Middle East Travelogue - Part V (Final)

I had been on an official trip to Saudi Arabia (Al Khobar) and UAE (Dubai) and to Oman (Muscat) on the way returning back. This trip was on behalf of my employer - Wipro Ltd and it was between 25th of March 2007 and 12th April 2007. I wrote my travelogue in 5 parts and it is now available for your reading.
Here goes the travelogue Part V (Final)....

Welcome to one more of my "time-swalloer" mail.. Right now am travelling in a taxi in dubai back from office.. Forgot 2 tell u abt the price of petrol in dubai.. its more costly than saudi, around 2.5 AED (1 aed = 12.5 inr) per litre.. here it is sold in gallons , where 1 gallon is around 4 litres.. u know what, the taxi driver next 2 me is a tamil person.. this is not something strange, as 50% i meet only pakistanis as drivers and balance indians - either malayalam (mostly) or tamils.. this particular driver is the person who drove me home some 2 days back also.. and am meeting him again. indians, pakistanis & the bangalesh person persons are considered as slaves / low profile people here. they are sometimes even treated badly.. whereas US, and europeans are treated with respect & given all concessions right from visa rules till what our customers pay for the consultants. even if an indian & a us person does the same work, they will pay the us person 2 times / 3 times wht they pay to the indian if he has a US passport.. You cant find any localite doing a common low graded work in UAE / Saudi.. Whereas in Oman, the population of oman people is huge & you can find lot of local people doing these normal jobs like waiters in hotels, in shops etc..

when i told abt huge high rise buildings in dubai, mention should also be given about the multi acred estates & bulidings coming up in teh sea. I got the local map of Dubai, there were 3 locations given as under constructions and one more is coming in the shape of world map. u can travel from the mainland only thro water, its a man made (to be made) island..

when the petrol fare is low, shouldnt the transport cost should be less? that is not the case both saudi & uae (hope the same in other gulf countries also).. in Dubai, the taxi fare starts at 3 AED (this is the starting fare - fixed cost) and 1.5 AED is the cost of each km.. you know what, everyday i spend about 100 AEDs to go to office and come back, in indian cost its around 1200 Rs. So, why they charge this much? in UAE, the answer i got (& of course saw, experienced) was the value of the service provided. In Dubai, all cars are AC cars, cars are not like our Ambassadors or Tata Indicas. They are Toyota Camrys & other luxury cars. The model of operation is there are only 3/4 major carriers - one govt owned (about 3800 taxis) & other private ones (with about 500 - 3000 taxis each). So, they are easily some 10,000 taxis running daily in the city. Still, I struggled 2 get taxi in the morning 2 go to office. Thats the demand of this wealthy & costly city.. The govt operated taxi is called Dubai taxi, it has got all the latest features - automatic gears (no clutch will be there), gprs enabled screen, which will the interactive map of dubai, u can see where u are currently, & all high funda stuff.

As I told you earlier, Dubai traffic is terrific.. A six lane road called Sheik Zaeed road, one of the key roads in dubai with 5/6 lanes on each side, but still the traffic is piled up.. In this condition, wont the taxi operations get a hit because of the slow journey. They are following a tariff plan where the customer is screwed bcoz of the traffic. If you board the taxi, there are 2 ways in which you are charged, one in running mode & the other in waiting mode.. If you travel below 15 kms, u are called as travelling in Waiting mode. Once you board a taxi, 10 minutes is allowed as waiting time.. More than that if the taxi is held up in traffic / going slow, you will be charged @ 1.5 AED for every ten minutes..thats why i give around 42 AED in the morning & around 55 AED in teh evening..

Then what else noteworthy in Dubai - Dubai museum , a good place which will say everything about the tradition and history of UAE & dubai, sheik saeed house, gold souk. Ah, this gold souk - meaning gold market.. A big 5 km diametered place with lot of shops in a place in dubai called gold souk.. All shops are gold shops - gold gold everywhere, all wonderful quality gold..and without fail you will also our marwadi brotherns shops - "xxx chand jewellery" types..other than this big big shopping malls, camel race, horse race, dubai rulers had lot of high quality horses..arabian horses.. I forgot 2 mention.. There is no rail system in the gulf (or atleast the countries where i had been) but in saudi they've just started. In dubai, to arrest the traffic conditions, the construction of metro rail system is going on (on land & over head, not underground) & expected to be finished by 2009.. As usual, funds for construction is not an issue and its planned that it will b finished even b4 that..

