To understand my time in Dubai, let me add a bit of context that may get lost in the various blog posts. Each trip I'm describing, as amazing as they have all been, have been in sequence. If you consider travel my job for at this point, I'd have been working for exactly 50 days in a row. Granted, there were a few down moments, such as sitting on the beach in Zanzibar, but all in all it had been pretty busy. In the past week alone, I'd spent one night in Tel Aviv, taken an overnight bus across much of Israel, spent three nights in boiling Petra, one night in Amman, two in Jerusalem, and then woke at 2am to catch my flight to Dubai. I was completely exhausted and starting to fall sick. As my parents would say, I was burning the candle at both ends.
So with the freedom of a sabbatical, why was I moving so much? There's a lot to see. And I knew that coming up soon I'd be in Thailand for a week of absolutely nothing but peace. Ok, then why would I stop to spend two days in Dubai? The simple reason is that it's become the hub for the Middle East so most flights West would go through there.
For me, I wanted to see it because it had become the hub for the Middle East and I didn't really understand. Could oil money and desire actually build a global city from the desert? How was it all run? Who was really going there and spending money in the world-renowned shopping malls? What did a seven star hotel built on it's own private island actually look like? Why were they building the world's tallest tower? How did they reconcile all of this with the strong Islamic traditions?
What I found when I finally arrived at my hotel was.....my bed. And I stayed there all day. I was much too tired to face the scorching heat outside and the burning questions I had about Dubai. Instead I slept and watched Forest Gump on tv. Run Forest! Run!
When I had recovered somewhat, I was starving so went out into the night to find some food. I asked the man who ran my hotel (at US$100 per night, it was the most expensive I have stayed in on my whole trip so far....and the cheapest in Dubai), and all he had to offer was a point down the road saying that there were lots of places by the river. Not having much faith in his advice, I went the other way and felt like I'd been transported to India. Every person I saw was Indian, the small restaurants had Hindi menus and pots of curry, the small side streets were packed with Indians after work gathering to catch up or wait for the bus. It was amazing. And, as adventurous as I am, I couldn't find a single thing I was willing to eat. I went into one small shop and asked for "only veg," to which the man happily brought over a slab of meat that looked like it was killed in 1970. I finally entered another hotel and found their lonely restaurant, ordered some chicken tikka masala, and opened my guidebook to find out what the heck was going on.
It turns out that Dubai has had a huge influx of Indians who, along with Pakistani and Bangladeshis, and make up nearly 65% of the population, and probably the entire working class. It's astonishing. I was expecting to get here and see lots of men in robes strolling through the streets, but instead I only saw Indians. And they were everywhere. Later, I chatted with one taxi driver from Delhi who explained that many came here looking for work and when they had it, they worked very hard, sending as much money home to their family as possible.
I thought that was interesting for two reasons. First, a lot of the money being earned in the UAE must not stay there, but instead get's shipped to the "true homes" of the workers (though I know the Emerates keep their fair share). Second, if the oil money runs out, many of these people will have not built lives there, and instead will just return home. It's hard to build skyscrapers and shopping malls without all the people who actually hammer the nails.
What Dubai is trying to do is plan for the oil money running out. Clever, but what's the plan? As I understand it, they want to become a business and tourist center. Where you can be pampered in the seven star Burj Dubai (here it is accepting another guest via helicopter):
...shop in better-than-Western shopping malls (could almost be New Jersey, notice the Krispy Kreme Hot Sign on the right?):
...visit a man-made beach (the water in the Persian Gulf was the hottest I'd ever felt):
...do business in the world's tallest tower (the Burj Dubai is there on the right):
...ski at their man-made indoor ski slope and....er.....um....other things. Such as visiting the mosque!
Sounds like a hit, right?!? For me, it wasn't even close. The first problem was the heat & humidity. It was omnipresent and overwhelming in a way I'd never known. The city's people are at it's mercy. Though they are fighting back with air conditioning and shopping malls, going outside in the day or night is like stepping into a hot shower. Even my Indian taxi driver said it didn't compare to notoriously hot Bombay. Now, I suppose I was there in the summer, but the average high for the year is 92°F, so it's pretty darn hot all year round. As I said above, even the water at the beach was hot.
Also...the dust. Perhaps you were wondering why a few of those pictures were a bit hazy? It's not my lack of photographing skills. You can really only see a few hundred feet down the road before everything just gets lost in the haze. Apparently it's dust blowing in from the desert. I'm sure it's not like that all the time, but if you can hardly see the world's tallest building from a few blocks away, what is the point of making it so tall??
Plus, it's expensive! I already mentioned my outrageous hotel room (consider that three nights later I was in a private bungalow in Thailand for US$6 per night). But everything else - including those shopping malls - is crazy too. It all has to be imported, so someone has to pay.
Ok well fair enough. I don't have to like every place, right? But some people must love it? Maybe. I saw quite a few Russians there shopping and they looked like they were having a great time. I guess I'm just not the target audience. All I know is that they better work out who it is. And fast.
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