The Chronicles of Travelling Sisters – Dubai

Here I am after a long hiatus for this post on travelling. I am excited as this is a post about my first international trip to Dubai. My sister’s ex-colleague and friend who lives in Dubai invited us to stay with her as she knew how keen we were on travelling abroad. After a couple of conversations, we began our preparations for Dubai.

Photo Credit: Creative Commons

Honestly, there is so much that I want to squeeze into this post but that will only ruin the experience! I am going to share certain things that will hopefully whet your appetite for travelling.

Planning 
It is good to plan ahead when you are travelling abroad for the first time. This includes blocking the days for travel, getting your leave approved, saving enough money, booking flights, and getting your visa for that city.

Flight Bookings and Visa
There are many direct flights from Mumbai to Dubai. Since we were planning to fly on the weekday, we decided to fly directly from Pune. Unfortunately, there is only one direct flight from Pune to Dubai. We had no option, so we booked our tickets on Spice jet.

Then we shifted gears to apply for the visa. Getting a visa to Dubai is easy. All we had to do was collect the required documents and submit to the main visa center in Pune called Marhaba services. The fees are about 6500 rupees per person. We received our visas within 4 working days.

Itinerary 
At this point, I want to commend my sister who actually did the groundwork for planning the itinerary. Also, a big shout out to our hostess Siobhan who coordinated with my sister through countless emails and Skype for zeroing down on the things to do in Dubai. Siobhan, we had a great time in Dubai! :)

We decided to visit the Burj Khalifa and get a view from the 124th floor. We got a voucher for the same, thanks to quick thinking by our hostess. The next day we planned to do a Dubai tour that targeted on showcasing various parts of the city. This was a 4 hour tour.

Then, we thought of the desert safari and a trip to the beach which we had to drop off our list due to the weather.

Travel
As the D-day approached, I couldn’t contain my excitement. It was like stepping out for a big adventure. I didn’t know what awaited me on the other side but I was ready to embrace it. My sister and I boarded the 8.15 pm flight from the Pune airport and we landed in Dubai after 3.5 hours. My first impression of Dubai was that of amazement. As we were landing, I couldn’t help notice the entire city shining like bright stars in the sky.

Photo Credit: Creative Commons

At the Airport
Dubai being an international airport has many flights that land there.I was amazed to see so many people from different parts of the world in one place. The airport is massive and there were many terminals to accommodate various flights from different countries.

We had to go through immigration which strangely included an iris scan. After that, we went to the baggage counter and collected our precious cargo and waited for our friend to pick us up.
After we met our friend, we got into our friend’s vehicle and drove out of the airport.

Traffic
Once we were on the road, the first thing that struck me was the traffic. I was amazed to see people following the lane system. Seriously? For someone who for her entire life has seen chaotic traffic, this looked so unreal. Wow! Second, nobody honks unless it is an absolute requirement. Honking in my city is so second nature that people just presume that if you honk, vehicles will automatically move. That level of impatience on the roads so gets to me! As a side note, I will not, in the world, be surprised if I turn deaf soon.

The Metro
For someone like me who uses the public transport often, traveling by the metro was a divine experience. Since we had to go to see the Burj Khalifa, we decided to take the metro and get down at the stop and walk to the tower using the Metro link. The metro link opens into the mall and you have to walk a wee bit to reach Dubai Mall.

When we reached the metro station, we couldn’t help notice the architecture. In the words of our hostess, it looked like a spaceship! There are two central lines: Jebel Ali and Rashidiya. We had to take the metro on the Jebel Ali line.

The metro is spotless and there were people from all walks of life commuting to work or on other business.When the train arrived at the platform, commuters waited for the ones from the train to get off and then boarded it. I couldn’t help appreciate the fact that folks in Dubai followed instructions to the tee. The ride to our stop was about 10 mins and we enjoyed the view of the city from the train.

Drinking water and chewing gum is strictly prohibited inside the train!

