Håvar Bauck

From the flight, I entered a crowded terminal building at 2:30 am. At least 3 unrelated queues seemed to be cutting through each other in a system that apparently no first-time visitor was supposed to understand anyway. I looked behind me at an Indian couple and asked if they had any clue whether this was the right queue from our flight. “No idea! Welcome to Mumbai!” was their laughing answer!

The zigzag queue was moving rather fast, only slowed down by the staff queue cutting through it in a somewhat chaotic way. “You can fill in the forms later. Just get screened first” a lady with a mouthcover shouted. From the swine flu declaration form that I had been given to fill in on the flight, I guessed that this was somehow related to a pandemic control effort.

Suddenly, the queue ended in front of some 20 counters. There was no system whatsoever, just a first-comes-first-served rush to the counters. As I saw one that was free, I went to that one, but the person behind it was asleep. Fortunately, the adjacent counter became free the next moment.

“Proceed to immigration control” he said, taking my declaration form without even looking at it.

At the end of a new, fast-moving queue, ending at some 40 new counters, stood an airport official shouting out a number for each passenger passing. “19″ he shouted when it my turn, meaning go to counter 19. Apparently, his job was to keep an overview of the queues at each counter, and decide which queue each passenger should go to.

Another quick look at the passport, and then another passport control immediately after. This time only one entrance point for all, hence a much longer queue.

Finally I was in the arrivals hall. The first thing that met me, was a duty-free shop with agressive salespeople trying to hook in anyone who as much as looked at the shelves. 3 minutes and one Johnnie Walker later, I was trying to find out on which band luggage from flight 543 from Dubai could be found. Some signs would’ve been useful, but I managed nevertheless.

“What’s in that bag” the gentleman at some new luggage screening point wanted to know. “A wedding gift” I said, and was about to specify the contents of the 2 boxes, but he just waved me through.

The friendly old couple seated next to me on the plane has strongly advised me not under any circumstance to take any of the taxis trying to pick up passengers outside the airport. The safer alternative was the Prepaid Taxis with offices inside the airport building, where one would pay upfront to get to a specific destination, with a designated driver, pre-empting the most common forms of taxi fraud.

190 Rupees to the Sahara Star Hotel, and of course they didn’t take cards. There was only one ATM in the area, at the end of the hall, just past some checkpoint where a security guard was trying to look busy. “Excuse me sir” he said after I had walked past him. “Just getting cash in the ATM” I said without slowing down. “OK” I heard from behind me.

To the delight of the exchange bureaus, fighting to hook in travellers passing by, that only ATM in the whole area was out of order.  By pure luck, I had been too tempted by the sight of an ice cream place in the departures hall in Dubai, and therefore withdrawn a few more Dirhams just before boarding the plane. The rather timid amount of cash that I had on me turned out to be more than enough to cover the taxi.

Eventually, I found myself in a taxi on the way to the hotel. Interrupted only by a couple of stops where the driver assured me “just a moment sir”, before disappearing for a few minutes, I finally arrived at the hotel, only a few blocks away from the airport.

From the outside, the Sahara Star looks like a sports stadium still under construction. From the inside, it’s borderline tacky. A cylindrical building built around an inner court with a night club, aquarium and an artificial lagoon with a handful of restaurants it sure offers enough diversions for business travellers who want to stay close to the airport and not leave the hotel.

The hotel staff were extremely friendly though, and overwhelmingly service-minded. While checking in, I pulled out 2 simple phrases in the local language, Marathi. Pretty much the only ones I knew. That was so popular among the hotel staff, though, that it took me a while to get the hotel room for myself after checking in. The guy who brought my luggage to the room even wanted to call some of his colleagues to the room just for them to hear a gora speak Marathi. I almost felt bad about refusing, but I was simply dead tired!

OK. More from the trip will follow soon!

Somebody once told me that the best thing to do in Dubai is to rent a car at the airport, and drive to Muscat in Oman.  Although I disagree, I still find the city stunningly superficial, and borderline tacky.

Dubai is a story of rapid wealth inflow, and of extravagant structures attempting to compensate the lack of a past worth mentioning.

In a few decades, the place has grown from a a small seaport town to a 3m+ city with some of the most spectacular constructions of modern times. It has become a playground of architects and engineers, and a magnet for people looking a to show off spending a lot of money.

In the current heart of Dubai, the Business Area, is the world’s tallest structure – the Burj Dubai.  Adjacent to it is the Dubai Mall – a shopping mecca blown out of proportions. It’s the world’s largest mall, cost $20 billion to build, and has 1200 shops. Other attractions are an indoor aquarium, a waterfall and an ice rink.

Needless to say, all the famous and expensive fashion brands, such as Gucci, Versace, Dolce Gabbana, Dior, Armani, etc. have shops in the Fashion Catwalk atrium, and any electronic gadget you can’t find on the 2nd floor, probably doesn’t exist. If you’re in for an unretained shopping spree, look no further!

Between the Dubai Mall and Burj Dubai is an artificial lake with the world’s most expensive ($218m) fountain. Every night, it offers a spectacular sound, light and water show where the fountain “dances” to music. That show is probably the most unmissable thing about Dubai, and should be the #1 point on the to-see list of anyone passing through.

A bit further down the lakeside is the Palace Hotel, with its not-so-well-known Pool Bar. Centered around a swimming pool, the place offers each visitor a tent with a comfortable couch with huge cushions. The ideal place to go for cocktails a sheeshah.

