Sylvia's Journal

Another one of Axel’s fantasies came true today. We celebrated the first day of Eid with the rest of Dubai at the far edge of the Jumeira’s beaches sitting under a palm tree with our books, near a restaurant that served a cold beer with lunch. We had bought ourselves a day pass at the Sheraton Beach resort. Our entrance fee entitled us to all the facilities plus two slatted wooden chaises with a mattress and a large beach towel. We also got the use of a hurricane-grade umbrella that needed to be wheeled in place with a cart.

We decided, maybe for the last time, to take the metro to this paradise. It required lots of walking and took one and a half hour from our apartment to the beach. Public transportation is so inconvenient that it barely competes with the ubiquitous and reasonably priced taxis.

After sunset we walked along ‘The Walk’ which is right up there with ‘The Address,’ ‘The Place,’ and other generic nouns that serve as labels for places that are anything but generic. First we strolled, with numerous Eid revelers, against the traffic jam that consisted of white and silver SUVs filled with turbaned men in their heavily starched dishdashas or women in their gauzy, bejeweled and sometimes titillating black cloaks.

We sat down at the Marina’s waterfront for a mediocre meal in one of Dubai’s many restaurant chains doing more people watching; families that had surfaced from their lamb feasts and walked, ever so slowly, along the promenade – much like the post-Thanksgiving lethargy – except in the US everyone slides in front of the TV. Here the preferred response to such fullness appeared to be smoking the shisha, having fresh fruit juice, coffee or desert.

We joined in the fun, skipping the shisha – there was enough second hand smoke to go around for everyone – with some Yemeni coffee and a concoction made from dates and a little bit of flour that was much better than its Anglosaxon cousin the fruit cake.

And now we are back home watching music videos that feature Indians dressed as Americans in 70s garb, including hairdos and glass styles, singing and teasing each other in rooms that have a matching décor. The only thing that is not in harmony with everything else is the high-pitched screeching of the female singers. It is all part of preparing Axel for our visit to India over Christmas. He’s a little wary about his first visit to the subcontinent, fearful of the intensity of the place which you can experience here in the textile quarter.

And so we will spend our last few days here sticking our toes in the Indian waters so to speak. We are lodged in the middle of where most of Dubai’s Indian population seems to have settled. We will try out a few Indian eating establishments that cater to the locals for little money and then see if Axel still wants to go there next month.