Dubai trip Continued

The next day ,   18th August  was kind of D day.  That is the day Venkatesh had booked for Desert Safari.  
We visited our nephew's family in Dubai in the morning and got ready for our trip to Desert in the afternoon. We were picked up in a four wheel drive  special vehicle (Toyota Land Cruiser?) near our house.  My brother, hubby and myself were going for this.  Another South Indian family also joined us (three of them) in the same vehicle.  We were taken to a shop near the edge of the desert.  (We passed  through Sharja)   We had some cool drink there as the day was very hot.  We did have some iced lemon juice with us in the flask.
The pressure in the Tyre  of the vehicle were reduced.  I started feeling that,  I did 't    know what I was getting into.  When my friend Ayeysha told me   'Don't miss desert  safari all I  knew was I should not miss it without knowing what  it was!!

So happily we proceeded into the desert in groups of vehicles from the same Company.  Once inside the desert again the pressure was reduced little  more.
Now the Safari started.  Initially it was just a rough ride, but it turned out to be a Roller Coaster ride on the desert sand.  Up and Down the  Vehicles went  and the vehicle started going on the edge of the sand dunes . When the vehicle started riding on the top of the sand dune it appeared to be hanging for its life along with us who were inside.    I was holding my breath and was reminded of the rough Sea ride in the Indian Ocean in the Speeding Motor Boat in Maldives,   but this was an entirely different kind of experience.   Only once when the vehicle was on the top of the sand dune and the it  took a plunge (it was just coming down)   I closed my eyes.    It was so surrealistic  with all vehicles going up and down one behind the other with never ending sand dunes around.      They told me that this is called Bashing.    After some bashing all vehicles came to a halt for a photo  session.  After few more lesser Bashing we came to the edge of desert where the tyre pressure was increased again indicating that we will have a smoother ride.    But there were ups and downs again as we were going into the desert again.

 We were brought to a camping site where lots of tents and camels where waiting to take every body for a ride! I did not venture to go atop the camel.    Food and drinks were arranged in the tents.  we could see the sun setting in the desert horizon .  In a tent a lady was putting henna on every body's hand which I promptly put on my hand.    There was a high sand dune where kids were climbing up and I tried to climb and my legs were just going inside the sand making it tough to walk.   It was fun climbing the hill if I may call the sand dune a hill.   Some how the sand made me feel I was in a beach  which also has so much of sand but  how different they are.
We had vegetarian dinner on the open space and the food was quite good rice and dal and some vegetable was there which was good enough for me to get our food in such a far off desert.  There was a dance by a man who was swiveling  round and round.   Normally Belly Dance would be there by  a lady but since it was still Ramzan fasting,  it was not done that day.     But we had seen  that in our Turkey trip which was so good that I did not feel bad that I missed it here.   In all it was a wonderful experience.  We were dropped back to our house.

This picture is of two  buildings in the shape of Dolphins which impressed us very much.  Picture taken from the Car.

Another Building which looks as if some body has twisted it!

Next day our visit was to Ibin Batuta Mall.   The name sounded very familiar and only after going to the mall I understood it is the name of the Moroccan Traveler of 14th Century about whom we have  read in History who had visited India also and had recorded  about   the People  and the Countries he visited..
Today it was very hot and I could understand why people are so scared of  the heat,  it was simply unbearable even to walk from the car park to the Mall.  We were lucky the previous two days.  I  was told that it would be still  worse.

The Arch We have to go in before we enter into the Mall building.

Inside the Mall.

India......

China........


The Mall was very different from so many malls I have seen.  It was thematic  and themes were Locations, like Egypt, Tunisia, India, China and each one was designed, architecture  etc of that particular place.  Very nicely done.  Artificial sky has been created giving   it a look of being in out doors.   The shops were the usual  big  shops with big brand names.

  From the Mall We went out  to  have our Lunch  in a Restaurant  by name Kamat  and the lunch was superb.  When we were in College Kamat was a very big brand name for Restaurants in Bangalore.  I find the Indian food available in Dubai is much better than what we get in KL.

After seeing so many lovely buildings and lovely structures I felt  i t is amazing what Man can achieve and what Money can achieve and the combination of Man and Money  can achieve.  In a desert which was just that a few years back is  now a city with so many sky crappers each vying with other for the design and look and our attention. Another amazing thing is the ,  greens watered by drip irrigation .  I understand that  the biggest saline water treatment plant is in Dubai.
With all that, the heat made me appreciate the cool and rainy (though hot at day time) tropical weather of Malaysia.

We are going towards the Hotel in the Palm Jumeira.  There is a Train Service also to this place.  Both sides of the road have the Fronds.

At the end of the Island.   This is where the reclaimed land ends and  the sea can be seen.

The other side of the Hotel Picture taken from the Sea side.



