The Surabaya Retreat 2009 (1)...

The SIGC ( Staroba International Golf Club) kicked off its 2009 calendar with the Surabaya Retreat. Pakdokter managed to round up his regular 'kakis' from the Royal Selangor Golf Club who took advantage of the zero-fare promotion by Malaysia Airlines some months ago and what a deal we all got!

By the time the others heard of pakdokter and gang's confirmed booking, there was a scramble for the remaining few 'cheap' tickets' which sold out very quickly. Some unfortunate guys who were slower in making their decisions had to settle for a later flight on Airasia.

We had originally planned to stay at the Majapahit, the 'Raffles' of Surabaya, but unfortunately it was fully booked due to its popularity as a wedding venue and we had to settle for the all suites Surabaya Plaza. And it turned out that this hotel is also a 'non-smoking' hotel. When you check in, you have to sign not only your registration form but also a form that says you agree to be fined 1 million rupiah if you are caught smoking inside the hotel!

pakRoslan and pakAli Ariffin, two SIGC golfers who suffer 'ketagihan tegar nicotine' taking a relief from their 'nicotine withdrawals' outside the Surabaya Plaza Hotel....

Surabaya has pleasantly become more developed than what it was when pakdokter last visited it about 2 or 3 years ago. There is a brand new airport and a 4-lane dual highway that takes you to the city in a short time. In fact very soon the new highway will also connect the island of Madura via a 5 kilometre bridge across the sea! Development and widening of the many old roads have reduced the traffic jam which used to be as bad as Jakarta. And Surabaya has also become very green....many of the road-sides and intersections are planted with trees and flowers.

The Mayor must be a 'greenie' as the our tour guide told us that the Mayor has legislated that every couple who is getting married must donate and plant 5 trees to the city, giving birth to a child costs 2 trees for to the city and going for a divorce costs 10 trees! He has not legislated how many trees one has to donate to the city if one were to take a second or third or fourth wife...

pakWan Husin, pakRoslan, pakHaji Amin and pakZulkifli Rauf..

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pakAli Ariffin, pakRahman Salleh, and pakSirajuddin...

pakTengku Azman, pakdokter and pakHyder....

The Dubai Escapades (V)...The Dubai Desert Classics 2009 at the Emirates Hill Golf Course..

The Dubai Desert Classic 2009 was played at the Emirates Hill Golf Course, a club located easily about half an hour drive out of town within an upmarket residential and commercial development. The day ticket to the public areas of the Club for the tournament made you about 275 AED poorer ( about RM 275).

the club-house of the Emirates Hill with the whole range of BMW's on display...

The game on the first day was delayed by almost 3 hours due to heavy fog in the morning. The three of us got to the course at noon and stationed ourselves at the tee of hole No 10 where we saw at least 3 flights teeing off at the par 5 hole.

Some of the names we witnessed were Larazabal, Hensen and a few others whose names I have forgotten. Their drives....well.....it was awesome!

the exhibition booths and food stalls section for....

There was a big trade exhibition at the tournament ground, some bargains were on offer. Pakdokter was lucky to have found a pair of ECCO leather golf shoes being sold at a give-away price of 100 dirham.

Sheikh Zayed took a few golf shirts and golf cap for himself and his beloved partner.

tee No 10, a long par 5 which most of the pros got on in 2..

Some property developers had also put up their booths and the one that pakdokter looked at was offering a 4500 square feet villa with its own private pool for 9 million dirham (RM 9 million!) This development came with a 'Shark' Greg Norman golf course...

the practice range where we managed to see in person some of the famous names in golf...



time for a drink.....

The Dubai Escapades (1V)...The Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club...

After a day of rest we were booked to play at the Dubai Creek Golf Club, one of the older golf clubs in the city located within the city centre skirting the Dubai Creek. As Sheikh Kamal had already returned to Kuala Lumpur, only three of us were left to make up the flight. A staff of Maulana Rosli, Ito san, a young Japanese gentleman, was supposed to make up the flight but was only able to join us for the 2nd Nine.

The Dubai Creek Golf Club club-house....