Another landmark of Dubai is the Burj al Arab, in the Jumeirah area. The world’s first 7-star hotel is still one of the first things people associate with Dubai, but is already being overshadowed by some of the more recent developments.

The articificial, palm-shaped peninsula of Palm Jumeirah so far has little to offer except luxurious apartments and villas. At the end of the road is another 7-star hotel: The Atlantis.

The little historic heritage the Dubai has is excessively well-preserved, and refurbished to the point of looking articficial. The Cultural Heritage Village, Dubai’s old town is well worth a visit, though.  There are even some very nice restaurants there, offering traditional arab food and delicious fresh fruit juices.

The recently opened Dubai Metro is still not entirely finished, but is functional on some of the stations. Taxis are cheap in Dubai, but getting from one end of the city to the other takes at the very least 45 minutes, so the Metro is a useful alternative. Of course it’s more environment-friendly to take the metro, too, but considering the excessive amounts of energy that Dubai is already blowing away on tacky luxury stuff, it is probably the place on Earth where it matters the least.

The shopping, the fancy restaurants and the funky architecture are certainly enough to keep you busy for a long weekend.  Besides those things, Dubai doesn’t really have a lot to offer, though. The place is extremely superficial, and that can be fun to some extent. For anyone passing through on the way to somewhere else, it’s definintely worth a stopover, but not much more.

Dubai is nevertheless a great playground for anyone with a camera and an eye for good pictures. The cool architecture is an open invitation to any photographer, and cheap energy make the city an impressive light show at night. If you didn’t bring an SLR and a tripod, you’ll be at the right place to buy them anyway, so don’t leave Dubai without a bunch of good pictures!

[View with PicLens]

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The final piece of the puzzle is in place: The wedding gift! Tomorrow I’m off to Dubai, and from there to Mumbai (formerly Bombay) on Tuesday

All bookings ready, visa done and suitcase packed. Unfortunately Dell were unable to get me the brand new laptop I had ordered before I left, but thanks to our amazingly cool IT manager, I was able to borrow one of the old 11″ laptops from the office, so my plan of live blogging from the trip remains unchanged. Thanks a million, Tomas!

My dear colleague Deepak is getting married in Mumbai, and that’s the core reason for my trip. I’ve saved my 3 remaining weeks of leave for this occasion, so after the wedding, I’ll go do some sightseeing around India.

I hope to finish reading Shantaram by the time I reach Mumbai so I get some more ideas of things to see and do during my 5 days there. One thing I’m certain about is that I’ll be catching a drink at Leopold’s!

One thing from the book that I’m trying to locate, are the “Standing Babas”, but there doesn’t seem to be much information online on where to find them. If anyone who reads this can give me a hint, then please do!

Bauck.com has now been re-born as a Wordpress blog!

It all started back in 1998, when my professor Espen Andersen at the Norwegian School of Management encouraged his students to publish their assignements on a web site.

At the time I had a very simple 1-pager at one of those free services. Think it was Xoom or something like that..

Then, once I registered Bauck.com, the site was upgraded to a “sharp-looking” 4-page site, hard coded in Notepad. Since that time it has gone through numerous makeovers, with an increasing amount of content.

While living in Kenya (2002-2005), I got into the habit of uploading pictures from places I travelled, mainly for the sake of letting friends and family back home see what I was up to. When I stumbled across Google Analytics, I suddenly realised that they weren’t the only ones who loved the site. More than 2000 visitors monthly in the peak months, and lots of sites linking to mine!

Pretty encouraged, I started making some more content on a highly irregular basis.

The previous version of the web site was in static HTML code, and updating it was a bit of a hassle. Since I want to post pictures and updates on-the-fly from my India trip, I needed something that was quick to update. Wordpress was one of the pre-installed Open Source apps ffrom my hosting provider, so all it took was to find and customise a nice theme, and voilà!

Most previous pages and pictures have been ported over to the new site, and more updates will (hopefully) come at a more regular basis from now!

Well, what are you waiting for? The site is all yours! Click, read and enjoy!

Less than a week to go to India. The visa is in my passport, the most important bookings are done, and everything, except my recently ordered mini-laptop from which I’ll be updating this site with fresh pictures, is in place. My prayers now are that the laptop won’t be delayed, so I’ll actually be able to blog as planned!

I still have 3 weeks of leave unused, and this is what I’ve been saving them for! My friend and colleague Deepak is getting married in Mumbai in November. On the way I’ll be passing through Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and after Mumbai I’ll be headed for Jaipur, Udaipur, Agra, Delhi and Varanasi.

The original plan of backpacking after Mumbai doesn’t seem so realistic anymore, but hey, what’s wrong with a suitcase?

After warm and repeated recommendations from my parents, I’ve finally started reading the book Shantaram to prepare myself for Mumbai. The story is semi-autobiographic, by Gregory David Roberts, once Australia’s most-wanted prison escapee who fled to India and joined the Bombay mafia.

Having barely started reading it, I can already see why everyone says it’s so fascinating. Roberts has certainly lived a more fascinating life than most, and on top of that, he’s an excellent writer!

So far, I know that I’ll deifnitely be visiting the legendary café Leopold’s. By the time I finish the book, I’ll hopefully have some very clear ideas about things to see and do in Mumbai!