Dubai Mall

Photo Credit: Creative Commons

To reach the Burj Khalifa, we had to go through the mall. Dubai Mall is the world’s largest mall with 1,200 showrooms. Honestly, it is a jaw-dropping experience. So many shops, so many people, the sights and sounds of it were amplified! The mall also houses an underground zoo, aquarium, and the ice rink. This place houses 250-room luxury hotel, 22 cinema screens plus 120 restaurants and cafes.

Burj Khalifa

Photo Credit: Caroline Kaunds

We had a voucher to a view on the 124th floor on the Observation Deck of the Burj Khalifa. We took an elevator that took about a minute or more to top the 124th floor. It was surely another wow moment for me. The view from the top is amazing.

Burj Khalifa is the tallest artificial structure in the world. It took about 5 years for completing the tower. It includes 30,000 homes, nine hotels (including The Address Downtown Dubai), 3 hectares (7.4 acres) of parkland, at least 19 residential towers, the Dubai Mall, and the 12-hectare (30-acre) man-made Burj Khalifa Lake.

Dubai Tour

Photo Credit: Caroline Kaunds

The next day we took the Dubai tour to get the look and feel of the city. The tour began with the visit to the museum, the art gallery, and view of various places like the Jumeirah beach, Palm Jumeirah area, the Atlantis hotel, and back to Dubai mall.

Shopping
There is no dearth of malls in Dubai that will not satisfy your thirst for shopping. You can shop for gold, electronics, clothes, dates, chocolates, spices, and perfumes. The list is endless and the choices presented before you is irresistible. Thankfully, my sister and I are not into shopping so we were quite content with window shopping.

Food
We got to sample Middle Eastern food like Arabic and Lebanese. We even enjoyed Chinese, and Japanese cuisine. I tasted sushi (veg) for the first time in Dubai. And I quite liked it. At the Dubai Mall, we tried a Chicken Sandwich and quiche for lunch. Boy! The flavors were out of this world. My good old friend from college had taken us out for brunch at Jumeirah to an Italian restaurant called The Lime Tree Café. I tried the English breakfast, the usual, grilled bread, scrambled eggs, hash browns and sautéed mushrooms. It was mouthwatering!

Photo Credit: Caroline Kaunds

People
People in Dubai are polite and friendly. Whenever we had any trouble navigating to a place, folks were more than happy to help. Dubai is a multicultural city. People from different ethnicity live and work in Dubai. I was surprised to see a big population of Filipino crowd. It was the usual mix of locals, Arabs, Indians, Pakistanis, South Asians, and Europeans.I didn’t expect to see a lot of expats in this part of the world. This city is a melting pot of myriads of cultures, languages, food, fashion, and experience.

Reflections 
This was my first exposure to a world outside my own country. And I am so glad that I picked up Dubai as it gave me a glimpse of what to expect in a nutshell. Words fail me as it is difficult explain an experience. You have to travel to understand and feel it. Travelling to Dubai has educated me in many ways. I have come to appreciate a different culture, food and develop a sense of tolerance and respect for people who are not like you. Diversity is attractive!

In another way, I have come to understand and see my own country with fresh new eyes. There is a lot of comparing that takes place in your mind when you travel. I must confess I did that too. But all in all, I was happy to return home to my country and to my city.

“A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.”- George Moore, The Brook Kerith

3 Things I Learned from a 3K Race!

Last weekend I took part in my first ever 3K race. This was an initiative by BMC Software Company for a charity event called Global Run. My sister and I participated along with a friend of ours. The response from the people were tremendous. Around 1000 participants had gathered early in the morning to be a part of this event. Apart from the 3K category, there was the 5K and 10K one as well. I was amazed to see the number of people excited to run for a cause. The energy was electric.

Happy on winning the medals - Photo Credit: Axhat Singh

The event took off with a warm up by a zumba routine for the 5K and 10K category. Similarly there was a zumba warm up for the 3K group with the takeoff. I was one of the enthu cutlet dying to run for the 3K category. And boy! I had fun.