Dubai Creek Golf Club is a very busy course as all of the tee-off times were fully booked for the day. This is probably due to the fact that the club is located in the city centre and within easy reach of the many hotel guests of the city. In comparison, the Four Seasons Golf Course was very quiet with a few flights of golfers only on the day we were there.

Playing from the white tee, the course measured a total of 6333 yards. Most of the holes had very narrow fairways and water came into play often as there were many lakes as well as the creek to reckon with.

par 4 hole No 2 is challenged by a long lake to be crossed after the tee.-off...

The Parh Hyatt Hotel is located within the golf course complex and many residential villas fringed some of the fairways.

villas along some of the fairways....

The three of us decided to play on the 'skin' format, both pakdokter and Sheikh Zayed played to a handicap of 22 and Maulana Rosli played to a handicap of 12.

Maulana Rosli at the tee at the par 4 hole No 3..

the green of hole No 5 is protected by 2 large lakes....

Pakdokter did quite well to return a score of 47/51, with Sheikh Zayed carding 52/55 and Maulana Rosli returning a score of 45/47.

Pakdokter took 7 skins, Sheikh Zayed 6 skins and Maulana Rosli 5 skins.

narrow fairway of hole No 6 with the Dubai Creek on the right side and the Yacht Club in the foreground..


villas along hole No 4 with long fairway bunkers ....

Ito san came to join us after the 1st Nine....

the Maktoum Bridge? as seen from the tee at Hole No 17..

par 4 hole 17, very narrow and strong cross-wind from the creek to contend with..

ahhh....a pint to end the day......shalom

The Dubai Escapades (111) ...The Four Seasons Golf Resort Dubai...

The Four Seasons Golf Club, Dubai, is a brand new golf course, only opened for play about 6 months ago. The Four Seasons Resort, an upmarket hotel in the vicinity of the golf course has had its opening delayed past several date-lines, perhaps a reflection of the economic realities of the day.

Golfing in Dubai however is an expensive sports. Weekday green fees on most courses are in the region of RM800 inclusive of a shared buggy. You do not have the luxury of a caddie service as in Indonesia or Thailand. Weekend rates may be as high as RM 1000 or more!

Pakdokter was fortunate that his host in Dubai, Maulana Rosli Azad Khan, is an avid golfer. And our long-time buddy, Sheikh Kamal al-Kuttu, who was flying home from a business trip in Jeddah, decided to make a stop in Dubai for a few days. To complete the flight of four, I managed to persuade the footloose and fancy-free school buddy, Sheikh Zayed, to hop off from home for a return match of our golf series which were last played in Ho Chinh Minh City.

pakdokter, Maulana Rosli Azad Khan, , Sheikh Zayed, Sheikh Kamal al-Kuttu...

The Four Seasons Golf Club is located in an area of Dubai called the Festival City. Apart from the Four Seasons Golf Club, which is a Robert Trent Jones design, another golf course due to be completed soon next door is a Tiger Woods design golf course. Golf courses aside, at various stages of development are naturally many hotels and apartment complexes.

did my ball go into the water?....

The golf course is a par-72, with a total of 6200 yards off the white tee. Pakdokter renewed his partnership with Sheikh Kamal al-Kuttu to play against the partnership of Maulana Rosli Azad Khan and Sheikh Zayed. In our previous outing in Ho Chinh Minh city, pakdokter and his partner won the match and were rewarded with a grand dinner at the posh French restaurant in Saigon, Au Manor de Khai! So, Maulana Rosli and Sheikh Zayed were determined to make amends this time...

lakes abound throughout the course with many new apartment complexes in the vicinity...

The course is generally flat with wide fairways. I guess, being a resort course, it was designed to be somewhat friendly. The fairways were in great shape and the greens were fast. There were many water traps to make it more challenging to the golfers.

Pakdokter's daily golf at the RSGC since the beginning of the year is indeed showing its results. Pakdokter and Sheikh Kamal al-Kuttu easily beat the pair of Maulana Rosli and partner with the game being over after just hole 13!

