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Singapore 2022: Marina Bay at Night

October 18, 2022 by tomtotley

Just some pictures of Marina Bay at night.

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Singapore 2022: A walk along Singapore River

October 18, 2022 by tomtotley

Lower Singapore River with Boat Quay beyond

On Monday we did a walk along Singapore River. In fact, we walked its entire length, from mouth to source; and not content with that, we added an extension along the Alexandra Canal. But fear not, this was no marathon – the river itself is listed as being about 3.2 kms in length, plus another 2 kms or so for the canal which makes about 5 and a half kilometres. Or a tad more than three miles, in old money. An hour’s walk, in other words, although what with stops here and there for coffee, loos, and pictures, it took us the best part of three hours. And we enjoyed every minute of it. It’s certainly not wild country – indeed, most of the walk was along paved walkways – and it’s completely developed. But we thoroughly enjoyed it, especially as it took us through some very different scenery and showed us some wildlife.

Otters playing on the river sidewalk

The first stretch was through familiar territory, along the Boat Quay and then Clarke Quay. However it was here that we had our first delightful surprise of the walk – we came across a family of otters on the walkway, playing, grooming and just being sociable with each other. I had heard that otters were becoming common in Singapore and were being accorded a special place in people’s regard, but to see a group from close up in this way was extraordinary – I had though that if we did see any, it would be from a distance, or in the water. We didn’t get too close, however – they are wild animals, no matter how accustomed to people they may have become, and predators at that, so the message is “don’t approach too closely, don’t annoy them, and above all don’t touch them”. So we didn’t do any of those things. By the time we walked on there were about a dozen people looking at them and really enjoying the experience. The otters seems to be taking no notice of the people at all.

Riverside Point – somewhat rundown

The next stretch was along Robertson Quay. The lower end of this has the air of having been left behind – there are some  developments, possibly from the 80s, that now look fairly abandoned. I gather that back in the day they were among Singapore’s prime destinations. But that would have been before the lower river had been cleaned up and made available for development and renovation. Today the crowds go to Clarke Quay and the Boat Quay.

As we progressed the quality of the buildings either side improved until we realised that we were moving through some prime real estate. Apartments in the upper Robertson Quay region go for millions of Singapore dollars, and I have to say they look very swish. Some of them take the form of gated estates formed from high tower blocks, with upmarket restaurants and bars at ground level. Oh to have the money! There were also some older-looking blocks that were undergoing renovation work – obviously this is an area where property is in demand.

This took us up to the end of the river proper, but we continued along a feeder canal that would lead to the Alexandra Park Connector. This was through plainer territory, mostly Housing Development Board (HDB) blocks, erected at various times from the 1970s onwards. At the end of this stretch was a small park, Alexandra Park, with some water areas and children’s play areas. Here we had another wildlife surprise – in an area of the park being restored we saw a small monitor lizard. Unlike iguanas, of which we saw an example at Jurong Bird Park and which are herbivorous, monitor lizards are definitely carnivorous predators. This was only a small specimen, but still not a creature to be approached carelessly. We looked, we took some pictures, and we walked on.

And that was our walk. After that we found a nearby MRT station and went back to the hotel, where after showering (being outdoors was very hot and sticky) we eventually got ourselves round the outside of a bottle of Burgundy. Expensive, but delicious.

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Singapore 2022: Gardens By The Bay (in the rain)

October 16, 2022 by tomtotley

Supertree, Skyline Walkway and Dome

This morning we went to Gardens by the Bay (GbtB from now on). This is several things all rolled in together: a) a large open-air public garden; b) a pair of two climate-controlled ‘domes’, containing plants and various other things appropriate to their theme; c) the Supertree Grove – more of that later. It was built in the early 00s, to replace an earlier public garden. It’s alongside Marina Bay Sands hotel, and something equally iconic was required, and this is it. In terms of external appearance, it’s probably the Supertrees that get the attention, but in terms of the quality and depth of the attraction it’s the domes and their contents.

When we left the hotel it was raining. Fortunately it began to dry up very quickly, and in any case we decided to do the Domes first, as we’d be indoors out of any rain.

