Last time I flew out of Toronto was a complete debacle. See my post La Floride...this time was not so hectic. U.S. Customs did not even blink at my overly Muslim looks.
Got into Miami at 9 a.m. and took shuttle to the hotel amidst all the humid-hot-chaos of Miami Airport. Something to be avoided. The hotel is everything promised on Trip Advisor (pictures to follow).
After settling-in I made a call to rent a scooter for two days with Roam Rides. This outfit had good reviews on Yelp South Beach and is the only place which rents Vespas instead of plastic scooters from China. To get to the rental location I had to take the local buses to downtown Miami and change over to another bus (the 119). No one seemed to know anything about the bus heading into South Beach. Apparently, the 119 is actually known as the "S" bus. The driver on the first bus I hopped was surly and seemed to have no clue as to what the 119 heading into South Beach was. Similarly, no one on the bus, filled with low wage working types, seemed to know what I was talking about.
Downtown Miami was filled with heart-breaking signs of the homeless and those suffering from mental illness, some nattily dressed professionals heading home and many Hispanics (recent arrivals?) who did not speak much English. Finally, a young Black woman sporting a Best Buy polo shirt explained about the 119. Another half hour on an over crowded bus brought me to Miami Beach -- a world away from Miami.
By the time I got the scooter, had a coffee at Starbucks and consulted my iPad for the best and safest route to my dinner destination, it was fully dark. I scootered my way from the Beach across the Venetian Causeway (the quietest of all the causeways bridging to Miami) and through some pretty sketchy areas of downtown Miami. Areas with no street lighting, homeless people living beneath overpasses and dead end streets. Eventually, I made my way south to Coconut Grove: An extremely well kept, brightly lit area filled with chichi stores and white tourists.
It was about 8 p.m. by this time and I was very tired, wearing shorts and t-shirt in an area with scrubbed-clean tourists on walks from their hotels to shop and dine. I stopped in on a jewellery store to ask for directions and ended up meeting a Yemeni-Jew named, Avi. More on him later. Once again, Yelp did not let me down as the Indian restaurant--Bombay Darbar--was elegant, not too pricey, the food was great and the service was excellent. I chowed down without a care in the world.
I went back to the Yemeni Jeweler (get it...Jew-eler...a play on words but not anti-semitic in nature whatsoever). Avi is a man with a lined face but not aged looking. He has a full head of greying hair and a vivacity for life which even his recent personal setbacks have not dulled. Avi had talked to me for 20 minutes, when I had asked for directions previously and had asked me to come back to the store after eating. It was Avi that made the connection from the minute I walked in....he asked, "Are you Arab?" I explained to him that my father was born in Yemen but was culturally an Indian...and so on and so forth. He specializes in make Yemeni-like jewelry and we meandered through our thoughts on Arabs, Jews, Yemenites, Iraqis, women (he was very recently divorced), Indians among other topics. I bought some silver from him as a gift for my wife and he gave me a couple of trinkets to take to the kids. And then, after consulting my ipad, I headed back to the hotel at 10 p.m.
I am unable to add pictures to the blog through my ipad, but will do so on my facebook account. I haven't edited the above...so apologies or any errors.
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