My other pleasant memories of Dubai consist of watching the ‘Air-show’ as our taxi sped towards various destinations.

We were lucky to be at the right place and right time to see the display of the 7 tiny aircraft flying in formation and making colorful letters or designs in the air. They were so tiny that they looked like mosquitoes when they were seen at all but they left red, blue, green gas in their wake to form different designs.

http://www.dubaiairshow.org/airshow07/site/home/index.php

Dubai air-show is held on every two years and it is a very big event.

We did not visit the exhibition as we had no plans to buy an airplane.

We would rather buy a yacht.

That reminds me. One of the most pleasant way to see the lovely Dubai creek is to take a water-taxi to Bani Yas from Bur Dubai.

This water-taxi is large, glass-paned and air-conditioned. It looked like we had chartered the boat, because we were the only two persons in it. You can get fabulous views of the creekside buildings from it.

(The 1-dirham commuter water-taxi is open, crowded and just crosses the creek.)

As we were happy with the 4-dirham water-taxi, we did not find it necessary to go on a 150-dirham ‘creek cruise’, where they also give you dinner. However the authentic Dubai food did not appeal to me. (We ate at a South Indian hotel whenever chance offered and we could escape the Conference Dinners or Banquets.)

{Yes, yes, yes I WILL write about our Shindagha dinner Avi. You need not pester me to tell the Truth and nothing but the Truth.}

They had arranged a dinner for the Speakers of the Conference at Shindagha, which is a Heritage Village in Dubai.

We sat at the two tables at the open-air café within the Shindagha castle, enjoying the balmy air, the glittering view of night-time Dubai reflected in the waters of the creek, and easy friendship among the hosts and the guests.

The dinner was good but what made it memorable was the ‘sheesha’ (a.k.a. ‘Hukka’) that they offered to all the guests after the dinner.

Avi does not smoke. He is also not adventurous enough to try it in public. He was afraid that he might choke on the smoke.

I am rather ‘bindass’ and go on the principle that everything is worth trying at least once. Moreover, in my veins ran the blood of my ‘chain-smoker’ father.

So, when Mustapha teased us, I as ready to uphold the honor of India and smoke ‘sheesha’.

Mustapha was aghast, but quickly attributed it to my Feminist image.

“Women’s Lib?” He asked.

“Yup” I replied and took a tentative 'puff' of the ‘sheesha’.

I think Avi knows within his heart that he has married a 'crackpot' woman. He is past being surprised by anything that I do, but just sees to it that I come to no harm.

I found the smoke quite pleasant, provided you do not suck it deep into your throat or lungs but let it out of your mouth and nostrils. It was not pure tobacco but some other herbs mixed with the tobacco, which is very pleasant but soporific. The smoke also becomes mild by passing through the water-filter.

Mustapha was watching me worriedly, but I assured him,

“Mustapha, Mustapha, don’t worry Mustapha”.

At this point, Avi hastily removed the sheesha from my hands under the guise of wanting to give it a try, smoked perfunctorily for a few seconds and gave back the sheesha.

We had seen the Creek umpteen number of times, but the color of the waters of the Gulf that I had seen as our plane descended was alluring. However, the Gulf had eluded us so far. We were able to get only a glimpse of the Gulf from Madinat mall and that had increased my desire to see it fully. (Many beaches in Dubai are private and so the Gulf is mostly inaccessible.)

Taxi-drivers all over the world are a perverse lot. We had asked our taxi-driver to drive along the Jumeirah road because I thought that will give us good views of the Gulf.

For reasons best known only to him, the taxi-driver did not want to go on the Jumeirah road and merrily sped along the Zayed Road, hoping that being tourists, we would not notice.

‘This is not Jumeirah Road’ I exclaimed.

He admitted that it was not.

“Why you did not go on Jumeirah Road?” I asked heatedly.

He gave a lengthy explanation, which did not make any sense.

That incident had whetted my desire to go on the Jumeirah road and visit the Jumeirah Beach.

So we specified to the second taxi-driver that we wanted to go along the Jumeirah Road to the Jumeirah Beach.

‘How else does one go to the Jumeirah Beach without going on Jumeirah Road?’ he grumbled.

I let it pass.

“Public Beach or the paid Beach’ he asked.

“Which is better?” we asked him.

This taxi-driver was a gentleman.

‘The public beach’ he truthfully replied.

So, we went to the public ‘Tourist’ beach and enjoyed a lovely sunset over the deep blue Gulf waters.

I added one more tint of the seas to my experience.

You also get a wonderful view of the famous Dubai skyline from the Tourist beach.

Do you know that the color of the water of sea differs from place to place? Mediterranean is inky blue while Arabian Sea is greenish blue and the sea at Miami and Mauritius is a lovely light aquamarine.

The Gulf is deep blue but not as dark as the Mediterranean.

We watched the changing colors of the Gulf to our heart’s content.

I was well satisfied that we did everything that we wanted to do in Dubai and saw everything that we wanted to see, and came back happily to good old Mumbai.