There are two domes, the Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest. The first of these is a series of plant exhibits – flowers, trees, succulents, etc – from all the areas of the world that have a Mediterranean climate. That includes the Mediterranean itself and also the coast areas of Southern California, a stretch of the coastline of Chile, and parts of the coast of South Africa. The display isn’t especially dramatic – you’re looking at flowers and other plants – but it’s very well laid out, very peaceful, and quite beautiful. We were there for over an hour.

Then it was on the Cloud Forest. This is much more dramatic, although strangely it didn’t take as long to go round. Essentially the dome attempts to recreate and demonstrate the forest conditions on the side of a tropical mountain that’s generally covered in mist or cloud (this being how the plants get their moisture). Apparently in such conditions there are many different species all living within a narrow range of altitude, so they get the right amount of heat, moisture, etc. As you go up the mountain the species present will therefore change. The various species of plants are very sensitive to changes in temperature and moisture, and are therefore leading indicators of climate change. GbtB have had a go at recreating this environment.

When you enter the dome you are faced with an artificial mountain, covered in vegetation. From the top of this there is a waterfall. You can ascend in a lift to the top of the ‘mountain’, and you then proceed along walkways that wrong you back down. Sometimes the walkway is away from the mountain, giving you a distant view, while at other spots you have a close-up view of the plants. All in all, you get an extraordinary view of a wide range of flowers, bushes and trees, in a dramatic environment. At various times the mountain is ‘misted’ – artificially created mist (water vapour) is issued from many outlets uo the mountain and forms a cloud that covers much it for a while. This happened while we were there.

As I said, although we weren’t in there as long it was very dramatic.

Finally we visited the Supertree Grove and walked along the Skyway. This is a walkway that connects two of the trees. It’s not very long – 170mtrs – and you just go up in a lift, walk along, come back, and then descend. However, it gives you great views of the trees and of the surroundings. (The Supertrees are functional, in fact – they exhaust air and operate as coolers for various bits of underground machinery for the domes.)

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Singapore 2022 – Birds!

October 15, 2022 by tomtotley

We spent most of one day at Jurong Bird Park. This is a large(ish) set of aviaries and free-flying enclosures, plus a theatre area and quite a lot of educational material. It has a genuine research and preservation role as well as providing recreation for Singaporeans and visitors – there are several species in captivity there that are critically endangered in their native habitat. Most of the birds (endangered and otherwise) are Asian and some of the endangered species are actually quite nondescript-looking. But their habitats are under severe threat – it turns out that clearing forests and jungles or draining swamps, even for the best of reasons, results in habitat destruction and species loss.

The park has existed since 1971. When it was created the site was quite some way out of Singapore city, and the current local townships did not then exist. 50 years later Singapore has spread and the Bird Park is surrounded by residential developments on one side and industrial estates on the other. So it’s being relocated, to a site in the middle of the island close to the other wildlife parks (Singapore Zoo, the Night Safari and River Wonders). The relocation was due to have happened in 2020 but of course Covid intervened and work was greatly slowed down. (Possibly, also, Singapore’s desire to do things properly rather than to an arbitrary timetable might have had an impact.) I was hopeful that the move would have happened by the time we went – for a while there were suggestions that it would happen “in the first half of 2022”, but in the event it didn’t. The move is now scheduled for 3 January 2023, which looks arbitrary but is in fact the anniversary of the existing park’s opening date. The new park will be called “Bird Paradise”.

These days the park is only open four days a week (although for the final month or so it will resume seven day opening). It’s a mixture of large aviaries in which birds from various species are exhibited, areas where the relevant birds will stay naturally (e.g. the penguin pool and the flamingo lake), and best of all some huge enclosures that are sealed, i.e. they are covered by very high netting and surrounded by barriers, thus giving the birds a very large area in which to fly freely. These were the best parts of the park, by far – some of the aviaries were very traditional-looking and I’m not sure how good a life the birds in them have. The new Bird Paradise will be much larger than the current park and will feature larger free-flying areas, greater research and conservation facilities, better educational facilities, and where required, e.g. for the birds of prey, better cages/aviaries. I’m sorry that we’ve missed it.

