Bye Bye Dubai

We just returned from five days in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The only other place we have ever visited in the Middle East was Israel. Dubai is like Disneyland on steroids. Everything is over the top. The malls are huge and gorgeous with 300-500 stores and there are lots of malls there. The largest one has 1,200 stores. They are elaborately decorated.

The Mall of Dubai had a waterfall about 25-30 feet high with about 40 chrome divers cascading down the falls. One section was all children’s clothes, toys and furniture. Another section was the ‘gold souk’ with many jewelry stores. The area looked like an old Arabian souk or market. No expensive is spared in Dubai. The hotels were equally over the top with enough chrome and glass to give you cataracts.

Ninety percent of the people who live in the Emirates are ex-pats who work as hotel clerks, stores clerks, taxi drivers, construction workers and just about everything else. Ninety percent of Emiratis live in cities. You typically do not see Emiratis on the street. I did finally see Emiratis in the malls when we visited two of them. Men and women in traditional dress were in abundance in the malls. Men wore a long, white robe/shirt that went to their ankles, head scarves with the rope like head band to keep the scarf in place and the women wore the traditional black abayas. Now you will see the men’s head scarf worn in a variety of styles and it is fun to note the differences. Some show a definite ‘attitude’, a saucy look for sure.

Oil was discovered in 1966 in Dubai. In 1973 the population of Dubai was 183,000. It has exploded since then with 1.8 million. It is one of the fastest growing cities in the world. Looking around at all the new construction I believe it. Much of the modern day success of Dubai can be attributed to the vision of Sheikh Maktoum Bin Rashid Al Maktoum who studied at Cambridge in the early 1960’s. Spreading the wealth through education, housing, and greater job opportunities and diversifying Dubai’s economic portfolio his work set a solid platform for the phenomenal growth of Dubai today. Many think that Dubai is an oil rich country when in fact oil related revenue makes up only 6 % of Dubai’s income. Because of the diversification of the economy Dubai is the financial center for the Middle East. People travel from all over the region and the world to shop here because it is a free port. The availability of goods is overwhelming. Since the federation of the UAE, Dubai has been one of the most politically stable city states in the Arab world.

Dubai is an incredibly clean city. No dog poop on the street and almost no liter. The sidewalks are level with no broken concrete or ‘pot holes’. You don’t need to watch every step as you do in Tbilisi. Drivers yield to pedestrians, something I never got used to in the five days we were there. Here in Tbilisi you take your life into your hands when crossing a street. Not so there. The landscaping everywhere was gorgeous with one variety of palm and lots of flowers, and green grass, all watered by an drip irrigation system. Dubai gets 97% of its water from the sea and desalinates it; which is not a good environmental practice as the salt is dumped back into the Gulf adding to the salinity of the water. It is hard to find old buildings here although they do exist. Modern, attractive skyscrapers abound instead.

We arrived at 1:40 a.m. and discovered that with Diplomatic passports you are required to buy a visa. Fortunately we had thrown in our tourist passports at the last moment. However Jock and Laurie had only brought their dip passports and it took them 90 minutes and several hundred dollars (they first asked for over a thousand dollars) to get through the process. We got to bed around 4:30 or so and slept in til late morning. Our hotel only served a buffet and charged $20 per person so we decided to find an alternate.

We found a breakfast place nearby. After breakfast we took a bus tour that allowed us to get off and on at any of the stops. We went out to the beach and saw Burj Al Arab, the famous 7 star hotel that is shaped like the sail on the dhows, visited a modern souk that had fabulous expensive shops with beautiful shawls, jackets, bed linens from Kashmir and other exotic places. We ate lunch at a wonderful Indian restaurant overlooking the artificial canal that had small boats to transport shoppers around the mall/souk. There were many nice restaurants and we were delighted with our meal.

Back on the bus to see more sights most of which were new developments including “The Palm”, an artificial palm shaped island that can be seen from space. It is much larger than I had imagined and it is only one of three. I am unclear as to whether the others are in progress or if they have been completed. Every development appears to have its own shopping mall. We briefly walked through this one trying to find the large hotel which turned out to be farther away than we had anticipated. We walked along the ‘beach’. I put beach in quotes because it is an artificial beach and consisted of huge boulders that prevent the island from eroding. So we were on the sidewalk with a wall that separated us from the boulders and crashing waves. In addition to large apartment complexes there were townhouses and individual homes. I have no doubt that you would pay a premium to live here. Everything is done with no expense spared. The development has its own monorail (just like Disneyland).

