Dubai - Part 1

Day 0, 12th May 2016
Direct flights are too boring. I had a flight from Ahmedabad to Pune at 9.20pm, from Pune to Abu Dhabi at 4am in the morning on next day, Etihad Bus from Abu Dhabi to Dubai at 7.30 am local time. Dubai is UTC+4.00. India is UTC+5.30. Dubai is 1 hour 30 minutes behind India. It was my first international journey and cruising at 35,000 feet above sea level was an amazing experience.

Day 1, 13th May 2016

The Abu Dhabi airport is really a gigantic one. And “Etihad” 'rules' it. “Etihad” is all over the Abu Dhabi airport. Etihad even has an innovation and research lab at the same place. The Immigration process involved the E-Visa and Passport only. The Immigration process at Pune Airport involved Passport, E-Visa, and Return Ticket as well. After the Immigration Process and Baggage Reclaim, I headed for the Dubai Bus. These buses run at an interval of 60minutes. You'd find these buses just as you exit the Arrival Terminal near the Taxi Stand. If you'd be familiar, there are inter-city buses run by state in India. Exactly the same. In UAE, such buses are run by private companies. In my case, Etihad. These are really luxurious AC buses. Actually you don't need to buy an extra ticket for it. If you book a flight to Dubai, it includes the bus ticket as well if you are travelling via Abu Dhabi. It takes about 1 hour 30 minutes from Abu Dhabi to Dubai via Sheikh Zayed Road.  

I arrived at the CityMax hotel at Bur Dubai. Bur Dubai is an area known for its night life. It is a very lively area. The check-in time at the hotel was at 2pm local. The hotels in Dubai are really huge. My hotel had 7 floors with each floor having 100 rooms. Mine was 697. And the view from my room window was amazing.

This day was a leisure day for us. After some rest, in the evening we went exploring the area. Meena Bazaar is a market about 1 km (walkable) from my hotel. On the way there were many supermarkets, electronic stores, restaurants and hotels. Meena Bazaar has several Indian restaurants. There are even Jewelery shops which have a reasonable rate for gold. Other shops included Manyavar, Kala Niketan, etc. Our dinner that night was at Rangoli Restaurant. 

Dubai has no rivers. The drinking water which Dubai gets is obtained from three sources: purifying sea water, underwater and rain water. Because of this, water is a bit costly and has to be used wisely. As UAE is an oil-rich country, with oil fields located mostly around Dubai and Abu Dhabi, petrol is really cheap. The cost of petrol when we went was for 1.60 Dirhams/litre. 

Google will show you 1 Dirham equals about 18.14 but that is bank to bank price. If you buy from an agent you will need approximately 20 rupees to buy a dirham. So the price of petrol comes to about 32 rupees / litre! Also the price of petrol and water is almost same. I bought a 1.5 liter water bottle for 2 dirhams.

  

In my case, I used to get one 200ml bottle from the hotel and one 1liter bottle at the dinner daily. I managed with that. If you want to buy water here, always buy it from a supermarket. Supermarkets are located almost every 500 meters on average. On my way from Hotel to Meena Bazaar we came across 3-4 supermarkets.

Abu Dhabi Airport

Abu Dhabi Airport

Abu Dhabi Airport

First view of Downtown Dubai

My hotel

View from my room