The City of Wealth & Luxury – Dubai

It had been more than 3 years since I did my International travel and WHY?…well, no prizes for guessing – the pandemic. Gratitude to God for keeping mom and me safe and in good health. I was eagerly waiting for the right time to gear myself for a much needed vacation and here it was. I started planning 3 months ago when I planned my leaves and selected a destination and this time it was, Dubai. I checked couple of options to venture out, like on my own and couple of other travel agencies but finally pinned down with WOW (Women on Wanderlust). I saw their itinerary and almost found most of the places that I wanted to visit, be a part of it. So, I finalized my trip to Dubai with mom in the month of Feb, 2023. This was my 4th trip with WOW. Feb being not so cold and not so hot was the apt time to visit. Well well, there it was already the day when we started packing our bags and were all set for our visit to Dubai, my 19th and mom’s 17th country to explore. Initially we had our flight at 10.25am but 10 days prior to it, I did get a notification of preponement of the flight timings to 8.00am due to some operational reasons. Later I figured out that this was due to the upcoming Aero India show 2023, that the skies were closed for flights during certain slots of the day.

Dubai is one of the city in United Arab Emirates or you can call it as one of the most populous emirate among 7 of them. The other 6 of them being Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah. We landed at around 10.30am local time (one and half hours behind IST) in Dubai and almost walked for more than 2-3 kms to collect our baggage’s. We were the first ones to land in our group as there were, three travelling from Bangalore, four from Hyderabad, two from Delhi (one of them was our WOW buddy, Anisha), one from Mumbai, one from Indore, and one from Pondicherry. We all met with each other in the airport and by 1pm we got into our cabs and left to our hotel. By the time we finished all our formalities of checking in to our rooms, it was already lunch time. We ordered some food from the in house restaurant and both of us took a nap.

In the evening, around 6pm we got ready to spend our pink evening with the group. Now, just for everyone’s knowledge, whenever we travel with WOW group, we celebrate pink evening wherein all of us wear different shades of pink and go to some posh location for a lavish dinner. We formally get introduce to each other here and we do get some goodies from our WOW buddy too. In our case we had initially got introduced to each other in the airport itself as the time between first and the last flight was more. Nevertheless, we all were still excited to talk to each other and to visit, Dubai Marina. Dubai Marina is a man made marina and is a residential district. It is located just behind the JBR more commonly know as Jumeirah Beach Residence. Dubai Marina in the night is something to behold with all the glittery skyscrapers, rooftop bars, restaurants, upscale yachts, smart cafes and its home for some adventure activities too, from jet skiing, zip lining to sky diving etc. We had to walk quite a distance to reach our cruise and once we got in, we headed to our reserved seats. In just couple of minutes after boarding the cruise, our cruise started moving. Mom and I were just amazed by watching those glittering spectacle around, while cruising the marina and this whole stuff was just lighting up the water beneath. We had some performances like belly dance and Tanoura also on the cruise. Those 2 hours on the cruise just flew away, sipping in cocktail and munching on some yummy food. Oh I forgot to mention here, we also did celebrate one of our group members birthday. It was Nancy…the birthday girl from Pondy. We made her blew the candle and cut the cake with the birthday song in the background going on.

Once we reached back to our hotel, we just slept like a log. The next day, we got ready by 8.30am and had our breakfast. By 9.30am, we got in our cabs and left for Dubai city tour. We also had a new member in our group, our guide for the day, Sunny. Oh boy…he was such a good looking man that we all just couldn’t stop taking pics with him.

Our first destination of the day was this huge iconic structure called Dubai Frame. This is the worlds largest frame measuring 150m high and 95m wide and it takes 48 floors to reach the top in just 75 secs. Now, though we never got inside of this frame due to our time constraints but facts are interesting, isn’t it? We clicked some pics at the photo spots around the frame and headed to our next destination, the Za’abeel Palace. This is the official residence of His Royal Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Crown Prince of Dubai and from the ruling family of Dubai. The tourist are allowed to go only up to a certain area after which it is restricted. After spending some time clicking pics in and around the palace garden, we left for Jumeirah Beach. Now, this is a white sand beach with its frontage featuring luxurious resorts, hotels and housing developments including the Arab Tower more commonly known as Burj Al Arab. Burj Al Arab provides shuttle service with variety of luxury vehicles like Rolls-Royce and Lamborghini…wow! I just got some sea shells as souvenirs from this white sand beach. Jumeriah beach stretches to the junction with the Palm Jumeriah too which was our next pit stop. To be precise, our next photo spot was only the portion of the beach facing the entrance of the Atlantis, The Palm 😉 . Palm Jumeriah is widely famous for its aerial view. One of our groupmate, Neha did sky diving too over the Palm Jumeriah. I had done sky diving earlier but I was in love with the entire experience after seeing her sky diving video for specifically two reasons, one that the photographer also dives along with you and the trainer so you get to see yourself diving from a different angle and the other, the view that you get over the Palm Jumeriah after diving.

