (Educational), Dubai mall and the Atlantis one.

It was a coincidence to be there in the Dubai Shopping Festival time,that  happens every Jan - Feb with the malls offering great discounts and cultural shows around the city like a festival with special Fireworks over Abra creek.

Tried Scuba diving at the Jumeirah open Beach along with my brother. We had reported in the Noon and given a training on various instruments to be used and signals to be followed inside the water and taken into the non wave part of the sea. A 20 minute of a wonderful stay inside.

Dubai Marina, The walk, Dubai Mall, Burj Khalifa and Palm Jumeirah are the other places I got to visit.

I did not visit Al Ain, said to be a little  elevated hill station  in the UAE where the people usually go to relax and escape from the scorching  sun during summer.  A lot of Arabs have  holiday houses in that area.

Dark side
 

There can't be any country without a Dark side. There is a lot of news around fake employers/contractors who take people there and cheat. Interacted there with a mason from a remote village in Tamil Nadu working for a construction company with a two or four years contract. His vages are 40 dhms per day. Overtime work fetches him 8dmhs per hour.His regular work timings start at 5 AM and go upto 9PM .  The packed labour camp which he stays in, is beyond sharjah and his work site would be near jebel Ali  travelling 70kms one way for work. Self cooking and other expenses to be borne. He  would get leave Once in two years for a month to visit his native. Above all  he gets a ~15k INR saving to send home.

My take

Human civilization is beleived to have been started across river banks for the reason of water availability. UAE  has defied the fact and  attracted all the world population for work, stay, tourism and business, indeed an achievement.

Their principle is to Be the best in everything they do, no wonder to say they grew up from  "Nothing to Everything".

No way that UAE can be compared to a country like ours in terms of area, population, economy, politics and corruption. It is a really small country but with the strong economy, they do their best to have higher quality of life.  It was worth the visit and some more places left to see, Never mind travelling again.

Full moon day Beach trek from Gokarna to Kumta

Once upon a time on Earth, there was water and only water/sea/ocean.Every living thing originated there and we rightly call "Sea Mother". Thanks to volcanic and tectonics,  later we got some land and some new mountains too. Since human inception climbing mountains is a sense of individual achievement for the time spent away from civilization close to the nature, the  hurdles crossed and the persistence involved. My love for sea goes here (Tamil).For the same reason  Sea and mountains are two different, never boring but obsessive locations to hang out.And What if we get to do it together with a fun filled group?

Briefly, most mountains are generally formed from settled volcano magma or two earth crust plates on land colliding each other and one rising vertically over the other.It also may be a reason that we dont find muuch  peaks or ranges  along sea sides.As like, there are exceptions. Some part of faulted Deccan plateau (Western Ghats) around areas of Gokarna are among them. Had a chance to trek along the beach and mountains from Gokarna to Kumta on 15th and 16th of March 2014  with Chennai Trekking club.(CTC)

Organised by Balaji  and Vinodh, 33 people including 10 year old  little girl Sanskriti, started from Bangalore in a privately booked bus  from Majestic Railway Junction where a group from Chennai joined us. Had a  gala dinner in a hotel at Rajaji nagar and it was close to midnight.  Cut cakes on eve of the CTC's  6th birthday, the journey towards Gokarna commenced.

Close to 500kms travel north west of Bangalore, it was a long but pretty comfortable travel. Luckily, 22 kms ahead of Sirisi, the bus suffered a flat tyre in the morning which paved us to see one of beautiful sun rise from a village among the green paddy fields. It was foggy cold to walk around and worth spending time in such a place.

 We had our breakfast at Sirsi and reached Gokarna around noon.

The geography of the area is that from Gokarna down atleast till Honnovar there are mountains alternating sea shores, some of them which are commercial beach and  remaining are isolated shore stretch.

We started from the Kudle beach after having some loaves of bread and rusks as lunch.Hiked and crossed to the OM beach. Then similar hike and descend to half moon and paradise beach. Paradise beach had a rocky terrain with boulders. It was scorching hot and we had random dips in the beach.   It was almost 4.30 PM. It was spectacular from the hike giving a elevated bird view  of the ocean.

With one more ~80m hike and descent we reached a fishermen village, had lot ofs ice creams which quenched our thirsts, collected the preordered fish food for dinner and proceeded to the ferry area. The full moon was rising with sunset on the other side.

We got a ferry and crossed the backwaters and boarded our bus that was waiting to take us to the nirvana beach stretch. It was dark and we crossed the calm village on our way to campsite on the beach.

Made tents which could hold a few. People there were kind enough to provide fresh water and some place for cooking.  Picked firewood and managed to make soup and boiled rice.

Had a perfect full moon light dinner. Campfire and then sleep.

Probably it was my wish to sleep on an open beach from the first day I have ever been to sea.It came true. Lied down under the stars and  lost in them. An experience that cannot be described in words. Could not help waking up in the middle of the night to see where the full moon is.

Day 2. It was warm in the night but towards dawn it became cold.  We planned for a tea but made payasam and Poha for breakfast and left the campsite.

 It was ~8km isolated sea shore walk till we reached one more mountain in the noon.

 Hot sun ofcourse, but the sea breeze and the birds flying around here along with us was soothing.

A little hike and descent we reached a small, isolated beach connected to a private farm near to  Kumta.  Cooked rice for lunch, rested sometime under the coconut trees, had hours long beach dip, celebrated holi on the shores and finally had a fresh water bath in the farm house. The person there was kind enough to provide water and offered some sea food to taste.

It was almost sunset we started walking after a little hike towards Kumta along the shore viewing  a colorful sunset.  Boarded our bus and had dinner in a restaurant at Kumta and started towards Bangalore.

Pulling legs, making fun etc, it was a lively journey  all along.  Lots of friends and definitely a memorable trip.  I believe we all live and love to create memories to cherish for ever. One of best spent weekends with nature. Thanks to the organizers and volunteers who made the trip wonderful.

Rest of the pics from my camera can be found here