We enjoyed the visit. We were there for over four hours and walked round a significant part of the site. We’re not sure that we saw everything as, while there was an overall circular plan to the park, there were lots of paths that branched off, and we didn’t get down all of them. The best parts were the free-flying enclosures, Waterfall Aviary, Lory Loft and African Treetops. all of these had walkways at various heights, which allowed you get up high into the birds’ environment. In the case of the African Treetops enclosure, many of these were suspended on cables and wobbled a bit… The Lory Loft (Lorys are various species of parrot-like birds, and are very colourful) was exceptionally impressive – flocks of these brightly-coloured birds suddenly taking to the air and whizzing around the enclosure straight past you. The Waterfall Aviary was perhaps less so, but it was very peaceful; and we saw a number of birds there.

We enjoyed the visit, but I’m sure that Bird Paradise, when it opens, will be even more spectacular.

 

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Singapore 2022 – First day or so…

October 14, 2022 by tomtotley

Not too surprisingly we slept like logs on our first night in the hotel. Breakfast was the usual buffet-style, with a huge range of different types of food – some western and several completely different asian styles. These included a couple of curries. Val says there’s lots of stuff laid out that she’d love to eat but not at breakfast, and I agree with her.

After that it was time for some practicalities. We needed to explore the local area and get a pass for the MRT, Singapore’s excellent underground system. On previous visits I’d bought a 3-day Tourist Pass for the MRT. This costs 30 Singapore Dollars (S$) of which S$10 is a deposit for the pass and S$20 is for three days’ of rides. Then it expires and you have to buy another one. You can hand in the first one and get the deposit back or, if you’re buying another one, use it for that one. Then when you leave you’ve got to hand the pass in to get your deposit back, and that’s a problem. The Tourist passes are only sold or refunded from a small number of MRT stations and often at unhelpful hours. To be fair, the station at Changi is one of them, but my recollection is that it’s a goodly walk from the terminals. If you’ve gone to the airport in a taxi then it’s a faff to go to the MRT station just to get your S$10 back (although that might pay for a coffee in the terminal).

All of the above is a long-winded explanation as to why I decided this time to get the pay-as-you-go pass EZ-Link pass instead. This costs S$10 from MRT stations or convenience stores, and of that amount S$5 is the (non-refundable) cost of the pass and S$5 is the initial stored value. Additional value can be added via either cash or cards at any MRT station. So that’s what we did.

Armed with our MRT passes we went for a walk around three sides of Marina Bay. This is the heart of the ‘public’ city and includes a couple of Singapore’s iconic sights (yes, I know, but this time it’s justified) – the Marina Bay Sands development (the hotel towers, the Art/Science Museum, and a mall), and the MerLion (the symbol of Singapore). There’s a walkway round the Bay. So we took the MRT to Bay Front, from where we walked through the ‘Shoppes at Marina Bay’ shopping mall – seriously high-end, with all the luxury brands you can think of. It also has a food court (like all Singapore malls) where we were bold and drank ‘kopi’ – the Singapore version of coffee. Basic kopi (Val’s choice) has coffee, sugar and evaporated milk while kopi-c (my choice) has coffee and condensed milk. It’s not what we normally think of as coffee, but was surprisingly tasty, though sweet. Standard western coffee is available here and there but at about twice the price of kopi. We continued the walk and ended up at the Merlion – the symbol of Singapore. You have to do it once, along with everyone else. For lunch we wimped out and went to Burger King; then we went back to the hotel, explored, and having found the outdoor pool and bar, sat outside drinking sparkling mineral water.

Late in the afternoon we explored a bit locally and visited the ‘Fountain of Wealth’. Visiting it and thinking the right thoughts is supposed to help increase your wealth, but with the prices here I don’t think it’s working….

For dinner that night we explored the local area and found a hawker centre not too far away where we each had a curry – butter chicken and naan. I was going to have chick tikka + naan, but it was ‘off’ – I got the feeling that the only dish that was ‘on’ was the butter chicken. However it was very fresh and  very tasty. Basically this was a small shack (alongside a number of others) serving a limited range of dishes, cooked to order. Wonderful stuff. The meals cost us S$12 each, plus S$4 for a small glass of beer, which we shared (I didn’t know how large the glass would be until I’d got it) – S$28 altogether.

After that we took ourselves to Clarke Quay, a popular spot on the river where we found a bar and had two half-litres of Tiger beer. Readers, they cost S$33 – more than the meal! I suspect that anything on the riverside costs a fortune. Then back to the hotel feeling replete and wanting our sleep.

