To India Through Dubai

The Prompt

It happened over lunch right around Christmas time, when our friend and mentor said ‘You should go. You should go to India.’ From seemingly nowhere, an invitation and work opportunity in India? SAY WHAT?!? As with most good things that are shared and cherished around a meal surrounded by good friends – the concept of traveling and inspiring your work on the Indian subcontinent 8,000 miles away in less than 6 weeks time was both exciting and OVERWHELMING.

The place, the People, the FOOD, and more were something of an exotic dream from childhood – a place I had always longed to see and experience, but figured it would happen one of these years when the time was right and everything could be planned. Now the opportunity was before us, and if we were to jump on this – we’d have to depart in just over a month!  Between a whole LOT of flexibility and craftiness to shuffle work, life, and several commitments between Christmas and February 1, we applied and obtained visas, prepared our work deliverables, booked travel, and embarked on the trip of a lifetime!

Getting There

We boarded round-way tickets on an Emirates airliner from Chicago to Delhi through Dubai. SIDENOTE: it was probably the nicest plane we’d ever been on (delicious food and bottomless drinks were a plus). Knowing ahead that Dubai was the hub for Emirates, the airline let us extend our layover in Dubai for a weekend (free-of-charge) that included an adventure in the Arabian desert complete with dune bashing (Google it, it’s awesome!), camel rides, high tea on the sand dunes, and an evening barbeque under the stars. All this pretty much nailed several items on our bucket list right there. Riding a camel, yeah, that was a dream come true.

The place is something else, with cranes densely populating the skyline as they construct more and more and more skyscrapers – ‘Another new city’ we were told, like a never ending Legoland or Tinkertown it seemed for the bottomless pockets. Our cab driver told us Dubai is the crane capital of the world – in fact, Dubai was once home to 25% of the world’s cranes (that’s about 30,000 cranes all in one place) during the height of the property boom. All of this development rising out from where the desert meets the ocean. The travel slogan, “Discover all that is possible” seems to fit Dubai well.

For us, Dubai was something one must see to believe. Overall, the United Arab Emirates is extremely water scarce and cannot support a domestic agricultural sector capable of feeding its population; however, the wealth in energy and trade sources make it possible to meet its food and water needs. Most all of the water is processed (desalinated) from the ocean and the food imported from EVERYWHERE around the world. In fact, I’m pretty sure you can have pretty much ANYTHING you want in Dubai (for a price) – there’s even a Louvre Museum up the road in Abu Dhabi (a piece of Paris) and a Texas Roadhouse at the downtown Dubai Mall (a piece of Americana).

Everything seemed new from the roads to the buildings to the new resorts on man-made islands to the people either visiting or now living there. Most definitely, this built-up place gave us an incredible experience of something new and interesting, but also made us laugh at ourselves realizing that we are just not big city folks! Instead of waiting in line to ride to the top of the Burj Khalifa for an ‘At the Top’ view from the world’s tallest building, we opted to spend our last evening quietly on Jumeirah Beach watching the kiteboarders as the sun went down on the Arabian Gulf.

A Whole New World

The next morning, we arrived to India. It was as if we stepped into a whole new world – an older world, one rich in abundance of brilliant people with diverse cultures from diverse climates. Even the rubble that you see laying about Delhi reminds you that you are in a place with a remarkable range of history and ruins dating further back than 3000 B.C. We were reminded that we were in the place at the end of the Spice Road that drove the world’s economy with influences subject to British, Italian, Dutch, Portugues, and French colonial rule. This is the place where every explorer in the world was trying to find a passage to… A place in which, so very, very much of ALL of HUMAN history is connected through this place. So, from the cool, dry desert air with an ocean breeze and new car scent off the coast of Dubai to the warm, stagnant, subtropical air with an essence of spices and dung burning of Delhi, in less than a 4 hour plane ride, we had been transported to a completely different place.

This is Part I of our Journey. Look for Part II as we explore the Wonders of India next week! 🙂