All's well that ends well!!

The alarm sounded unusually at 3.45 on Monday morning; and as usual I continued sleeping while my over-anxious husband woke up just to make sure I was out of bed. I managed to lazily creep out of bed at 4 am, obviously cursing for the nth time the mastermind behind the early morning plan.  For the first time in my life, I was in my kitchen even before dawn making idli-chutney as we didn’t expect to find any good hotels enroute the Oman-Dubai border. Making idli had never been such a mammoth task. Like a bird in the wall clock, my husband kept reminding me that we would be late if I didn’t rush. We had promised to join our friend and family at their place at 5 am, and I knew right away that it was mission impossible. We finally managed to push through and reached our car at 5.10, only to find that we had missed one precious bag that contained the passport and resident cards. My superstitious husband was annoyed at having to return when we were about to go on a long journey; and apparently as a result we got a click from a traffic camera for speeding. Say Cheeeeeez!!!

So that was how it began, our journey to Dubai via road to enjoy the Eid holidays. All’s well that ends well; but what about those that don’t begin too well? After a half-hour wait at the Wajajah border post in Oman, we managed to reach the Dubai Hatta border at around 10 am, only to find a long queue of cars and people standing in different lines all over the place. Separate queues for visa fee payment, eye scan and stamping; and a horde of people in each queue made sure that we spent another 3-4 hours there. I finally had to concede that my husband was right when he said earlier that ‘to Dubai by air was a better option’, especially during holidays. But if you enjoy driving or have a personal driver (like me!), then it is worthwhile. These petty things didn’t seem to bother me much as I was all too excited about going back to the enticing and fascinating city. The mighty Masafi Mountains and the vast stretches of sand and dunes were above and beyond imagination. We drove straight to Calicut Paragon for a long-awaited sumptuous meal and then checked into our hotel.  

We had a long list of family and friends to meet and a short list of things to do on our 3.5 day trip. So we got started on the same evening; miles to go before going to sleep. Things to do included a trip to the Miracle Garden which is home to some 45 million flowers or even more, having food at some of our favourite hotels, picking up some art stuff from IKEA, petty shopping in Dragon mart and a drive through our old home. We took hourly appointments with family and friends to catch up with as many as possible within the limited time available. We returned disappointed from the Miracle Gardens as it was temporarily closed for renovation. IKEA and Dragon Mart had readily made available the stuff I was looking for and that made things easier for us. A quick drive through our ex-home and our respective ex-offices brought back memories of old times. There were times when both of us didn’t utter a word during a long drive; we were obviously relishing the moment. It was evident from the new bridges and tunnels and resumption of construction projects that the markets were beginning to boom again. UAE has bid to host the World Expo 2020 and Dubai was all set to get started. We indeed miss Dubai and hope to be back there, sooner or later.

I am not done yet. Coming back to my subject line, is it true that all’s not well that doesn’t begin well? On our way back, we were not too sure where to get the exit stamp on our passport. We expected to be stopped at the check post, but there was no clarity. Unfortunately we were stopped only after reaching the Oman border and had to drive back to Hatta for the exit stamp. Finally reached back home at 10 pm.

Anyway, I'm sure all’s well that ends well.