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Singapore 2022 – Getting There

October 12, 2022 by tomtotley

So back to Singapore, for the first time in three years. Val has never been and I last visited in September 2019. Then of course Covid hit us. Singapore has been especially cautious about re-opening to visitors – indeed, they’ve been very cautious even with their own people, with extended lockdowns (‘Circuit Breakers’) and significant restrictions lasting until early summer this year. But now Singapore is open to visitors. We’re multiply-vaccinated and were raring to go (well, I was) so here we are.

On my previous visits I flew from Manchester with Emirates which meant going via Dubai. This extended the overall journey time  to just over 17 hours from take-off at Manchester to landing at Singapore, with a two to three hour stopover at Dubai.. This time, because of post-covid price changes, flying direct with Singapore Airlines was the cheaper option albeit from Heathrow. Nonetheless we decided that we’d try it and find out how a 13-hour flight feels.

The answer is: not too bad. In fact thanks to the timing – take-off from Heathrow was mid-evening – we were already tired enough to sleep for a few hours during the flight, and thus arrived at Changi airport in Singapore not feeling too bad. The flight took off from Heathrow on time, the tail winds meant that the flight duration was a bit shorter than expected, the in-flight experience was good – comfortable-enough seats, edible food, and good in-flight entertainment – and the aircraft itself, although not new (a Boeing 777 300ER that might have been around 15 years old), was clean and everything that was there, worked. One thing that wasn’t there was a power socket – I’d been counting on having one to recharge the watch and the phone. To make up for that, however, Singapore Airlines’ policy regarding economy seating is quite generous – economy seats are set out 9-across (3-3-3) while most other airlines, including Emirates, have a ten-across (3-4-3) arrangement. So we didn’t feel too cramped, and I am fortunate in fitting into an economy seat quite comfortably. There are advantages to being just 5’7″ (these days) and having short legs…..

We took off from Heathrow at about 9pm and landed at Changi at just after 4:30 local time the following afternoon (the time difference between the UK and Singapore during BST is 7 hours, and they’re ahead of us). We were quickly though immigration. Most of the passengers on our flight, which was full, seemed to be Australians or New Zealanders and were therefore transferring to other flights, so there were not many passengers from the flight actually entering Singapore. We got our bags quickly, found our pre-arranged transfer, and were checking into our hotel shortly around 5:45. So just over an hour from touchdown to the hotel room – pretty good.

We ran round in circles for a while unpacking, then went out for a walk along the side of Marina Bay and then down to the Boat Quay where we found a restaurant for a meal. After that it was back to the hotel, through pouring rain; and sadly I’d forgotten to take my umbrella out with me. I was very wet by the time we got back to the hotel.

 

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Dubai – Practicalities

March 14, 2022 by tomtotley

This post will be about some practical issues that we dealt with during our recent holiday in Dubai.

Timing: First, we went at the right time of year – winter. Summer in the UAE is brutal; temperatures well into the 40°s and high humidity. Even at the end of February we had a couple of days when it reached 30°, although on other days it was lower than that. However at that time of year the humidity is very low, around 40%, and that makes the heat much easier to take. Indeed I remember walking around the Expo in the high temperatures and thoroughly enjoying it. I was once there at the very end of September when the temperature was well into the 30°s and the humidity was high, and just waiting for the hotel shuttle bus outside the airport was a trial. So it’s important to choose the right time of year. In December and early January you can even get some rain….

Getting there: As on all my previous trips, we flew with Emirates from Manchester. Unfortunately this time the outbound flight was delayed by a couple of hours, but that’s unusual – I’ve never experienced that sort of delay with Emirates before, and I’ve now done 18 flights with them. Emirates provide a good full service on their flights, even in Economy – we had two meals on each flight, the first a substantial cooked meal and the second a snack, plus regular drinks service (water/tea/coffee/juices/alcohol), all included in the price. The seats are comfortable and the seat-back entertainment system is excellent. The prices are generally good. Certainly they are the best option for the Middle East and onwards into Asia from UK regional airports, e.g Manchester. I prefer flying on their A380 aircraft, but in Economy there’s no real difference between the A380 and the Boeing 777 (their other aircraft type). Thoroughly recommended.