One more important tourist attraction in Dubai is something called Dessert safari - a 6/7 hours journey to the desert land near dubai.. the features in the saffari is sand duning in the desert, (a ride in the desert with vehicles also going upside down and in all different angles), sand skiing, falcon show, camping in the desert with the group, model dressing for male & female in arabian costume, shisha (the arabian hukka), belly dance & dinner. while you might know other things, falcon show is an age old traditional sport cum hunting activity of the arabs. A falcon is trained by the trainer and used for hunting birds.. A rope is tied to its legs, and its made to fly targetting other birds, it will catch them and bring it to the hunter. The hunter will wear a leather glouse in his hand for the falcon to land without hurting his hands.. To train and tame the falcon is a skill..

I also want to mention about one problem i faced here, particularly in Dubai. You would knw that the traffic is "Keep right" here..But in my senses, its deeply rooted that vehicles will come in the left in the road. so bcoz of this, while crossing roads, i did mistakes in estimates the vehicles arrivals & also in traffic signals. infact, in one place a vehicle was about to hit me when i crossed the road seeing the other side...

My flight from Dubai to muscat, on that particular day when i wanted to travel was cancelled and hence i needed to travel from dubai to bahrain the next day morning and then to muscat after some hours.. Since i had to spend one last night in dubai, i decided 2 go for an english movie. theaters in UAE are only multiplexes with even 10/15 screens in one theatre.. you might appreciate the fact that this trend of multiplexes is also growing in India in a big way through Inox, PVR, Innovative multiplex etc.. Have you wondered why these are seeming 2 be a copy-cat model.. Reason is there, what are the things you will see in a multiplex, lot of restaurants, shopping centres, hefty fee for parking, some activites and also theatres, So revenue comes in all these modes.. You know what, It is said, in India, that even 30-40% occupancy in multiplexes is enough to breakeven. & the customer (film watchers) dont mind paying a huge amount (say 150,200 even 500) to watch a film in that ambience..

Would wish to put a few words on oman also.. the county is Sultanate of Oman, with capital Muscat, currency Oman Riyals, valued @ around 115 INR, the lowest form is Baisa , where 1 OR = 1000 Baisas. Again, a US ally, but not that well known, a quiet country with high levels of secularism. In fact i heard that during the babri masjid issue, the sultan ordered arrest of pakistani people who attacked hindus on Oman.. Oman's economy is not built only on oil, but also on other manufacturing & other things.. instead of deserts, u will find lot of hills and the famous caves here..(though i couldnt have the chance the caves, sea and hills in Muscat)..

So, before i close my travelogue, thanks for listening to my boring mails.. before i close, i invite you to spare some time in thinking about why India, having all the resoruces - natural wealth like agriculture, iron ore, minerals, oil reserve, wind, water eneregy etc, highly trained english speaking manpwer, very old traidion and civilisation history, big manufacturing & consumer base, world class defence equipments & soldiers, huge land area, still a developing whereas smaller countries in europe, americas and even asia are developing fast?? I found three reasons -
1. Lack of proper infrastructure,
2. Huge population & lack of measures to take care of the masses & their problems like unemployment, health & educational facilties;
3. Lack of projects and developments activities with a vision...
Just wanted to write this as whatever i saw in these countries I travelled, in my first international trip, I only compared them to my home country India and felt bad.. But, whatever it is there is no match to India.. I used to long for a foreign travel, & now I wish to come back to india asap and see my lovable chennai & bangalore...India can be sleeping for 300 years of modern history. But not more than 10 years is needed for it to grow like USA or UK or any other country and pluck the status of World super power from USA....This is possible only if the above 3 things are taken care of at the earliest. Dont you also thing so?