Nara, the team behind the Sonara desert camps, has launched luxury tours of Dubai, with the aim of offering a new perspective of the city.
Nara Nomad offers curated tours, as well as completely bespoke experiences, that shine a spotlight on the emirate’s culinary, retail and cultural attractions. The Foodie tour visits the city’s hidden hotspots, allowing guests to sample both local and international delicacies, including authentic Arabian tea, artisanal chocolate and traditional dishes.
The Artist tour covers Dubai’s most prominent galleries and explores the city’s architectural evolution; while The Origins tour focuses on historical sites, offering insight into how this modern metropolis emerged from the desert.
The idea is to showcase lesser-known aspects of the city. The Fashionista tour of Nara Nomad takes the shopping experience out of large malls and into lesser-known, home-grown venues.
A trip down Jumeirah Beach Road includes stops at places such as Comptoir 102, o'de rose and Kulture House. Guests can also visit the ateliers of local couturiers such as Rami Al Ali, upon request. The tour features a stop at Dubai Design District, to explore its concept stores and designer showrooms, and the city’s hidden strip malls, such as Al Barsha Mall, which is home to the Gigi Concept Store and boutiques specialising in abaya designs.
"Our motto at Nara is: 'Just ask, Nara will make it happen',” says Stephanie Danial, founder of Nara. “I work closely with hotel concierges and they have expressed the lack of exclusive private city tours for their guests, and I felt Nara could bring a new way of seeing Dubai.
“Our aim is to offer bespoke city tours guided by tour guides that live and love Dubai. We want to show Dubai’s true colours, behind the tourist attractions. The real Dubai. I also would like to offer Nara Nomad private hiking tours and very exclusive dhow cruises."
Prices for the tours are from Dh2,500 per car (four guests) for the curated tours and Dh3,500 per car for the bespoke options. The duration of the tours is four hours and includes a private chauffeur and personal guide, who can offer tours in English, French or Italian.
Danial, a former private banker, has lived in Dubai since 2010 and launched Nara Escape in 2018, with the aim of sharing her love of the desert with others, by providing bespoke experiences in the UAE wilderness. Following the success of the Sonara desert camp in Dubai, Danial launched Sonara Camp Al Wadi in Ras Al Khaimah in January and is now bringing her experience-led approach into the city, with Nara Nomad.
Paatal Lok season two
Directors: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy
Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong
Rating: 4.5/5
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions
There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.
3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
War
Director: Siddharth Anand
Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Tiger Shroff, Ashutosh Rana, Vaani Kapoor
Rating: Two out of five stars
India squad for fourth and fifth Tests
Kohli (c), Dhawan, Rahul, Shaw, Pujara, Rahane (vc), Karun, Karthik (wk), Pant (wk), Ashwin, Jadeja, Pandya, Ishant, Shami, Umesh, Bumrah, Thakur, Vihari
The 100 Best Novels in Translation
Boyd Tonkin, Galileo Press
NYBL PROFILE
Company name: Nybl
Date started: November 2018
Founder: Noor Alnahhas, Michael LeTan, Hafsa Yazdni, Sufyaan Abdul Haseeb, Waleed Rifaat, Mohammed Shono
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Software Technology / Artificial Intelligence
Initial investment: $500,000
Funding round: Series B (raising $5m)
Partners/Incubators: Dubai Future Accelerators Cohort 4, Dubai Future Accelerators Cohort 6, AI Venture Labs Cohort 1, Microsoft Scale-up
Omar Yabroudi's factfile
Born: October 20, 1989, Sharjah
Education: Bachelor of Science and Football, Liverpool John Moores University
2010: Accrington Stanley FC, internship
2010-2012: Crystal Palace, performance analyst with U-18 academy
2012-2015: Barnet FC, first-team performance analyst/head of recruitment
2015-2017: Nottingham Forest, head of recruitment
2018-present: Crystal Palace, player recruitment manager
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Profile
Name: Carzaty
Founders: Marwan Chaar and Hassan Jaffar
Launched: 2017
Employees: 22
Based: Dubai and Muscat
Sector: Automobile retail
Funding to date: $5.5 million
Tips to keep your car cool
- Place a sun reflector in your windshield when not driving
- Park in shaded or covered areas
- Add tint to windows
- Wrap your car to change the exterior colour
- Pick light interiors - choose colours such as beige and cream for seats and dashboard furniture
- Avoid leather interiors as these absorb more heat