Money: The local currency is the Dirham, abbreviated either as AED (the formal, ISO abbreviation) or Dhs (used locally on signs, posters, etc). I have a currency card from Caxton. We loaded this with GBP before we left home and then used it while we were in Dubai to withdraw cash from ATMs and also as a debit card in shops. Using this made the money side of things easy. While we were there, the formal exchange rate hovered around £1=4.95 AED, or just under 5 Dhs to the pound.

Communications: I bought a sim for my phone from the local cell-phone service provider, du. This actually lasted for 28 days, but of course I removed the sim when we got back home. I have an iPhone which includes e-sim functionality, and I have my UK service on the e-sim so the physical sim slot is available to be used for sims while on a trip. I bought the sim with 6Gb of data and that cost me 100 AED, or about £20 or just over. So a bit expensive for a week, but worth it, just for Google Maps. Certainly cheaper than the roaming charges would have been on my UK service.

Getting around: we started off using taxis, and these are cheap, certainly cheaper than taxis in Sheffield. That seems to be what most visitors do, and to be fair for a couple or a family, it often makes sense. But I always enjoy using the local public transport, so later in the week we started to use the metro. You have to have a smart card to do this, but they are available from machines at any Metro station. We bought a ‘Silver’ Nol (that’s N-O-L) smart card each, for 25 AED (about £5 or just over), and of that 19 AED is credit. It’s easy to top up the card, again at the Metro stations, and that can be done in multiples of 5 AED (about £1). Fare costs are very cheap – 3 AED for a journey within one zone and 5 AED for a journey across two adjacent zones. (Here’s a link to diagram showing the Zones.) We also found that the Nol card is accepted as a more general payment method – there was a 5 AED charge to go into Zabeel park, and we paid for that with the Nol card.

Using the Metro is easy – except at evening rush hour when it can get very, very crowded – but there are a couple of things to watch out for. First, you have to make sure you’re in the right carriage. There is a 1st class (‘Gold’ class) carriage for which you need a 1st class ticket, of course. There’s also a ‘Women & Children only’ carriage, and you need to be careful with that. It is in fact an offence for a man to enter that carriage, even if he then walks out of it down the train. Fortunately the position of the Gold and Women’s carriages are indicated on the platforms. Then there are the station names. These change from time to time! – because they’re sponsored, and the sponsorship can change. Fortunately each station is also numbered, and the numbers don’t change. The station names, the announcements, the ticket machines, in fact everything on the system, appears in both English and Arabic.

Resources:

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Thoughts on Dubai

March 11, 2022 by tomtotley

Downtown Dubai skyline from Port Rashid (2019)

I’ve visited Dubai four times. One was on my first visit to SE Asia; then as day visits during the cruise element of my third visit; a third very brief visit to break up the long flight home from Singapore in 2019; and now this one, the longest visit yet, and the first with Val. So I feel that I’m now able to make some comment on Dubai.

It is a very strange place. The first thing to recognise is that more than 80% of the population are expatriates, mainly from the Indian sub-continent. The only actual Emiratis you can be sure of meeting are the staff on the immigration desks at Dubai International airport. The next thing, which is actually pretty obvious when you walk around, is that it is an entirely artificial place – I have photos showing Dubai in the 1950s and it’s a very traditional, low-rise town sandwiched between the Arabian Gulf and the desert; it owed its existence to the creek which functioned as a simple regional port.

Everything changed In the late 50s and 60s. Oil was discovered, first in Abu Dhabi and subsequently (in smaller quantities) in Dubai. The UK announced that it would no longer be able to provide external security and to continuing managing the various emirates’ foreign affairs (which it had been doing since the late 19th century). The UK’s withdrawal from the region ultimately lead to the creation of the UAE (United Arab Emirates) nation in 1971, of which Dubai and Abu Dhabi are the dominant Emirates (out of seven in total). Sheikh Rashid, the ruler of Dubai from the late 1950s to 1990, decided that Dubai should build on its history as a regional trading location and develop business services, and that the oil revenues would be directed towards providing the necessary infrastructure to support that. The key moment came in 1979 when the Dubai World Trade Centre was inaugurated, by Sheikh Rashid and HM The Queen(!). It was located out in the desert some miles from the creek, the traditional centre of Dubai, and many people wondered how successful it would be; today it’s on the edge of the modern Downtown Dubai area, which has been developed further out still. It sent the message “Dubai is open for business” to the world, and the world duly came to Dubai to do business; and all the subsequent development flowed from that.

