3 Days Trip to Dubai

3 Days Trip to UAE

I wrote a small (rather started as small became big ) about my 3 days stay in Dubai in October 2019.

This is an attempt to share my experience of visiting the UAE for 3 days. Written when I was in an airport and on a flight, on the way to Goa from Sharjah.

Day Zero:

I landed in Dubai on October 12th, 8 pm local time from California, US. Indian passport holders with US VISA can get a VISA on arrival for about 121 Dirham( 1d = ~20 rupees ). My childhood friend Ashok was gracious enough to pick me up from the airport at his house in Sharjah. Sharjah and Dubai are about 20km away. 

Ashok was my primary school classmate from 1 to 4 class at a small village called Kaagal in Kumta and then a 10th classmate at Kumta city ( yes, of course, it’s a city ). He works as a senior staff nurse at a defense hospital in Sharjah. He currently lives alone, with his family back in Mangalore(his wife is Mangalorean ). He took 3 days off to accompany me during my visit to the UAE. During the conversation, 

I learned that UAE consists of 7 emirates such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, etc, and each one of them is ruled by Sheiks aka kings, with Abu Dhabi king being the most powerful king and capital. I also learned that weekends here are on Friday and Saturday. That night, we had the best chicken biryani at a local restaurant near his house in Sharjah. It cost about $20 Dirham. We went to bed late at night after recalling many moments of our school days. Emotional times to recall many forgotten friends.

Day One :

I was served a delicious homemade ragi dosa with red chatni by my friend. It was made differently than my wife Shobha does at home. I learned the recipe and hope to make it when I go back home. We set to start our trip to Abu Dhabi. Sharjah and Abu Dhabi are about 150km+. 

We first started with the Ferrari theme park, a fairly new park. The cost was about 300 Dirham per person. Saw many Ferraris, did a small drive on a toy car, and did a roller coaster ride. There is an option to drive a Ferrari for 700d per person. We spent about 3 hours there. You can also see Yas mall attached to Ferrari park. 

Needless to say, when I am with Canon 70D, there will be lots of photos, with goggles, without goggles, with full view, with portraits, and so on. We took about 250 photos a day. Ashok turned out to be a good photographer for me!  We then went to a mall to eat lunch at the Indian Palace. Food was again yummy and cost a little more(70d) than a local place. Dubai and around places are all about malls, similar to how you see software companies in the California Bay Area. Car parking at malls is usually free and AC helps cool down after long drives.

We then headed to the Grand Mosque, a place to pray for people over there. This was my first ever visit to the Mosque. It is beautifully built, with NO entry fees. Lots of spots to take photos. When you arrive, you have an option to ask for a UAE traditional dress. Ladies are expected to wear a gown, which comes in various colors these days. If you wear shorts above knee length, you are expected to borrow pants. Luckily my shorts were just below knee-length or another way to say I just pulled it down :-). 

Glad we visited this place in the evening, a perfect time to take photos and avoid the hot weather in the afternoon. We then went to Corniche Road drive, a drive around the seashore where you can walk, run and see the giant wheel and some resorts. Later we went to a palace called Emirates places and roamed around there to see the beauty of the palace. 

We chose Abu Dhabi as the first destination because that evening I had the plan to meet my engineering college friend Arun( nicknamed KG) and his family and plan to stay with them on day one. 

Arun needs no introduction. A tall, fair handsome hunk, with no known history of love stories, in spite of being so smart :-) Regarded as a chief strategist and planner( be it college election or trip ), a great convincing guy, once he convinced a group of 10-12 trekkers from no to yes to hike the last leg of the trail. Kg and his family have gone to Muscat for vacation, around 5 hour drive from Abu Dhabi. His wife Soumya told me later that he made her drive 160km an hour (the max legal limit in UAE is 110km/hour) just to make sure he is on time to receive us. 

We were glad to meet at his place around 9 pm. I made friends with his daughter Aanya very quickly. The last I had seen her was in 2014, during our send-off party. His son Agustya had already gone to sleep. We had dinner together and chatted till 12.45 am before KG reminded us that he has an office the next day.

Day Two:

The next day we woke up by 7.30, Agustya was already up and waiting for us. We played together with him and continued chatting with Kg. Soumya made delicious chapati with aloo gobi Palya and palak curry. After finishing breakfast, we took a family picture and said goodbye to them. We left his home around 10.15 am. KG left for the office too with us. 