Our next and last destination for the day was Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building (2,722 feet) and the most popular attraction of Dubai. Since our tickets were pre booked, we just entered the building to get into the lifts and there we see a long queue. The entire stretch while waiting for the lift has information on the walls on how this structure was raised, who were the people behind it and what all did they do to get it where are they are, now. Finally, after couple of mins of wait we entered the lift. This lift goes in a supersonic speed, as in…it just takes 60secs to reach the 124th floor and the best part is you don’t feel the speed at all…..amazing!!! 124th floor comprises of the observatory deck that gives you an aerial view of Dubai. After roaming around the deck, we headed back towards the queue to come down. We came down and had some pizza’s in the Dubai city mall. Once our tummies were filled, we did some shopping. If you are a brand conscious person trust me guys you will never get disappointed. For a person like me, who hardly knows much about brands except for few of them, it was very enlightening….lol!

After spending some good amount of time in the mall, we headed to the Dolphenarium. This one is an indoor dolpenarium that is fully air conditioned and one of its first kind in the middle east. It allows us to watch and interact with Dolphins and seals along with watching their live shows.

Once we reached back to the hotel, Mom and me were expecting one of our old friend, Usha…who stays in Dubai. We met her in Ladakh, in one of our olden trips and that was also with WOW. From then on we had become very good friends and have kept in touch with each other. She came at around 8.30ish types and it was so good to see her. We spoke and spoke, till she got a call from her driver and when we saw the time it was already 10pm. We wrapped up the day bidding Usha farewell in full hopes to meet again very soon.

The next day, as usual like every other day we followed the same ritual of leaving the hotel between 9-9.30am after finishing our breakfast. Today, we had quite a list of items to shop as we were going to the gold souk. I had heard a lot about Dubai gold and its purity level and mom definitely had plans to buy something for herself. Once we reached the streets of the souk, we started venturing out each of the shops, one at a time. Gold souk basically is a traditional market which has shops not only for gold but lot many other things but retailers primarily sell gold, diamonds and silver. By the time we finished our shopping, it was already lunch time and we went to a place called Lucknowee at Al Karama street. We all ordered something for each of us and it just took us around 15-20 mins for the food to come. Trust me, the food here was so delicious…whether it was veg or non veg or for that matter even Khadi Chai was so so good. We relished everything present on our plates and by 2.30pm reached back to the hotel to drop in our shopping baggage’s. From here onwards, mom said that she wanted to take some rest and she opted out from our next destination, the Desert Safari.

We had two land cruisers waiting for us at the Hotel entrance and we got separated in a group of 5 in each of them. We were told that it would take around 1.5 hours to reach our destination and in between we picked up the tickets for people who wanted to do their Quad biking rides too. At around 4-4.30pm we reached the start point of the desert safari and were all ready to do some dune bashing. It was an awesome experience to sit in those land cruisers and seeing such huge vehicles speeding up and slipping on the sand while taking deep curves. After half an hour of the ride, we had few pit stops to click ourselves in the midst of the desert. The sight of the sand below with deep blue sky above to match it over was just feast for the eyes. We also had the Falcon, the national bird of UAE, sit on our shoulders. Once done with our photo sessions, we returned back to the point where we started and just stood there watching the sun go down, chatting with friends. In the mean while, our friends who had opted for quad biking finished their rides and then we all left for the desert camps for our evening dinner. These desert camps are basically huge tent areas where there is stage in the middle for performances while you dine and there are dinner tables all around it. You have a designated area for buffet where you can serve yourself with some hot food. The temperature usually dips in the desert at night time and we all had our jackets with us to combat the cold or cool breeze. We had our dinner watching some splendid performances of fire, Tanoura and belly dances. Once done, we left back to our hotel and by the time we reached back…it was 9.30pm. All in all a well spent day.

