[G20Rider]

It was the third week of December 2022 and Europe was going through a cold spell which lasted for around 10 days. Temperatures in Netherlands were sub zero. And here I was enjoying the sunshine and near perfect temperatures of 20 degrees. By pure chance (or luck), I had chosen the perfect week to plan a 10 day getaway to the UAE. And this is my travelogue of that vacation.

Its a bit long and has below sections

1. Preparations and Traveling to UAE
2. UAE and me
3. Dubai
4. Car culture and my wheels in UAE
5. Road trip to Jebel Jais
6. About the Prado
7. Abu Dhabi - Yas island, corniche
8. Al Ain (Road trip to Jebel Hafeet)
9. About the car- Mazda 6
10. Desert Safari and Dune bashing
11. Back in Netherlands
12. Tail note about some intereting malls

Preparations and Traveling to UAE
We had booked KLM for a round trip between Amsterdam and Dubai. It’s a short 6.5 hours flight. On the day of our flight, we drove from our home in Rotterdam to Amsterdam and parked the car in Schiphol airports long term parking garage. It cost me around 100 euros for 10days covered parking in the airport with early reservation.

Chilling at Schiphol long term parking for the next 10 days


Beautiful day, home of KLM


We took off with an hour delay. Flight itself was uneventful. It’s my first time in KLM and I found their service to be quite good. Aircraft was a Boeing 787 dreamliner. We landed at terminal 1 of Dubai, an old and very underwhelming terminal.

UAE and me
My father used to work in UAE till few years back (now happily retired and back in Kerala) and I used to visit the country in my childhood, last one being in 2011 when I was in my final year college. So there is an element of nostalgia present.
It was after a gap of 11 years that I saw the country and boy what a change it is! It’s bigger, brighter, flashier and greener. I remember drives between Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Al Ain and one used to be treated with beautiful golden deserts en route. Today you barely see any desert, a green belt of trees seems to have been planted on the sides of whole stretches.
One could see Etihad rail bridges being built everywhere signalling a new era of rail transport in the country. Public transport is more visible in Dubai, with Dubai metro and Dubai public bus plenty on the road. In olden days, public transport was non existent. Also Uber and careem (local version, similar to Ola) has made booking and using Taxis a breeze. It use to be a arduous task to flag a taxi before.
And food delivery services has literally invaded the country. Their (mostly Indian made) bikes are everywhere and I wonder how comfortable it will be to work those jobs in peak summer. We relied on Talabat (local food delivery app) on many occasions and it was excellent.
And what surprised me most was the sprawl of villas. As far as I remembers from my previous visits, number of villas in UAE was very limited, mostly used by local Emirati citizens. But now there is a sea of villas everywhere and I was told a lot more foreigners (including Indians) are buying up these properties. New initiatives such a golden visa definitely helps.

Dubai
We did all the usual attractions in the city. It’s impressive skyline, huge malls, glitzy marina etc. But worth mentioning is our trip to the souks in Deira as well as the creek crossings in the small Dhows. It gives us a small glimpse into the humble past of this city and it’s trading roots. One could also see traditional cargo vessels docked in the creek. Beypore in Kerala was famous for building such sea going cargo vessels (called Uru) and scores of first generation gulf migrants from Kerala made their often illegal and dangerous journey across the Arabian Sea in these vessels in the 60s and 70s.There is also a nice museum in there, but it was closed during our visit.
Also Dubai is famous for its malls, but we were not really interested in malls. But I would mention Ibin Batuta mall as well as Souk Madinat Jumeirah, they are worth a visit.

Older face of Dubai


Narrow shopping streets, we prefered this to the glassy corriodors of malls


Abra creek in a traditional small dhow. At 1AED, it does not get any more value for money



The traditional Urus, looked like they are in active use. We could see sacks being loaded


We also spent time visiting the relatevely newer landmarks like the Frame, driving around the Palm Jumeriah, visting global village etc. One thing I noticed about the skyline of Dubai is how much of it is fuelled by housing, not businesses. I would even say its unbalanced. Most other skylines Ive seen is predominantly made up of high rise office building. For example, take a look at Singaporean skyline and you will see the asian headquarters of almost all the global banks, insurers, shipping lines etc. Dubai skyline in contrast is filled with housing towers with barely any office towers (yes there are office towers, but they are minority and less glamerous). I guess it shows how much Dubai relies on being the rich mans play ground from Asian and Eurasian countries (India included)


Car culture in UAE
This is my observation from just 10 days, so treat it with as much seriousness.*
The market is absolutely owned by Japanese and Korean manufacturers. Toyota Land Cruiser/ Nissan patrol seems to the standard issue family car for a local Emirati family, there are soo many of them on the road! Range Rovers and G wagons serves the wealthier part of the market.
And for a country crazy with SUVs, American trucks are not exactly popular. I’m not sure why, but Im guessing they are perceived to be less reliable compared to the Japanese. Same for Europeans. They are perceived to have high maintenance costs. Most BMWs or Mercedes I saw were owned by the airlines used to ferry thier crew/business passemgers.