At 3 p.m. a vehicle picked us up to show us around Dubai .     ( what ever  we had not covered. ) This was also arranged my brother.   There was a guide also .  We went to the small Museum in Dubai, which was ok.    Then there was this   man made creek,  where  Big Ships from  Sea can also enter.    We proceeded to Gold Sauk.    But unfortunately it was closed  and was to be opened  later in the evening, because of Ramzan and I did not get the opportunity to see the Gold Market which is so famous in Dubai.  We felt the guide was useless, as we were not taken to Spice Market as per promise and just showed us around in the vehicle without stopping.      We were taken to a beach, but lot  of crowd was there due to holiday.
Finally we went to Palm Jumeriah  Photos of which I had seen  many times.    It is a famous Island built from reclaimed land.  It has a very big Hotel and in all the branches of the Palm which are called  Fronds,  there are Residences  and Resorts.   It is rumoured that many  Rich Indians also own residences  in these Fronds. Since we were driving through these areas we could just imagine the figure of Palm as the View of a Palm tree can be seen from  a Helicopter view only.    I was told they arrange Helicopter trips also.   The Hotel has a very big glass swimming pool where (they advertize that) you can swim with the Dolphins.    This we did not see as we did not go inside the Hotel and we just drove  on the outside roads.
May be I will need another trip to see the Gold Sauk which I missed  but hubby dear seemed to be very happy about that.
In  all  we had a wonderful time in Dubai thanks to my Venkatesh and  Vijaya  Manni.
Next day we started in the morning to start our next leg of journey to London.  Hurray Europe Here I  Come.

Our Trip to Dubai, London, Paris.

It was my dream to visit Europe. After lot of discussions we decided that we would do the trip on our own  (not booking through a tour with guide,  hotel and sight seeing etc fixed by the tour planners) and we would visit Dubai , London and France.
 Lot of Research was done by hubby dear (he has already visited London, and Paris).  The only contributions to this,    from my side was talking to friends and relatives who have visited the places and write  down the names of places they say 'must see' or ' should not miss'  and add it to the never ending list of places  to be seen .   As I had not visited any of these places I kept nodding  to the numerous print outs given by my better half,   without knowing what they were.
Dubai was no problem because my dear brother lives there with my dear manni (sister in law)  and so all I had to do was send him  e mails as to the list of places I would like to see.  Again all the inputs were from friends here who had seen Dubai and  'must see'  ' should not miss' list.
Finally the day of departure dawned or should I say 'dusked' as we started late in the night .(the flight was  at 2 a.m.)
The taxi driver  was driving crazy which made me very scared.  He seemed not well as he was continuously wheezing and dropped us in the airport in 45 minutes.  The trip usually takes about one plus hour.  
The Flight was Emirates flight and this was my first trip in this airlines.   The service was quite good and the flight entertainment was very good as there was lot of choice of Indian movies.  The food was also good but I just had a Vegge Burger and did not take the dinner they served as it was not dinner time.  The journey was quite turbulent so I spent time , praying,  watching movie(s), sleeping .  

We reached Dubai around 4.30 a.m. local time.   Venkatesh, my brother had arranged 'Marhaba' Service, which is a professional Welcome service.  Our trip really started in a great way with a lady (that too a beautiful one) welcoming us and helping us with immigration and baggage claim and brought us to their lounge.  We waited there and within few minutes Venkatesh came to pick us up from there.  He took us home which  is quite near   the Airport (compared to our home here which is 60 plus kilometers from the Airport)  and  my Vijaya Manni was waiting for us  at home.

It was Summer so the water in the tap was so hot that  we had to wait for the collected water in buckets to cool down before taking bath.  To make it more nice my brother added ice  cubes to the  water!
We had a very good breakfast of idli, vadai, sambhar and badam kheer. 

We went to a temple after breakfast.  We had to walk  through a gully(kannada word)  a small road  which had lots of shops on both sides.  It was very similar to the big market in Istanbul in Turkey .  But the shops were closed due to Ramzan.

 It was a Shiva temple and lot of rush and big queue was there.  There was a Nath Dwara Krishna temple near by which also we visited.  We had a good Darshan.

  It was quite hot, but some how I had expected it to be much more hot.  

After lunch we went to  the Dubai Mall .  This is where the Burj Khaleefa the  tallest building (tallest man made structure)  in the world is situated.
 The Mall is quite big and beautiful.  First we roamed around  and saw the Burj  from outside.  The building is Classic and has a Clover Shape.  We both instantaneously fell in love with this structure which reminded us of our own! Twin Tower in KL,  but this Tower is Single!!

Venkatesh had bought tickets for us to go up the Burj  in advance.  (On holidays you have to book in advance).    We went up to 124th Floor and there is an Observation  Deck which goes around the building.   The building is very broad at the bottom and as it goes up becomes narrower and the circumference  reduces.