The next day we were all excited to visit the Future Museum. This is an exhibition space with futuristic and innovative ideas and products. It takes you to your future focused on artificial intelligence and augmented reality along side sophisticated robots with emotional quotient. One must definitely visit this hub that would help researchers, designers and inventors in health and education space and to raise cities that are smart.

We then left to the Mall of Emirates, another destination for shopping. You will easily find more than 600 brands here with some of the most luxurious stores on display. We had some cholla batura at the food court and we did roam only in a certain section of the mall as its so huge. Mom was tired by then and decided to sit in one place and i did some window shopping. I was just spell bound walking beside these stores. Once we were done here, we left to the Miracle garden, world’s largest vertical flower garden. This operates only for 6-7 months in a year, from Oct – April and remains closed the rest of the year due to high temperatures. The flowers here are maintained by the re-use of treated waste water that reaches the garden and gets re-filtered again before getting converted into high quality water. Its a magnificent display of various colors of flowers, so soothing to the eyes and the way the whole garden is maintained.

An hour walk in the garden with loads of clicks, we left to our final destination for the day, the Global village. This is an expo where 90 plus countries gets interconnected and display their culture, cuisines and products…all in one single place. Its huge, colorful and you have plenty of options to do shopping here. We were here for couple of hours and after having our dinner, we left for our hotel.

The next day we were super excited as it was Valentine’s day and we were visiting the Ferrari world. Love was in the air every where and we were all set to start our journey to Abu Dhabi. It takes around 2 hours from Dubai in car to reach Abu Dhabi and on the way we had a pit stop in the last exit. Now, this place is very interesting for a dining experience. Its resembles a post-apocalyptic scenery with huge trucks and abandoned vehicles. We just stopped here to use the wash rooms but there was something unique about this whole place. When heard a little more about this place from Sunny, we got to know that the place was designed on the famous movie Mad Max Fury Road theme. As usual, after following our ritual of taking pics, we left the place and reached Abu Dhabi.

We visited the famous Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, the largest in the country that can accommodate more than 40K worshippers. The main highlight of the Mosque is the carpet inside the prayer hall. Its the worlds largest carpet made by an Iran’s carpet company. The knotters took 2 years to complete this carpet which is made up of wool. The mosque also comprises various chandeliers (seven of them) with millions of Swarovski crystals in it. We have to follow a specific attire to enter the mosque that applies both to men and women.

Once done with our visit to the Mosque we left to the Ferrari World. Though it was already lunch time when we entered the Ferrari world, we skipped our meals as couple of us had plans to take on the rides. Now, there are two most insane rides that you should definitely ride. The first one is the Formula Rossa. This is the worlds fastest roller coaster ride with a maximum speed of 240 km/h. This ride accelerates to its max speed in mere 4.9 secs…..INSANE! The whole track length is around 2000m (6,562 feet) and it takes only 92 secs to complete this entire ride. Man…..i just can’t tell you my experience of this one….you can actually feel the pressure on your face, head and neck, the moment the ride starts and the car starts taking the turns. After this ride, I can say one thing for sure….Its not about who wins the formula one every year but each one of the participants who just drives their racing cars close to these speeds, is itself an achievement. Respect Respect.

The next ride was the Flying Aces and the track length for this coaster is 1500m (4,921 feet). As soon as the ride starts, we experience almost a vertical ascend for around 200ft and then there is this main drop with a descending speed of 120km/h. This ride goes upside down too which makes it different from the formula rossa. The adrenaline rush was so so high in both of these rides. In fact, I was feeling a little dizzy too for almost an hour after the ride and this didn’t allow me to eat my lunch also properly. But the experience of these crazy and insane rides was once in a lifetime and I totally enjoyed doing these. Also, our WOW buddy met chef Vikas Khanna there in the Ferrari World. I was so jealous of that moment of hers, wish if I could have met him…it would have been my fan moment too. Well, its a small small world and you never know what is in store for you. Our trip to Abu Dhabi came to an end on a very happy note…being able to just sit back and enjoy these rides, itself was a high for me.

We came back to our hotel and did our final round of packing as we had to leave back to India the next morning. The trip to Dubai and Abu Dhabi had given us so many memories and friends to cherish and I am sure this must be pretty evident in the pictures. Hope you guys enjoy reading my blog, till I travel to my next destination and come up with my next blog.