I've been in India for 5 days, but haven't been able to post until now.  During my first day in Dubai,  I developed a painful condition that affected both eyes, which seemed to be worsening.  I'd hired a guide to show me the city, but after about an hour I asked if she could find me a doctor.  Within 5 minutes I was walking into a modern medical building that was a specialist urgent care facility, and within 15 minutes I was being examined by a London-trained opthalmologist.  She diagnosed scratches on both corneas and ulcers inside my eyelids, likely caused by an allergic reaction to something sprayed inside the plane on my long flights - not to mention the significant polluting dust that hangs in the air everywhere in Dubai.  I was given an arsenal of eye medications which have very slowly brought things back to normal, but I simply couldn't even look at a computer screen until today.

I'll offer some highlights of this trip as I have time, starting with the following:

​I began my India trip in Chennai, the 4th biggest city in India.   It’s in the region of Tamil Nadu, in the south of India, stretching between the Coromandel Coast in the east to the forested Western Ghats (mountains) in the west.  It was the cradle of ancient Dravidian culture where Chola kings built spectacular temples.  Tamil is the language spoken here, and Tamil people are proud of their culture, customs, dance, music, and food, all of which are unique to this part of India.
 
Our talented and well-educated guide is Anuja Skaria, who was born & raised in the south of India.  She wears traditional Indian 3-piece Punjab outfits, has an excellent command of English and is a delight in all ways.  She seems dedicated to enhancing our understanding and appreciation of the fascinating culture of southern India by treating us to the main sights, but especially offering us poignant experiences that aren’t on most tourist itineraries.
 
Our calm driver who pilots us skillfully past all hair-raising and fast-moving road obstacles (cows, tuk-tuks, other buses, motorcycles, pedestrians, dogs, and more) is Paneer.  His kind and ever-smiling assistant is Selvan, who serves us cold bottled water, snacks, and squirts of hand sanitizer.  Both men will guard our bus nonstop for the duration of our trip, even sleeping inside on the floorboards during the night.

​Our first stop in the morning was to have our bus blessed to ensure a safe trip by a priest at an animist temple in town.  He performs a small ceremony called “Puja” which entails placing lemons under the tires, smashing a coconut on the ground, lighting a small pot of fragrant smoky camphor, then walking around the bus to bless all of it.  He then anoints our foreheads with spots of vermillion powder.
 
Outside the temple, a family cooked a simple Dosa (thin crispy pancake) meal on the concrete against the temple wall.  The couple was there with their 9 year old daughter and newborn son.  They’d been coming here for years to pray for a son after their daughter was born (sons are much more valued than daughters – see more on this later), and now that the woman had finally born a son, the extended family had returned to thank the Hindu gods for this blessing.  The dark spots on the baby’s face are applied as a protective sign.

My first Air France flight was 10 hours and carved a perfect arc on the map between LAX and Paris.  The route from Paris to Dubai was more circuitous, though, and took 7 hours.  Looking at the flight map, I see that we didn’t cross into air space over Turkey, Syria or Saudi Arabia, which required a more creative flight plan than taking the shortest path.  I didn’t mind!

Late Night Ramblings of a Jet Lagged Mind:
 
Jet lag results from moving rapidly across time zones, disrupting our body’s circadian rhythms, The jet doors close in Los Angeles and open in Paris; they close in Paris and open in Dubai.  And when I emerge, it’s midnight here even though it’s noon at home. But another powerful phenomenon occurs when traveling from a privileged first-world life to the strangeness and cultural disparity of a foreign country.  Pilot Mark Vanhoenacker calls this feeling “place lag,” the “inability of our deep old sense of place to keep up with our airplanes.” 
 
I don't think people have evolved enough physically or mentally to comfortably accommodate modern travel, surely not flying to the opposite side of the world in a mere 20 hours, yet it’s what travelers have become accustomed to.   It will take time to adjust.

I didn't take the above photo, but it gives you an idea of the scope of this place.  It looks more science fiction than real, sandwiched between the Persian Gulf and the vast Arabian desert.

Not all that long ago, Dubai was a dusty Bedouin village strategically sited on the shores of The Creek, a saltwater inlet that was historically a small port for trading vessels coming from India and East Africa.  Pearls found in The Creek and fishing were mainstays of the economy.  But in a mere 50 years, it morphed into the fastest growing and most opulent city on earth, with a futuristic flair and superlatives we’re all familiar with (tallest building, biggest shopping mall, a man-made island shaped like a palm tree that can be seen from space, etc. etc.).  And the world’s only 7-star hotel with rooms from $1,500 to $24,000 a night (not a typo).
 
Today’s Dubai, one of the seven United Arab Emirates, is everything the rest of the Arab world isn't: a glittering and tolerant capitalist oasis that’s one of the world's safest places, a stone's throw from its most dangerous. 

Tomorrow I'll head out to explore!