The following day we took another bus tour that included more of the older parts of Dubai. We visited the Dubai Museum. Here there were dioramas depicting the life of nomads. There was a great house made of woven reeds with a wind tower, a device that catches the wind and brings it into the home. These are still in evidence around Dubai on the stucco houses as well. Nowadays people have AC so the wind towers are often closed off. See photos for an example of one. Most of the museum was underground. There was a great slide show showing Dubai in the early 1900’s and going through to today. There were slides of future projects. OY! One is called The World, a series of artificial islands set in the Gulf and they cost from $10-$100 million USD. We decided against buying one. We ate at another Indian restaurant. This one definitely catered to locals and not to tourists. The food was great and cost a fraction of what our meal cost the day before.

One evening we visited the Deira area of Dubai, across Dubai Creek from where we were staying. We went by way of subway to see what their system was like. Like everything else it is beautiful. It is expensive but many residents make low wages. It is expensive to live here so many do not have cars, I am sure. The buses, water taxis and subway are their alternatives. Deira is the old area and feels more authentic. We walked along the dhow wharfage and marveled at the goods that came from all over the world that would be shipped out of Dubai on dhows to nearby countries: Iran, Pakistan, India, Yemen, Oman, India and Sudan. Dhows are long, flat wooden sailing vessels. Everything imaginable was being loaded onto these wooden boats: fertilizer, air conditioners, and water dispensers; even cars and trucks. Next we walked to the spice souq and I got some saffron after the vendor showed me every spice he had. From here we walked over to the gold souk where there were lots of people walking about. There were more jewelry stores than you can imagine and displayed were all kinds of ornate necklaces like I have never seen. It seems that each culture has its own style of jewelry and I regret that we didn't get any photos of these elaborate styles. Some looked like your entire bank account would be hanging around your neck.

From here we walked to an intersection that appeared to be the crossroads of the world. People from all walks of life and from many countries from around the world were here. We found a funky little shawarma stand and ate one of our least expensive meals and had the best people watching imaginable. It was delightful. We took a water taxi home. These are small boats with a tarp cover. Customers sit on a flat platform in the center of the boat and the driver takes your money by shaking his coin box. Customers who sit too far from the driver passed their money to other passengers to get the money to the driver.

On one of our walking excursions we walked around the textile market. I got called into a store and was shown beautiful silk and wool scarves from Kashmir. When I asked how much the vendor took a long time to answer and said if I bought both scarves that I was considering it would be $200. I told him that was too much. After much bartering his coworker ran after me as I was leaving and sold me one scarf for $30. It seemed like a fair price to me.

We ended up at the Sheikh Saeed Al-Maktoum House. This is now a museum filled with photos of the royal family, stamps and coins as well as a cotton diving suit worn by pearl divers to protect them from jelly fish strings. Pearl diving was a big industry until Japan started making cultured pearls. The house was built in 1896. Given the size I would assume several generations lived in the house at the same time.

Jumeirah Mosque is the only mosque here that is opened to non Muslims. They offer a lecture on the Islamic religion and the four of us went and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Their slogan is 'open door, open mind'. Our presenter was a British woman who had married an Emirati. She showed us the ablutions rituals using volunteers from the audience. She explained the five pillars of Islam, the dress, and the prayer rituals. She was delightful in her presentation. She was open to questions and we spent over an hour there.

Our last night in Dubai, we were treated to a lovely dinner by Jock to celebrate Laurie’s 60th birthday. Our neighbor Leslie Wilson joined us. It was a surprise for Laurie as Leslie arrived in Dubai that afternoon from Bangladesh. It just happened that she was going to be in Dubai at the same time as the party so it was great fun to have her join us. The five of us often travel together. We dined at Gordon Ramsey’s Verre. The meal was exquisite. The taste and presentation was out of this world. Big yum!