Indian drivers too seems to have migrated en masse towards SUVs. In my past visit in 2000s, I barely knew anyone who drove an SUV. Nissan Sunny, Toyota Corolla/Camry, Honda Civic/Accord seemed like the staple back then. Now almost every Indian I met was driving an SUV. Mitsubishi Pajero seemed like a very popular choice. I was told its relatively cheaper and value for money in SUV space. And of course a lot of CSUVs too.

My wheels in UAE
Out of 10 days, we were spending 7 nights in Dubai and rest in Abu Dhabi. In Dubai, We were staying with my uncle. He had a Toyota Prado V6 4L which we used to get around in Dubai as well as a road trip to Jebel Jais, tallest mountain in UAE.
For the rest of days, we rented a Mazda 6 which had a 2.5L engine. I drove it around extensively, doing an Dubai-Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi - Al Ain and Al Ain - Dubai triangle in those days. We also used it to drive around in Dubai and Abu Dhabi city quite a bit.
I also experienced (as a passenger) the mighty Land Cruiser V8 in all its glory. More on the cars later.

Trip to Jebel Jais
It’s located in the emirate of Ras Al khaima and is the tallest mountain in UAE. It’s part of Hajar mountain range beyond which is Oman. The drive to Jebel Jais is absolutely beautiful with breathtaking desert sceneries en route. Mountains we see in desert is special as there is no sand or tree cover. One can clearly see the layers of rock that make up the mountain.
We made this trip in the Prado. Roads were great, well marked with good surface. There were fast straights as well as winding mountain roads. At the top, there is an amazing zip line which sends you over a deep valley. It require early booking and we couldn’t try it, but I could tell it would be an awesome experience. And there were scores of people camping there at night, something I would have loved to do if not for lack of time.

Straight smooth highways


Approaching the ghat roads. I was too busy enjoying the views of actual ghat roads that I thought I will click the route while coming downhill. Big misake as it was quite dark by the time we started back


Trust me, it looks a lot more impressive in person, notice the layers clearly visible


Discussing our lives choices


About the Prado
Prado slots neatly between the utilitarian Fortuner and high end Land cruiser.
It’s big, You need to climb onto it. My daughter has a habit of jumbo jumping down from the door sill of my 3 series when getting down, I had to warn her not to do that from Prado since the floor is quite high off the ground! Simply by sitting in it, one could feel the car means businesses. There is no fancy digital screens or chic designs, but old school purpose built ruggedness.
Overall interior feels they are from older times.
This model was equipped with a dual tank system which comprised of the main as well as an internal supplementary tank with a total capacity of a whooping 150l. That should be good for almost 1500km of range with a theoretical 10 kmpl mileage. Filling him up was a looong and expensive affair (even with the prices of UAE, one will go bankrupt if you fill it in Netherlands). I was told he was rarely filled to full simply because of the time it took.

But as with most SUVs, it barely saw any off roads which is a shame. Because, on the roads, it did not feel at home. Acceleration was average at highway speeds and engine sounded like it was a bit stressed for the huge 4L V6 under the hood. I guess the weight of the car (we had it loaded with 5 adults and some luggage) as well as gear box is playing spoilsport here. And high speed manners as expected from a tall heavy SUV was nothing to talk about. There was quite a bit of leaning on the curvy ghat roads. But I might be being overly critical here after being used to the dynamics of a real wheel drive sedan.
Overall it was very comfortable and spacious ride for 5 of us and we had a great time with the car. With the kind of usage, I could say it’s a sleeping giant who will probably never get to wake up.





Abu Dhabi
While less well known compared to Dubai internationally, Abu Dhabi is the real deal in UAE. It is the capital of the UAE and also the bigger emirate among the group of 7 emirates that makes up UAE. In fact, Abu Dhabi alone makes up 87% of land area. Rest 6 (including Dubai) only makes up for the rest 13%!. Look at the map and the scale become obvious.



