It was Tuesday 11pm when my Emirates flight from Nairobi landed at Dubai. Luggage arrived very quick and so quick was immigration check. I was out of airport in 20 minutes. My hosts Sarju and Jayesh came to pick me up. Sarju (nicknamed "Chewing Gum") and Akshar grew up together in Bhavnagar under Shilpa's loving care. When she came to know that I am coming to Dubai, she just ruled a decision that I will be staying at her place. She lives in Sharjah which is just a bridge apart from Dubai.
We talked talked that night for quite late as we were meeting each other almost after 15 years. First time when I met her was back in 1989 when she was 2 years old. Now she is 21 and married...!
Next day afternoon, Chewing Gum and me went to Dubai's famous Desert Safari. We returned late night. Below are some of the pictures of this Safari...
Road to Safari reminded me of our drive to Grand Canyon...
Sarju with Land Cruiser V8... It was manual drive and only manual one would be able to drive through sand.
The driver released almost half of the wheel air pressure to make them flat for sand driving.
Bunch of drivers... The center one with glasses looked so mean :)...
Sand dunes... They looked so beautiful...
There were two desert bikers doing different stunts...
The driving in sand was very exciting...
It is said that woman's brain (intelligence) resides in her feet... For her, its in sand now... :)
After few stops in desert, we ended up at the camp site.
Camel ride was one of the attractions there but they were so stinky...
It was nice walking uphill in the sand...
Camp side and our vehicles... from the uphill.
In the camp, there were different stalls for entertainment, photography in Arabic costumes and some bird show.. Hawk is Dubai's National bird but here, it was tied and looked very tired...
Next day was a shopping day and Piyush - a long time friend of RG and now a very devote family member came to pick me up from Sarju's place. We went to couple of electronics mega stores to look for some land line phones for the office. Unfortunately, none of the models were available. I found that Dubai is way behind Singapore for such electronics items and its expensive too. Piyush wanted me to stay at his place all the time but he understood my situation. He wanted me to spend a night at his place before I flew back to Ahmedabad but since Sarju would not give up that easily, we had to find out a way for that. Before dropping me at her place, we decided that he would come in evening to attend the assembly and then take me to his place...
Later in the evening, Piyush sent his assistant Vivian to bring me to different shops for those phones I was looking for. None of the shops in Sharjah had those ones and we ended up going Dubai to check few outlets there. We managed to get one of the phones from Carrefour.
That night, in the assembly, I met many devotees and was touched by their dedication and devotion for Satsang. They are so brave to do satsang even in such staunch Islamic country. The gathering continued till 2am!
Later, seeing my need to stay with Piyush, Jayesh convinced Sarju about it and I moved to Piyush's place which is one of the posh locations of Dubai. We reached his place at 2:30am and then talked talked talked long way.
Next morning, Sudhanshu - Piyush's son became a cool friend with me and he showed me all his toys. 
His trampoline jumps tempted me to do few but I am now too old for that...
Just outside Piyush's house, one can see Al-Burg.. World's tallest tower under construction...
I had to catch a flight at 3pm and thus, we left for airport at 12:30pm. Immigration check and other formalities were over in few minutes and I was again at the same place I was few days back... I found other phone in one of the shops there and though it was expensive, I was advised to bring it with me.
At the gate, I met this little nice Roohi... She was throwing similes all around but when she found me pointing the camera at her, she became a bit shy...
The flight was boring with nothing much to do. It landed five minutes before time. When I reached at the immigration counter, another familiar face there and he too asked me nothing... So last hurdle of Yellow Fever Vaccination got over without any problems...
I ended up this trip with a very firm conclusion that if He wants me to get something done, He would ensure I face no problems. If He does not want something to happen, no matter how hard I will try - for days, months or years, nothing will happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment