My first ride - Dubai Metro

"Hey, lets take a ride on the metro" my room mate said. Anyways, its Friday, the rides start by 2.30pm, good time to catch up with it after the lunch. Four of us friends gathered up our energies (After a lazy Friday morning) and went to the nearby Burjuman station. Huge crowd waiting outside the station took us for a surprise. We all decided to finish our lunch so that we can have the ease of moving around the station to know things better, since we were going in for the first time.

With our tummies full, we all slowly propelled ourselves to the ticket counters 3 floors below the ground level. NOL card, as it is called, is a prepaid card ticketing system. We had to go one more floow below to reach the platform. Excitement started building up as we all knew that its the first ride on metro in Dubai for all of us whereas I could see people in their calmness and the familiarity was shown off on the faces of people who frequently travel by metro.

As the announcement was made about the arrival of the train, we could hear the swoosh of the train passing through the tunnel and it came to a halt. We stepped in to find ourselves squeezing in, as the train was quite crowded. Of course its a crowd of the weekend. With limited number of steel bars to hold on to, we could support ourselves somehow to avoid being jolted time and again when the train speeds up, stops and turns. I was ready with my Nikon D60 to capture the moments and also the Dubai that we were veiwing from a higher perspective. I could take some pictures, though not too many. Burj Dubai was one of the best!

Sheikh Zayed road was quite different to be seen from this height. We indeed enjoyed the ride. Volunteers were seen moving all over the stations as well as in the train to guide the passengers, if need be. The only challenge I felt for the RTA, was to make sure to maintain the trains. With people from all over the world, from different walks of life concentrated in Dubai, most of them would use the metro on a daily basis. With many of them without civic sense and social etiquette, I am sure the trains would cease to be the same. Stringent fining system would help the authorities to keep the miscreants at bay.

Hats off to the RTA and all the other departments to make it happen! Though I've travelled a lot in India by train, being familiar to this kind of a transport system, the Dubai Metro is indeed a great achievement for the city and is surely noted for this, worldwide.