Also while its commonly told that Dubai got rich from oil, fact is emirates of Dubai has very little oil for itself. Dubai's prosperity is derived from business and the city has build itself to be the business/aviation/shipping hub of middle east which makes its achievents even more impressive.
The oil is mostly in Abu Dhabi, with about 96% of the country's roughly 100 billion barrels of proven oil reserves are located there. And thats not a surprise given it accounts for 87% of the land area in the first place. So we can say Abu Dhabi is comparable to Delhi, the seat of power while Dubai is like Mumbai, the business capital.

In recent years, Abi Dhabi has been trying to reinvent itself in the lines of Dubai. I think below picture aptly captures that, its trying to be Sassy!



We were staying for 2 nights/3 days in Abu Dhabi, with the theme parks in Yas island being the main agenda.
Yas island is partly reclaimed island which can be called an entertainment island. It’s mostly occupied by major theme parks. Me being me wanted to squeeze in a long drive to another mountain road. And I choose to drive up to Jebel Hafeet in Al Ain on our way back to Dubai.

And our rental Mazda 6 was the weapon of choice for this 3 days. It was a new car, only few months old and driven for just 5k kms.


The trip started on a Tuesday with a 120km morning drive from Dubai to Abu Dhabi via E11. Once past the city limits, speed limits increased up to 140kmph. The roads are world class and well maintained, drive is pretty uneventful and boring. Only kink is the total lack of lane discipline generally visible in UAE's roads. People sticking to middle lanes at low speeds while right lanes are empty and being overtaken from right are kind of things that seemed to be an accepted practice. Make no mistake, its a whole world better compared to India though.

One important point to note is the difference in traffic laws among different emirates. While Dubai is far too lenient with speed limits with allowances of up to 20kmph(!) over the speed limit, Abu Dhabi has kept it speed cameras set right at the speed limit with no allowances.

Once in Abu Dhabi, We went straight to a hotel to pick up my BIL who had just arrived in Abu Dhabi to join us for the rest of the trip and then headed for lunch.
We dined at a Yemenese restaurant called Zam Zam.It was a nice experience with their majilis style seating and variety of mandi rices. Their cheese kunafa was excellent and a must try.

A pic from few days ealier, us meeting up with some old friends in Zam Zam


Next stop was Warner Bros theme park and we spent the rest of day in there. It’s huge and fully indoor. You are transported to a whole different world inside. But I must say most of the attractions were built for the 90s and 2000s kids who grew up watching Tom&Jerry, Scooby Doo and stuff in Cartoon Network. Current generation of kids (includes my 4 year old) seems to have a whole different set of shows from YouTube. So while me, wife and BIL was quite excited, my daughters response was lukewarm.

Below are few pictures, remember all these are indoors.

BIL explaining ACME physics








Abu Dhabi - Day2
Next days agenda was Ferrari world, Grand Mosque and a night drive in Abu Dhabi city. We reached Ferrari world by 12 PM and went straight to the famous Ferrari Rossa, fastest roller coaster in the world. We knew this ride is popular and wanted to skip any queue that might form later. It was quite an experience, especially the initial acceleration and a drop. I’m not ashamed to say I had my eyes shut for 60% of the time.
Then there are some other equally thrilling rides such as the flying ace and turbo track. And they also have junior Rossa as well as bunch of other rides for kids. My daughter loved all of it and was grinning l through the roller coaster rides. I think she is a lot more braver than me.





By the time we finished Ferrari world it was quite late and skipped grand mosque and went straight to Abu Dhabi Corniche. It’s an 8km long coastal strip and can be compared to the Mumbai’s Marine Drive. We spent some time enjoying the Abu Dhabi skyline from near the marina mall. While eclipsed by the Dubai skyline, Abu Dhabi skyline is quite impressive by itself.

Unfortunately, I can't find any pics of corniche, below is the only one I can find

[G20Rider]

Abu Dhabi / Al Ain - Day 3
Agenda for the day was a visit to Grand mosque as well as drive towards Al Ain, another emirate in UAE to visit the Jebel Hafeet mountain. We were scheduled for a dhow cruise in Dubai the same day and I was given a strict deadline of reaching Dubai by 6pm by my uncle.
Those who travels with kids will know, it’s impossible to be on time. By the time we finished our breakfast it was already past 11am and visiting the mosque was out of question. So we set off to Al Ain.
Abu Dhabi to Al Ain is around 170kms and beyond city limits, speed limits were up to 160 kmph.We made it to the top of Jebel Hafeet in less than 2 hours.
I remember visiting this mountain when I was a kid and it was quite a sight back then. But this time my earlier trip to Jebel Jais totally took the sheen of this one. Compared to Jebel Jais, Jebel Hafeet looked tiny. Anyways we went up to the top, got some nice views of Al Ain city, had our lunch and started our drive back to Dubai by around 4pm, a distance of around 160kms. We reached Dubai by 6pm, right on time.