There were three things that I learned from this race.
1. Preparation: You got to be well prepared in advance for a race. It doesn’t matter how excited you are, if you haven’t prepared your body for such an activity, it will show. Ability to sustain in a race is the result of hours of commitment, discipline, and dedication done months or days prior to the race.
2. Endurance: Well, you got to have them in abundance as it is the fuel that will keep you from giving up the race in between.
3. Prize: The thrill of completing the race and receiving the medal is tremendous. The struggle, the sweat, and the effort put in boils down to that moment when you receive the medal.

I enjoyed taking part in this race and I am looking forward to many more like this.

Lessons of Faith from the Ordinary

Getting a rickshaw to travel a short distance is quite a task in my city. For some unknown reason they are always reluctant to go. Or they try to take advantage of your situation and charge a bit more than the normal fare.

It so happens that my gym is located at a weird distance from my home. You can’t walk it nor can you easily get a rickshaw to take you that short distance. For those who are wondering, I don’t ride any two wheeler or a car. That’s my project for next year, hopefully. :) So I am always dependent on public transport.

Every evening after my workout, it is a tedious task of trying to get a passing by rick to take you home. Or you are bargaining with them about the fare. Honestly, it gets downright frustrating. Of course you have these OLA rickshaws but at times, they aren’t available in your area.

So, one evening after a decent workout in the gym, my sister and I came out knowing fully the potential of not getting a rick home. I mentally geared up to face that evening with waiting, and trying to get a decent fare home. And we were so tired!

As we reached the main road, we noticed a rickshaw passing by who slowed down after noticing us. We were a bit hesitant to ask him as he was going in the opposite direction. We were like, “Anyways he is not going to go and he might ask a high fare.” Finally, we decided to ask totally prepared to hear a flat refusal!

Imagine our surprise when he agreed without any resistance and that too with the proper fare. Wow! We were shocked. My sister and I exchanged glances, thankful that we asked. Think of what we would have lost, if we had not asked! :(

So many times I think, as children of God, we fail to understand the privileges that we have to the throne of grace. To know that we can ask God through prayers, requests, and supplications of the things that burden us. He is our Father and He wants to hear from His children. We have Christ as our advocate who has gone before us and provided access to this throne of grace.

“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:16

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and  you will find, knock, and it will be opened for you." Matthew 7:7

Let’s make much of this privilege that God so graciously has granted to us through faith in His Son that we can turn every need or anxiety for the purpose of prayer.

“Do not be anxious about anything. But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses understanding will guard your hearts and your minds through Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7

Trusting God's Timing

I am always fascinated by movies that deal with time travel where the protagonist travels back in time to change a series of events to safeguard the future. Watching these movies gives me a sense of control knowing that if things did go wrong in my life, how nice it would be to enter a time machine and simply undo them.

One of the biggest struggles in my Christian walk has been on the issue of God’s timing. I noticed that the timelines I had calibrated in my mind about the timing of certain events and God’s timelines of those very events never seem to match. For starters, I had hoped to be married by the age of 25 but here I am still single in my mid-thirties. As days pass into years, I am left wondering if this season will ever change.

God is sovereign and His promises in His word are true. God is the God of all comfort and Father of all mercies and yet, here I am struggling when it comes to the question of His timing.

I know that God has graciously placed me in this extended season of singleness and there is a purpose which He is fulfilling at the moment. I have experienced the joy of walking close with Christ, spending uninterrupted time in His word and in prayer and grow in my Christian faith. I have been able to meet up with friends for a cup of coffee or babysit my friends’ kids on a day’s notice. It was in a minuscule way of learning to die to self. At work, God provided many opportunities to witness for Christ. These are things that I will never trade for anything else.

I am reminded of Abraham and Sarah who waited and waited for the promise to be fulfilled. I love how it says in Romans 4:18 “In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.”

One of my favorite promises in Scripture that helps me stay grounded is from Jeremiah 29:11 “  For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

God wants me to trust Him completely and that includes my season of singleness. Somehow, my gaze is always fixed on the uncertainty of my situation than in the unchanging nature of God. I need to see God as my loving Heavenly Father who in His infinite wisdom has allowed my singleness to last for a long season. It is futile on my part to cling to my understanding of when this season should change.

True joy is found in the Person of Christ, not in my changed status.

It is so rightly said in the book of Ecclesiastes: “For everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.”