So what do you do when you are in a place only for 18 hours and you also need to sleep? This was the case with Dubai, our stop over between Sri Lanka and Kenya. What we opted to do was to take a half-day afternoon guided bus tour.
We thought Singapore was a clean, modern city, but Dubai would be a very close competitor. The reason for the comparison is because it is so new. Everything we saw was built within the last 40 years (oil was discovered here in the early 1960s) and they are continuing to build at a prodigious rate in anticipation of the World Expo in 2020.
We have a memory when we first arrived in Chicago in 1984 of ogling at the Sears Tower. Well, the Burj Khalifa is almost twice as tall and rises like an arrow to the heavens. Completed in 2010, it is the tallest building in the world. When flying in we had the iconic sight of the building peaking up through the clouds. And then there is the Burj Al Arab, a hotel build to resemble the sail of a ship.
Burj Khalifa Burj Al Arab
And then there is the recently opened Dubai Frame — think St. Louis Arch just, of course, larger. Not only can you see a long, long way from the top, the floor is also glass so you can see all the way down. And for tradition you have the Jumeirah Mosque. But it is new, as well. Infidels can only enter for a particular hour each day, which unfortunately we missed.
Dubai Frame Jumeirah Mosque
Traditional Room replicated in Museum
Dubai is one of seven of the United Arab Emirates. Only two of these emirates have significant oil reserves, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the latter having 23 times the reserves of the former. Together they support financially the other emirates and they are represented internationally by one body. The Dubai Museum tells the story of the city’s emergence from very humble beginnings to today. It is located in the Al Fahidi Fort, the oldest existing structure built in 1787.
The tour closed with crossing the Dubai Creek by ferry to Deira, the old city, to visit the Spice and Gold Souqs (or markets). Like Bangkok, the ferry ride provided us with another wonderful visual and sound picture (click here for video). The souks themselves were full of color and, in many ways, overwhelming. The gold souq did not interest us at all, but it did make us wonder how all the stores survived. In both souqs, we had to run the gauntlet of storekeepers enticing us in, some by literally grabbing an arm and leading us in with the promise of little treats (click here for video).
One of many displays of spices at the spice souk.
Beyond the color and entertainment, our take-away was how tame and organized the souqs were. We were expecting rows of stalls, close together, with crowds of locals as well as tourists (think Life of Brian learning how to haggle!); instead, the streets were paved, undercover, and well-ordered. It all felt like a movie set established for the benefit of us as tourists. The streets barely echoed of years gone by.
We wonder if a longer stay might reveal more of Dubai to us. We were struck by the story of our guide on the bus, a man from Serbia who has lived in Dubai for 18 years and speaks 5 or 6 languages — but not Arabic. “I don’t meet many arabs,” he says. “Only 12 percent of the population are Emerati. The people I work with in the tourist industry are all immigrants, like me.”
Green Edges 