world

I reached in the morning of 15th August in Jo'Burg International Airport from Mumbai by SA Airlines. The in flight services were good. But I was compelled to land up in a foreign country on the day of Independence which my country ( India) was celebrating.It seems I need to get freedom from working for others so that I am not forced to travel on a national holiday which has emotion attached to it.

Jo'Burg was very cold as it was winter time and this year the locals say that it has been coldest since 25 years. But the city is beautiful and particularly the suburbs of Sandtown and Melrose are being developed in a tasteful way. There are a number of restaurants which offer quality food at a reasonable price. But the biggest drawback in the city is the lack of proper public transport.One is totally dependent on taxi or car hire for moving around the city. But the night life in the city is vibrant and colourful.

I went to watch the T20 Cricket match between India and New Zealand which happened on 16th Sept in the Wanderers stadium. The atmosphere in the Stadium was marvellous but it ended in a disappointing note as India lost the match very narrowly. So naturally all sorrows were drowned in plenty of beers.

I will write more about the city and post some pictures in my next blog.

I arrived in Dubai alongwith 4 of my colleagues on 4th Feb.The Airport is pretty and quite big. The drive from the Airport to the City centre took only 15 minutes and we were happy to be ushered into an Apartment Hotel in the Bur Dubai area of the City.The apartments are spacious , well located and a welcome change from the dingy one room in a Hotel when one is going to spend atleast 2 months in the city.

Dubai is developing into a good world class standard city which aspires to be the economic hub of Middle East.This already shows as more than 70% of the inhabitants are expatriates and every minute 33 immigrants are settling into the city.

The infrastructure is good and the development is still going on.The construction boom can be seen everywhere.But the avalaibale housing for the burgeoning population is not enough to accomodate all . As a result of this the biggest money buster happens to be the house rent. But it is amazing the way new housing enclaves are being constructed to accomodate citizens from every corner of the world.The city smells of money, honey all around it.

I have posted some of the nice photos taken during our visit to the Global village, desert safari and the clear and beautiful beaches in the city.

There is no dearth of goodfood in the city for all tastes. The weather all through Feb has been fabulous which has contributed to the all round happiness which we felt being in the ciy. But one has to be very very careful while being on the road as the driving at crazy speed is the norm rather than the exception here.

07.11.2006

Arrived in Colombo from singapore at around 7 pm and straight drove to Hotel Ceylon Continental.The hotel is situated in a high security area as the President's and the Navy chief's residences are close by. Considering the war like situation in parts of Srilanka the security is excessive and intimidating.

08.11.2006

Wanted to have a deko of the city but could not come out of the hotel till 11 AM as the President was taking the street for some meeting. There is nothing much to see in the city but the sea is beautiful. The city is a launching pad for other places of interest in Srilanka.

As it drizzled in the evening , took a quick tour of the Galle Face and then settled down with a drink in the Hotel.

06.11.2006

Waited for the Travel guy to pick us up for visit to Sentosa at 2.30PM.Till 5 PM nobody came and the telephone no. given for contact when tried there was no answer. There is nothing more painful then wait for somebody which turns out to be Waiting for Godot. After making frantic phone calls call sto India and spening 25 S$ the fellow cames to pick us up for a cable Ride to Sentosa and for Musical Fountain. We miss the Dolphin show, Underwater Experience and Bird Sanctuary.Which hopefully will be covered next day.The Musical Fountain is OK.

07.11.2006

Before going to the Airport to catch the flight to Colombo at 2.30Pm we rush through the Dolphin training show. But the real experience was Underwater show which was damn good.

05.11.2006

Took half day sight seeing conducted city tour. This is the worst thing in any travel as you see neither sights nor is it properly conducted.We were joined by 3 other families in the tour. The Driver took us to the ubiquitous gems store as it happens in most of the Far East Sight seeing tours.I didnot have to spend much time inside and had to wait ages for others to come back from their initiation into shopping in Singapore. The three families who joined us were also Indians and they were no exception to the notion that the Indians are big shoppers whenever they go on a "foreign jaunt".

The city was very clean and very orderly. It does not matter what form of the Govt. is at the helms as long as it brings about a welfare society and prosperity for all its citizens to enjoy the fruit of freedom.

The Botanical garden with its Orchid garden was superb. You need to give a full day to it to do some justice to it.As these conducted tours allocate time for everything in our hurry to get back to the bus we were caught in a sudden heavy down pour and in the process to save our skin from the rains lost our way to the bus. It took some time to get back there.

After lunch took rest and then left at 6 PM for Night Safari. The journey to the safari was pleasant but had to join a long queue to get into the Tram which took us around the park. There was not much variety of animals to see from a tram but the overall experience was enjoyble. Then went for Leopard Trail on foot. The 'hunt' was exiting which ended in seeing leopards separated from you by thick glasses.The whole experience is packaged well thogh finally you end up seeing nothing more than deers, buffallows, elephants etc. This is good for children and is educative for them.

Then it was followed by very enjoyable open air amphitheatre like seating arrangements for watching "Animal Show " . The young lady who was presenting the show was a good presenter and was able to enthrall the audience with her presenting skills though the animals on show were not great.