We then headed to Ashok's home and reached there by 12. I took some rest to recover from jet lag while my friend made rice with a Tomato bath.

After lunch, we headed to the most anticipated desert Safari ride. Ashok had negotiated a price of 145 Dirham for two people. We had a pickup near Ashok's house at 2.45 pm. The driver was Pakistani and we made friends with him instantly ( well, outside desi means India and Pakistan, Bhai Bhai :-)). They pick up in a van and then drop at a place where the safari starts. We reached Safari starting place around 4 pm. At Safari place, we were picked by SUVs. Drive around dessert was an amazing experience, you can feel the power of these all-wheel-drive SUVs. Drivers are so much more experienced and handle so much smoother. They drop at a place where there is a camp. The camp consists of Camels, sand bike rides (referred to as quad biking), and a common place to sit, eat and dance. They take us around in Camel. Bike rides are charged separately. Later we are escorted to the camping place and served Tea, water, dates, and snacks. Then there is a stage where Arabian night activities happen, surrounded by people.  It started with a male dancer, with classical Arabic music. The same person performed a fire-based dance. Both of them were interesting and fun to watch. They are so professional and made all of us get engaged. Then we were served dinner. The spread had vegetable salad, curries, rice, biryani, bread, and nonveg items, Monday being my No non-veg day, I settled for veg items. They were delicious. 

After that, the most awaited belly dance started. She danced so well that the whistles from me came naturally ( rather I was the only one miss behaving with whistles and the rest were clapping). We had a great time belly dancing and did a light dance. This ended at about 8 pm. Then the crowd started to get into SUVs and we again met a Pakistani friend. SUVs took us to a van place in the desert. A Pakistani friend dropped us in the van near our house. He gave us his personal number so that we can call him directly next time. He dropped us first because we were the first to pick up. We were back home by 9 pm. We had a bath, chatted for some more time, and went to sleep. 

Day Three: 

We planned day 3 to be around Dubai. We left home around 9 am to go to Dubai mall. This is a very common destination for tourists. Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, is just close to Dubai mall. On the way, we stopped for breakfast and had Kerala parotta with egg curry. It was yummy. Most of the desi restaurants are owned by Keralites. We then headed to the mall, to our disappointment our car got into a small tire issue and we changed the tire in the mall. Dubai mall is world-class, with so many international brands. They are on the expensive side obviously, needless to mention most people do window shopping. One important thing to note is you may get lost in the mall and tracing your parking location might be hard, so it is better to note down your entry location with a few signs so that you can trace it back. 

There is an aquarium within the mall that one can visit. We then headed out to Burj Khalifa, we saw from a distance and took pictures. Entry fees were pretty expensive, so we skipped going on top. My friend mentioned, that the fountain show in front of the mall at night is a must-watch. My schedule did not allow me to stay back for that.

We then headed to meet my other engineering friend, Mahesh ( nicknamed mote). Mote, originally from Kerala but did schooling around our native place. In college, we had a party system where only seniors from the same district can rag us, so mote belonged to our party and so did the closeness. The term mote originated because of his chubby cheeks in college. We caught up for lunch at his office and spent a good time chatting.

We then headed to Palm Jumeirah, a man-made city at the beach. We drove around, stopped at the beach, and took pictures. We then headed to Jumeirah beach. Great to see many people sunbath at the beach. We saw a famous honeymoon resort, Burj Al Arab Jumeirah from the distance.

We then headed to the local market to buy dates, fresh dates from local places are generally delicious. It cost about 30d per kg. The adjustment market was a fish market. We both got a new idea: buy fish, cook, and eat instead of eating out. The fish market had so many varieties of fish and all of them were fresh. Sometimes I miss that feeling in America. Bought bangada (mackerel) and reached home by 7.30 pm. 

We had 40 minutes to prepare, and while my friend cleaned fish, I prepared masala for Mangalore-style pulimanchi. We took bath and had dinner together. Pulimunchi came well except tamarin was a little less. Then around 9.15 pm, my friend dropped at Sharjah airport. My flight was scheduled for 11.20 pm to Goa. My elder sister stays in Goa and it’s easier to get to my native Kumta from there.

I spent 3 days in UAE and met my friends and places. 

Thank you to my lovely childhood friend Ashok for taking me around and thanks to my lovely wife for staying with the kid back in America and supporting me to travel alone. 

I hope to write more as I explore!