For the victory, we were generously treated to a seafood lunch at the Caviar Restaurant at the lovely Madinate et Dubai, overlooking the majestic Burj el Arab...

the Madinate et Dubai, a lovely mall in traditional Yemeni architectural design built on the Jumeirah Beach overlooking the Burj el Arab...

hmmm......yummy


the view of Burj el Arab as we lunched alfresco on the verandah of the Caviar Restaurant at the Madinate...

The Dubai Escapades (11)...the Desert Safari...

Although pakdokter and his partner had done desert safaris in the interior of Tunisia and Morocco some 6 and 4 years ago respectively, we could not ignore the much touted dune-bashing desert safari offerred in Dubai. And I must admit that we were not disappointed.

They do know how to organise tour packages in Dubai. With a booking made over the phone, we were picked up right at the door-step of the villa, on the dot, at the appointed time. We were driven in a Toyota Land-cruiser for about an hour along the highway into the desert in the direction of Muscat in Oman.




The dune-bashing excursion is a popular tourist activity judging by the number of 4WD that were already assembled at the meeting point before we started bashing into the desert. Some companies took their tourists in Hummer vehicles.



It was an exciting fast ride, a roller-coaster-like adrenaline pumping experience, as the driver rushed the vehicle over steep sand-dunes at times skidding the car almost as if we were on an ice-covered surface.

However I must admit that our driver and guide, a local Emirati of Iranian descent, was a competent and skilled driver. We were reminded to fasten ourselves to the seat-belt and I noticed that the vehicle was additionally reinforced with steel bars for additional safety.

The dune-bashing trip ended just before sunset and what a scene it was to see the sun set in the horizon of the desert.

After sunset we were driven to a tribal camp-site where we were served a buffet of local barbeques and entertained to a belly dance performance by a middle-eastern beauty.

Sheikh Kamal al-Kuttu, who in his previous life was an Uzbek, was completely mesmerised by the ripples and gyrations of Ms Mona, the belly dancer...

a l male dancer performing a traditional dance resembling the swirling dervishes of Turkey..

The Dubai Escapades (1)...

The Mumbai terrorist incident forced us to abort our original plan for an ayurvedic spa holiday in Kerala during the Chinese New Year week. So we took up our friend's ' the boy from dungun' invitation to visit Dubai instead!

pakdokter with Ryo, boy from dungun's 6 month old son...

The Dubai I remember was a small town with its landmark Burj el Arab as its only highrise way back in the early 2000. What a change it has undergone over the past 10 years! For a city of about 1.4 million people, the development is mind-boggling. From its massive downtown financial district to the sprawling Dubai Marina and the reclaimed Palm development, our KLCC project with its surrounding expensive condominiums is a pale comparison indeed.

pakdokter with Ryo and his 3 year old brother, Russo...

And who on earth are going to occupy all these residential development? 1.1 million of the Dubai population are expatriates 80% of whom are of the Asian working class ( mostly from the Indian subcontinent and the Phillippines) who are involved in the construction and service industries of the city. I dread to think that this is another 'bubble' waiting to burst!

Anyway we took this opportunity to tour the city and its many massive shopping malls currently carrying out its month-long DSF i.e. Dubai Shopping Festival. We also spent an evening of Dune-Safari, bashing up the desert in a Toyota Land-Cruiser, which turned out to be quite an exciting experience.

Winter in Dubai is a pleasant 20 degree celcius during the day and somewhat more chilly in the evening. Except for a rainy first day of our arrival, the rest of the week was bright and sunny except for one foggy morning which caused delays at the airport and a late start to the Dubai Dessert Classic at the Emirates Golf Course.

Below is a pictorial potpourri of some of the things we saw and did on the first day of our Dubai Escapades...

Burj Dubai, the tallest erection in the world, stands more than 200 metres taller than KLCC twin tower...

The Dubai Mall, the newly opened shopping mall at the Burj Dubai is the largest shopping mall in the world..

the large Aquarium is a tourist attraction at the Dubai Mall..

the Gold Souk within the Dubai Mall complex...

a water feature (waterfall with sculptures of divers..) at another corner of the Dubai Mall..

the Dubai Museum, a must see attraction of Dubai...

crossing the Dubai Creek on a water taxi for 1 dirham...

the Gold Souk at the Deria, the old town of Dubai...

a view of the Deria from the water taxi on the creek...