Media coverage of Dubai always talks about the glitz, the ostentatious wealth and the conspicuous consumption, and that certainly exists. But what I’ve seen from my visits is that the great majority of people there are not wealthy and not conspicuously consuming. They’re actually working very hard – they’re employed as hotel staff, shop assistants, taxi drivers, and so on. Many of them have been in Dubai for some years – we spoke to people in the hotel who had been living in Dubai for two, three and even seven years. What I’ve read suggests that Dubai attracts several different types of people. First, and most numerous, would be people from low-income countries who can earn more in Dubai than they possibly could in their country of birth, and who are probably sending money home. The second group consists of those who are enterprising in a business sense and who see Dubai as a place where they could fulfil those ambitions; Dubai is still very much “open for business”, and the barriers to doing business there are very low. (There may be some cross-over between these two groups: on my third visit I found that the hotel kitchen and waiting staff from the breakfast service were working on their own account to provide a buffet evening meal – the hotel didn’t provide one itself, but had done a deal with the kitchen and restaurant staff from the breakfast service.) And finally there are professional people working at senior levels in various enterprises, e.g. finance managers or pilots, just to mention two possibilities.

I’m not closing my eyes to the issues that can occur in Dubai. It is a Muslim society and that has consequences: the letter of the law regarding same-sex relationships is harsh, for example. I also recognise that there’s not a lot of protection for employees and their conditions of employment. I believe that labour or trade unions are not lawful, and there have been continual stories over the years about dreadful working conditions for construction workers and domestic staff (who are all expatriates, of course). But the Dubai government is making progress in improving the regulation of these industries (and enforcing the regulations!) and I believe that things are improving. And there are further considerations that I think are worth bearing in mind. If we only visited places that had governments and policies that we approved of, we might not do much travelling. I feel it’s better to engage with societies with different policies than boycott them. It’s also worth saying that in some areas, e.g. education and women’s rights, Dubai’s (indeed, the UAE’s) policies are progressive, much more so than in some other Muslim and Arab countries.

It’s a strange, fascinating place. I’ve enjoyed my visits, although I recognise that I am a rich westerner only seeing the place for short periods during the times of year when the climate is bearable (in fact, very pleasant…). I can see myself returning.

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The Grand Hyatt hotel in Dubai

March 9, 2022 by tomtotley

We stayed at the Grand Hyatt hotel for our holiday. There are lots of hotels in Dubai, and choosing one is a bit of a task. Popular locations are in the Downtown Dubai area along Sheikh Zayed Road; by Dubai Marina; and near the Creek. The Grand Hyatt is close to the Creek (and also therefore close to the airport).

It also stands in its own grounds. There’s a garden with an outdoor pool, and this are unusual; the hotels in Downtown Dubai and by the Marina are generally enclosed within a big tower. They may have a pool, but it will most likely be inside, and they won’t have grounds. I think that that the Grand Hyatt is different because it’s a bit older than most other hotels – it dates from 2003 (and would have been designed before that) whereas the tower hotels, in any location, were built later. At the time of its opening the Grand Hyatt was in fact the largest hotel in Dubai – 682 rooms, a huge lobby with its own rainforest (see pictures below) and a big convention centre. It’s certainly built on a lavish scale.

I have a feeling, however, that the intervening 20 years (almost) have changed its position in the market. I think that when it was opened it was at the top of the market, but not so now. It’s far from being a budget hotel, but it seems that to some extent at least it has dropped into the package market. We saw very few guests who looked as if they were there on business but many leisure-seekers, including significant numbers of families with young children. There’s a cocktail bar, for example, which we patronised but there were never more than half-a-dozen other people in there, despite the hotel’s 682 rooms. (Of course, it’s possible that the bar only got busy after we were tucked up in bed.) Physically the hotel is still exceptional – indeed, the lobby and atrium areas had a feeling of spaciousness that’s very impressive – but I got the feeling that they have changed their operating policies to match their changing market.