Below are some pictures of the drive

Arrow straight highways


Beautiful golder dunes visible on both sides. Notice the vegetation which is almost omni-present in the Dubai-Abu Dhabi-Al Ain corridors. There is also a fencing further in (not the concrete crash barrior) which is not visible in this picture. In earlier days, I had heard tales of accidents involving camels crossing the highays. Camels are quite big and tall, and crashing into one will basically mean the poor animal falls onto the roof of the car resulting in horrible injuries to both occuments as well as the animal. The fences reduces that risk by a large degree.


Nice and empty mountain roads, clearly marked and barricaded till all the way up. Driving on mountain roads in countries with well developed road infra is a magniture of more fun than in India simply because its a lot more safer. You dont have to constantly worry about going to a curve only to see an idiot overtaking and the resulting panic.


Al Ain city from top, while not as well known as Dubai or Abu Dhabi, Al Ain is a small but pretty city in the middle of the desert that lies in border with Oman. I have lived here for a short time and loved it for its (relative) greenery and lack of crowd. Night view from the top is even more beautiful


Vast expense of desert to other side


A point to note for any future travellers: We went to Jebel Hafeet at the worst possible time of mid day. Being end of december weather was totally ok but everything on the mountain were closed, even the restrooms! There were no shops or any vending machines open to even buy water. My wife had the foresight of parcelling us some lunch which saved us that day.

About the car
I have driven Mazda 3 quite a lot before and always felt Mazda has the best balance among the Japanese. Their designs are pretty slick, interiors are very well put together and transmission+suspension setup has a great feel. It doesn’t feel as soulless but manages to be almost as reliable as a Toyota.
And the Mazda 6 carry all of these qualities with it even more beautifuly than the Mazda 3. Exteriors looks a lot more proportional. it is not flashy like Hyundai but has an nice chic understated look overall.
The interiors were great (lot of beige, not sure how it will age especially on a rental), engine (2.5L NA 180BHP) was responsive enough.

Only negatives I could find was that the instrument cluster was confusing to read ( especially the way cruise control speed is displayed) and there was a significant delta between digital and analogue readouts of the speedo. Also the engine didn’t feel eager enough for the stated 180 BHP output. (Again probably coz we had the car loaded all time with 3 adults, child and luggage)
There is a turbocharged version available which pumps out 227BHP and an impressive 420 torque which I’m sure will be a lot more fun.
Overall a great car and It’s a shame Mazda is not sold in India. I wonder why.

I think its the best looking one in its class, what do you think?



With a quality interior to match. Soft touch in most of the places



She is looking pretty comfortable in the back seat, isnt it


Desert safari
Next day we went on the popular desert safari and it’s a must do for everyone visiting UAE (especially the dune bashing). We were 5 adults and a kid and hence were able to get a whole Land Cruiser for ourselves.To make it even better, our driver was a Keralite, which allowed us to talk more freely in our local language and get some interesting information.
Our ride was 2015 Land Cruiser V8 with manual transmission. First up was the star of the day, Dune bashing at dunes of Al Badayer, around 70kms out of Dubai.And what an experience it is!

It’s impossible to convey the feelings in words, but lets just say I enjoyed it far more than the Ferrari Rossa. The car defies gravity, sliding and gliding effortlessly through the smooth golden dunes. It’s nothing short of a human operated roller coaster off the rails. There are steep climbs and drops, sweeping turns and fast straights. There is those brief moments when the car is on top of a tall dune and about to dive down, from the front windshield you see nothing but the sky and it feels like we are going to fall off a cliff, simply exhilarating.
I was totally in awe of the man and the machine.The skills of the driver and the capabilities of the car was at full display and for the first time, I was able to experience what a good SUV is actually capable of doing. And what amazed me was the ease with which the Land Cruiser did all those crazy manoeuvres with a full load of people. It never sounded stressed or at its limits. I was always thinking in my mind “here’s a machine developed by a company in far away a country with totally different geography and it has totally conquered this deserts". I always thought of Toyotas as soulless vehicles only good for their stellar reliability and utility (no offence to Toyota owners here, just my personal opinion). While I still think the same for most of their hatchbacks, sedans, MUVs and entry level SUVs, their top of line SUVs sure are a different breed of beasts.
There were a variety of other SUVs, Nissans (mostly Patrols), Jeeps, Mitsubishis (Pajeros), Fords etc and their capabilities in full display.









