City of Superlatives

Calicut - 
Early morning, 5am, I was up and ready to go. The taxi driver whisked my sister and I to the airport by 6 am - 4 hours ahead of schedule. Since we were excited about the whole trip, it didn't matter. Boarding formalities soon began and while in the queue a nice gesture – an Emirates personnel kept staring at me and gave me a smile. Not knowing who she was, I gave her a 50% smile. She came near to me and said – You teach in Christian College? Sir, you taught me and in a flash all queues seemed to vanish. Preeja personally took take of the seating arrangements and wished us a pleasant flight. A very nice gesture indeed and made me feel proud that I was a teacher.

The Emirates flight to Dubai was uneventful, of course,  the service was impeccable but the city proved to be quite surprising. This was my third visit and I have to say, a lot and I mean a lot has changed. No wonder the city is known as the City of Superlatives. Everything that we managed to see in 18 hours kept us spellbound.

The first ordeal however, was getting a Prepaid SIM card that took about an hour!!! In fact, an obviously and seemingly irritated first time visitor like me even asked the counter staff whether he would have to wait till Christmas to get a chance to talk to his relatives back home. I really don’t know why but in Malaysia and Thailand, Pre-paid SIM cards are available at the airport and even available on the plane.

SIM card in hand, we went to the elevator that took us to the Metro. Even the elevators bear signs of gargantuan proportions with entrance doors opening on one side and exit on the other. The coaches of the Metro was spic and span. It was a pleasant sight to see people from all over the world converging on the moving carriages and behaving  their best.


We alighted at Ibn Batuta Mall, the world's largest themed mall and one of epic proportions with a theatre complex of 21 theatres including the only IMAX in the Middle East.  Ibn Batuta, the Moroccan scholar,  it is said, travelled through five regions and this journey has been immortalized with 5 huge and I mean really huge Malls. It is aptly names as Andulasia, Tunisia, Egypt, Persia, India and China

A giant supermarket aptly named Geant took care of whatever any sane person would normally require. Since we were on transit and our luggage having been booked directly to Dublin, we only took a few things that we had not seen in Dublin during the last visit.

Of course, we sampled Wendy’s, London Fish n Chips and Krispy Kreme.

On our trip return by the Metro, I saw the largest hotel, Burj Al Arab and also the world’s largest ski ramp at the Mall of the Emirates.

Another thing that interested me were the names of Metro stations. Many of the Malls that sponsored them would have covered areas, right from the station and straight into the mall. Here was a train station that was over 3 kms away and here was an air conditioned covered walkway with over 5 travelators to provide rest when needed. On reaching the Mall too, superlatives cascaded one upon another – largest aquarium, fastest elevator, the brightest object visible from space, the Dubai Fountain and the world’s tallest building with yet more superlatives, world’s highest observation deck, highest mosque and what a view from the 124th floor. What put me off was the price of the photo taken by the people at Burj Khalifa. AED 125 to reach the top and AED 125 for a photograph. This according to me is the world’s most expensive photograph. Fortunately for us, our Nokia, Samsung and Nikon did the work though not as professional as theirs.

Renewal of friendship happened at 11.30pm, when Radhakrishnan and John met us and took us out for a spin. We were shown the beautiful Atlantis Hotel part of one the world’s largest man made systems at sea. We were also treated with excellent Arabic cuisine and promptly dropped at T3, part of the World’s largest Airport and getting ready for the flight to Dublin, no not on board the World’s largest airliner, A380 – I did see many but I do hope one day I too will be able to travel in one.

Perhaps the best Fish and Chips I’ve ever had was in Ireland. I’m sure there will be many others in different parts of the world but one that really makes my mouth water is the special one at Howth, Ireland. I visited the place 8 years ago, then again in 2012 and 6 hours after we landed, braving jet lag and the cold, my brother took me to Beshoff Bros, home to the finest Fish ‘n Chips.

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