 We had a wonderful view of Dubai from up there.  Dubai has lots of high rise buildings of different shapes and lovely beautiful roads and highways.  All these  looked very  nice from the top.   We spent about an hour there at the top.    We came down and   proceeded to a small Water Fountain and there was just a 'five' minute musical fountain show.  This  was quite good and reminded us of the musical fountains of Singapore and K.L.  of  Nineties ,  much before the recent  Laser  fountain shows.    The simple musical fountain has its own charm with water dancing up and down to the beat of music.  Our day ended with a wonderful dinner in  a Restaurant called 'Gazebo'  Venkatesh ordered a special bread and the side dishes were also excellent.

Our Trip to Borobudur and Jog Jakarta.

In the year 2011 November We visited Indonesia again,   this time to see Borobudur and Jog Jakarta.
We wanted to see the Hindu and Buddhist temples there.
We started on 26th November early morning,  Saturday by AirAsia  to Jog Jakarta.

We were met by the guide, at the Airport  and we proceeded directly to sight seeing places.

 We were taken to some local palace and also  a park like place called water castle which were not that impressive.
After lunch we were taken  to 'Parambanan'  temple.   This whole complex was completely covered by Volcanic Ash as there  is a an active Volcano Merapi nearby.   Now the ash has been cleared and  the temple is being  restored . It is a  World Heritage Site.
   It was built as a temple  for  Siva Vishnu and Brahma,  with separate 'Girba Griha for their Vahanas also .
 The  structure is  built with cut rock blocks joined by groves and not by any form of glueor mortar,   just each rock block nicely fitting the other.   Only the Brhama Statue and the Nandi statue is still standing and all the other statues are not there.

 This main temple has some two hundred odd temples surrounding it.  may be smaller Shrines built for different  Gods , but all  these are crumbled now.  Only two are three of these outer Shrines are restored to its original shape which is tough task
.  When I learn that this is a 7th Century temple my mind immediately rushes to think about how the technology, mythology, religion , transferred from India to such a far off place,  when Transportation, Communication etc were so primitive.    Hats off to those great people from India who did this and the feeling of elation I get when I visit such places like Bali, Ankhor Wat etc can not be expressed in words.

We climbed the steep steps into the huge main  Shrines and   looked at  magnificent Brhama Statue.  We do not have any temple back home for Brahma .

We could see the beautiful Nandi statue.  Many scenes from the epics  depicted on the rocks.  There were varieties of pairs of animals and birds carved in the stone like the peacock  picture I have posted, there were pairs of monkeys, rabbits,  swans, crows, lambs, goats, deer and many more animals showing the skills of the artists who did this.

That evening we attended a dinner followed by a Ramanyana Ballet. Lots of European tourists could be seen here and the Ballet was a slow moving dance from Seeta Apaharan to Seeta's Agni Pravesh.  They call Sita as Sinta and with mild variation it was our own Ramayana.  Kumbakarna is supposed to meditate and not sleep all the time,  as we ascribe to his  character and he is considered a hero more than Vibeeshana the other brother of Ravana who joins Rama. 

 Finally Rama and Sita are united  after a lot of acrobatics from Hanuman daring with fire in the

Lanka  Dahana  scene and acrobatics from little monkeys enacted by small kids.

Next Morning (27th Sunday) we got up at 3 a.m. as we wanted to see the Borobudur Buddha temple to see the sun rise from the top of the temple. The Sun played with us and  hid behind clouds.  It was hazy.  But the Buddhist structure was too good even in  that dim light.  

The temple complex  has ten levels each level has a Pradaksina place (yes they have aso written it as Pradakshina) around  a narrow corridor.   Both sides of  the corridor are filled with  Relief Panels  of different Hindu Gods and lots of Buddha statues in each level.

 When we reached the 10th level there were  many Buddha Stupas, conical structure which has Buddha Statue inside .(Many of them are broken now.)  These Stupas have Diamond /Square Lattice  pattern like we have the Bamboo Lattice .  In the centre of the topmost level is a   Big Stupa over which there used to be a Chatra (Umbrella) which  broke  and was  taken away.

 It was marvelous in the early morning to sit on the top  Prahara  with  three layers of Stupas below you  each containing 24, 32 and 48 Stupas.   The Big Structure  has four entrance one for each direction.  We could see the ' Merapi'   the live volcano from here.  This temple has also  been restored very well with proper underground drainage built in each level  to protect the structure and the silt cleared  quite often.  They do not want to repair the broken pieces with cement as it will add to the weight of the structure and damage the whole structure.  For a 7th Century structure this is also well preserved and the Relief Panels on the walls have distinct Indian influence.  I just sat there closing my eyes and  felt very peaceful.

There were many more smaller temples, Hindu temples not in use, Buddhist temple in use.   Near by there was  active Buddha Vihara (monastery).   This temple has a Buddha statue inside the Girba Griha but outside wall is full of Statues of Hindu Gods , Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, Kalpavriksa and what not.

We were very curious to go near the Merapi Volcano.  On our way there we could see the destruction caused by the eruptions.  But I was disappointed that  we were not allowed to go very near and just had to see the volcano from  a far off place.

We returned to KL the next day morning.