We chose this hotel for a number of reasons. First, we wanted somewhere with grounds so that we could walk around outside and still be in the hotel. Secondly, it was close to a public park, the Creek Park, and to a Metro station. And finally we chose it because it was close to the airport. I’ve mentioned before that Dubai is very spread out, and given that we weren’t due to land until after midnight we didn’t want to be faced then with a half-hour taxi ride. Given that we were in fact two hours late landing, that was a good decision – the drive from the airport to the hotel was less than 10 minutes. But the other reasons turned out to be less important. We walked around the grounds just once, to look at them, but apart from that we didn’t use them. We didn’t get to the park because it was on the other side of a very busy road and it was a long detour to a pedestrian crossing. We did find the Metro, however, and used it several times in the second half of the holiday. In contrast to the difficult walking route to the park, we were able to stroll to the Metro station (‘Dubai Healthcare City’) in just under 10 minutes. However, we were almost always alone in doing so. Our experience on the Metro (which works very well, btw) suggested to us that very few tourists use it, it seems to be predominantly for locals. Visitors generally use taxis, it seems, as did we at the beginning of the week. So overall we might have done better to have stayed in one of the tower hotels in the Downtown area – not much further from the airport, close to the centre of things, and even handier for the Metro which runs along that road.

I ought to say that we weren’t disappointed in the hotel, but on reflection we could perhaps have done better. We’ll know for next time. Anyway, here are some images.

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A trip to Dubai Marina

March 3, 2022 by tomtotley

On our last full day we went to Dubai Marina. This is a new district about 30 kilometres from our hotel and ‘old Dubai’, and maybe 25 kilometres from Downtown Dubai. It’s a fairly new development – the marina, which must be several kilometres long, was constructed parallel to the coastline, with channels cut through to the sea at each end – it’s set back maybe half a kilometre from the sea. An upmarket mall was built on the landward side, and then the site was thrown open to developers. It’s now a forest of huge towers, both residential and hotel. All along the marina are restaurants, cafes and other eateries – but of course no bars, there’s a prohibition throughout Dubai against places where alcohol is consumed opening directly from the street or public thoroughfare. (Hotel bars, of course, are buried within the hotels and are therefore acceptable.)

There are three ways of getting there. You can go by taxi, but that’s quite expensive, even in one of Dubai’s cheap taxis. Or you can use the metro, but thanks to the distance that takes a long time; or you can travel on the Dubai ferry, from Al Ghubaiba in Dubai Creek all the way into the heart of the marina, and this was what we chose to do.

I had read somewhere that the ferry ride would take ‘an hour or so’, but in the event it was almost two hours. Given that it didn’t leave the Creek until 1pm, it was almost 3 o’clock before we reached the Marina, by which time we were very hungry and we therefore decided that food was the first priority. Readers, I have to tell you that despite the attractions of food from all five continents, on this occasion we decided that we wanted fast food, and a McDonalds Quarter Pounder with Cheese hit the spot….

Suitably fed and watered we wandered around for a while. We had hoped to explore the Marina quite thoroughly, including finding our way to something called The Walk, an area between the Marina and the beach that’s apparently packed with restaurants and cafes, but given the time we decided to give it a miss. So we just walked along the Marina for a while before heading for the Metro to get back to the hotel. I knew from previous experience that the Metro Red Line gets incredibly, unbelievably busy by about 5pm, and I wanted to avoid that. I once did a Metro trip from Dubai Mall into central Dubai and I’m sure my feet weren’t touching the ground for most of the journey, nor was a hanging onto a support. Not a fun experience, and not one I wanted to repeat or to have Val experience. Even starting at 4:30 the train was full, standing room only, but two polite gentlemen of Indian appearance very kindly gave these two seniors their seats. Thank you, gentlemen.

We had in fact spent an hour or so in the morning wandering the Shindagha area of Dubai Creek so we’d been away from the hotel since shortly after 10 o’clock, so we didn’t feel that we’d wasted the day. And the Marina is extraordinarily impressive, with endless skyscrapers, on either side, throngs of people, very pleasant temperatures, and that impossibly clear blue sky. A good day, and actually not too strenuous.

 

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