Palm trees grew in hot climates, the trunks were sturdy enough to resist strong wind. Dates were identical to Arab and the trees were in the group of palms. No wonder we could see them everywhere - land and sea - in Dubai.
Anyway.
I forever would be in awe learning that men did have a capability of reclaiming land from the
sea, and building artificial islands in the
middle of the sea. True, machinery did most of the works, but the ideas, the ambitions, the plannings, the technologies came from human's mind.
THE PALM JUMEIRAH
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"It takes a man of vision to write on water."
~ Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum ~ |
And this someone drew a palm tree on Persian Gulf, just offshore of Dubai. Quoted as the eighth wonder of the world, The Palm Jumeirah (a.k.a. The Palm) was one of the three man-made islands that'd been planned to open for residential, entertainment and tourism. It was the only one opened for now, as the other two were still in project.
My sister drove us through the trunk of The Palm, where from a distance we could see houses, villas, apartments or whatever they built on the crown.
Asking how much a millionaire paid for a spot on one of the fronds would be pointless. They should be millionaires to own any. (Yay, I aced the math, didn't I?)
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Then we dived through a subsea tunnel.
At the back of my head, I found myself looking for
Sebastian the Crab, to hear him singing "under the sea .. under the sea .. lalalala".
When we emerged, voila! We were on the crescent. (I admit, I kinda lost sense of direction for a while, had to study the image of The Palm closely to finally know where we were).
The surrounding crescent served as home to luxurious hotels, and as breakwater.
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| The breakwater that separated us from .. |
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| .. the open water |
This fact dropped my heart a bit down to the stomach. We're really not talking about beaches or any shallow water here. That, in front of us, was bottomless sea .. and we were standing near the edge of the land. We could climb over the barrier, walk a couple steps on the rock, then plunge into Persian Gulf. *cue
Jaws theme*.
But no, we got a much better idea.
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| Posing at right side of the road .. |
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| .. and at the left side of the road. |
Yeap, look how small Mat and I against the grandeur scale of
Atlantis. And that was just one side of the first resort built on The Palm.
In case anyone wondered how the resort got into our pictures, vice versa.
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Top: Dubai mainland. Center: The Palm's crown. Center bottom: Atlantis The Palm on the crescent.
Center bottom, the red circle, the road between Atlantis and the sea:
Our car. With Owen sleeping in it. With us outside doing our favorite routine. |
We were not alone. As common practice, people couldn't just walk-in into the resort without any guaranteed reservations on hand. So we saw big buses parked nearby, and people occupying empty spots in front of the hotel for getting proof: Atlantis had not sunk
yet in UAE (or in
Bahama, so to say).
ATLANTIS THE PALM
The legend of Atlantis told us a myth written by Plato, of an advanced civilization ruled by Poseidon - the God of Sea. Then they became greedy and morally bankrupt. Zeus - the Father of Gods and men - sent punishment in a night of fire and earthquakes that sank Atlantis into the sea.
I had seen
Atlantis: The Lost Empire, one of Disney's underrated movies which was surprisingly awesome in picturing Atlantis. Looking at the images of Atlantis The Palm, standing on 110 acres with its 1,539 rooms, restaurants, dolphin bay, waterpark (where we could take on waterslides and tunnels that allowed us to be in sharks and rays' presence
really close) and aquarium (The Lost Chambers Aquarium might be the idea of the underwater aquarium featured in
A Turtle's Tale 2: Sammy's Escape from Paradise), this resort seemed to follow the footsteps of the lost city, with all the fanfares and glory.
Before we went back to the mainland, we drove the crescent to see the luxury hotels line and enjoying the ambience of the seafront. At one point, we encountered an elder couple riding on bikes, going the same way as we were. It was a great way to leisure on the island.
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| Road along the crescent |
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| Nice and clean |
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| Oooo .. bikes for rent! |
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| Just sit and enjoy the view |
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| Dubai skyline from the edge of the crescent |
There said that The Palm (Islands) are the second man-made construction on earth that can be seen with naked eyes from moon. I hoped Scrat would never show up here and did what he did to
Scratlantis.
Keep floating!
.. to be continued to Day #4 Life at the Marina.
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