Post dune bashing, we were driven to a desert camp where there the usual fire dance, belly dance etc followed along with a very mediocre dinner.

Uncle enjoying some hookah in the camp


Back in Netherlands
After a 10 day jam packed, yet super fun and relaxing vacation, we landed back in Amsterdam Schiphol airport on an early Sunday morning. I was woken up from my summer dreams by an apt announcement by the captain- “we will land shortly at Amsterdam Schiphol airport and it’s a little cold here at -7 degree celcius right now”.

Drive back home, What a contrast to the golden dune lined highways I was driving on just a day back


Payng extra and choosing indoor parking in airport was a wise choice, just a bit of snow carried in by wind


Those out was not so lucky


As luck would have it, next day was the start the warmest winter season in Europe on record with temperatures averaging 10 degrees which lasted for almonth a month till mid of January 2023.


A tail note with some pictures
If you are like us and has no interest in visiting boring sterile malls that looks more or less the same everywhere in world, skip the usual Dubai Mall, Mall of Emirates etc. Other than the sheer scale, there is nothing else special about them.

But two malls I did find interesting was Souk Madinat Jumeriah as well as Ibin Batuta mall.

Souk Madinat Jumeriah is built in the model of a traditional markets and its beatuiful. You also get a nice view of Burj Al Arab from there

Below are some pics of Souk Madinat Jumeriah






Theme of Ibin Batuta mall is the life of famour explorer Ibin Batuta. Mall is divided into sections dedicated to coutries visited by him, China, India, Iran etc in 1300s. And the interior of that section is built accordingly.

Below is one photo of me in Iran (or was it Morocco, I cant remember)


Both of above are good examples of how a boring mall can be made interesting with some orginal ideas.


Thanks for reading!

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[Altrozed]

Congrats for your Dubai Trip.
good to see UAE and Middle East Travelogues written. Been here since a decade, DXB and AUH have vastly changed.
For Dune Bashing, one has to select carefully. The Al Ain Stretch or the Shj- Maleha Stretch is good to enjoy. Dubai Side Dune bashing isnt super worthy.

Mazda 6 is a great car but rear seat isnt spacious like Accord or Camry.
Like India and Indians/Indicas, Camry is associated to Taxi and Accords have declined a lot. Lot of space have been captured by Rav4 Hybrid, Corolla- Cross and X-Trail. The new gen X Terra is surprisingly hit here.

RAK Drive is worthy as it has more attractions than Jabeel Hafeet. Jabel Jais (RAK) has Zip Line, nice cafe's on top of the hill and sea and valley View.

Al Ain has only Al Ain view and Mezyad- Oman View.
Strange but Al Ain Municipality closed the washrooms on the top of hill citing covid but there is extreme rush during weekends without any social norms.
The only washroom available is downhill at the park.

[shaggydogg]

Thank you for this excellent travelogue. May I ask which car rental company you used? The ratings for most of the rental co's in Dubai are really bad and I'm not able to figure out which to use for an upcoming trip.

Thanks,

[Arun_S]

Wonderful travelogue, gave a good idea on the places I need to plan for visiting next time when i am there in Dubai.

[G20Rider]

Originally Posted by shaggydogg

Thank you for this excellent travelogue. May I ask which car rental company you used? The ratings for most of the rental co's in Dubai are really bad and I'm not able to figure out which to use for an upcoming trip.

Thanks,

The rental was arranged via a personal contact of my uncle who lives in Dubai. The company is “Rentflex car rental LLC”. Whatever little interaction I had with them was very pleasant and the hold on my credit card was released within days. Car itself was super new and in great condition.

[Samfromindia]

Nice & short TL on the Emirates. Brought back memories of my September visit. Unfortunately at that time I was staying in my work location and for getting IDP, I had to travel back to hometown as my RTO is not digitized. So missed out on car rentals and driving the prancing horse at Ferrari World Nevertheless it was a packed itinerary over a full week and I had a lot of fun. Posting my trip details which can be useful for other visitors. Maybe someday I will be less lazy and write a Travelogue as well