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Published: April 5th 2010
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Charlie
Charlie Strohmeyer sitting on his thrown Picnic in the desert
We arrived in Dubai around 9 local time. Christian and Anne came to pick us up at the airport. We took a quick tour of the city, seeing the
Burj Khalifa for the first time. We also drove around the bay where we saw flamingos. Dubai is a city with many tall buildings and is a good place for students to study modern architecture. The city is divided into different sectors such as medical, banking, IT etc. You hardly see any local people around. It is also quite expensive, especially books, food and housing. A lot of construction has stopped since the financial crisis.
We arrived at Strohmeyer house and met their cat named Charlie. Charlie was adopted by the Strohmeyers after they found him foraging around in the garbage. Apparently, a lot of expats in Dubai abandon their pets like this. Charlie was lucky and he found a good home. Anne and Maya showed us around the house. They have a lovely home which had their art work displayed around the house. We had a wonderful breakfast and spent some time catching up with Christian and Birgit.
We left that afternoon for a
Camel
Camels were everywhere desert tour in 2 cars. In the desert, you let the air out of the tires and ride flat. Sunjay drove one of the vehicles in the dunes for some time. It was an old Jeep Cherokee that Christian tinkers with. Birgit drove the other vehicle and did so fearlessly and professionally. After driving around the dunes for a while, we found a perfect place to picnic and both the cars stopped to eat. We laid out a small table and had a few drinks along with some tasty snacks that Birgit had packed. The kids sat down and played in the sand while the adults chatted. When driving out of the desert, Maya spotted an ibex which is quite rare. On the way back, it got dark and we had to navigate entirely by GPS. Needless to say, there are no roads in a desert. When in the desert When we got to the asphalt roads we had to put the air back in. Christian was all prepared for this and had brought a little air pump which we had fun playing with. We went back to Christian's house where we had a nice Bar-b-cue meal.
The next
Driving in the desert
We took 4 wheel DR SUV's into the sand morning we headed for tour of the old city in Dubai. The city has some excellent old souks. Souks are traditional Arabian markets. Like a modern department store it is divided into different sections. One just for spices, one for gold, clothes and so on. You have to bargain hard since prices are jacked up 3 to 4 times high! The city is split by many canals and you have to use water taxis to get around. The water taxis are nothing but dhows outfitted with outboard motors. We ate a sumptuous lunch of Arabian bread, kebabs and hummus.
In the evening we headed to the luxurious Dubai mall. This mall epitomizes the excesses of the city. Everything is over the top. Besides housing all the imaginable and the unimaginable brands of everything that can be bought under the sun it also has a giant aquarium inside. The mall opens into a plaza with a artificial lake in the middle. This plaza is ringed by towering sky scrapers including the Burj Al Khalifa. We hung around the lake waiting for the evening light and water fountain show. We trudged back home tired.
The next day we visited the
Stuck
I got stuck going over a dune. other big city of the Emirates, Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi is the more sombre sister of the flashy Dubai. This Emirate is also more oil rich than Dubai. In fact, during the economic crisis when Dubai was hard hit it was saved by an infusion of cash from Abu Dhabi. Thus, it is no accident that Burj Al Khalifa is named after Sheikh Khalifa of the Abu Dhabi royal family. We first headed to the Sheikh Zayed mosque which is also known as the Blue Mosque. It is a remarkable structure with reflects both Moorish (Moroccan) and Mughal (Indian) influences. The Mosque is large enough to accommodate 40,000 worshipers. The main prayer hall can accommodate up to 9,000 worshipers. Two rooms next to the main prayer hall, with a 1,500-capacity each, are for the exclusive use of women.There are four minarets on the four corners of the mosque. There are 57 domes covering the outside yard and the main building as well. The men had to cover there legs and the women had to wear an abhaya to enter the mosque. The mosque's main prayer hall has the largest singe piece of carpet in the world and the largest chandelier.
All in all it is a beautiful structure. After visiting mosque we headed to see the Emirates Palace hotel. Another illustration of the excess of opulence. It is a seven star hotel with special suites where one gets their own butler staff.
Both Dubai and Abu Dhabi symbolize everything that is promising and worry some of the oil wealth phenomena. One of the most striking things about UAE is that it for all practical purposes run by outsiders, foreigners, expats or whatever you want to call them. You rarely see locals in public places. Even Arabs you see on the streets are expats. These outsiders can never become part of the "society." Jeffersonian ideal its not. The remarkable wealth fueled by oil has catapulted a people from 7th century into 21st with no bearings in either. Most Emiratis have no incentive to work, to create, to invent, to work hard. You see grand plans for grand cities which will house mostly non-emiratis who cannot live in UAE beyond the age of 65. Defies logic really. Everything seems contrived and artificial. In one way its like a tree with remarkable branches, leaves and fruits but a thin root system. One
day it is going to collapse spectacularly.
All in all, we had a lovely time with the Strohmeyers (Birgit, Christian, Anne and Maya). The kids had a great time hanging out together and Christian is always entertaining. we headed off to Oman.
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