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Published: March 18th 2014
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Dubai Creek
The other side to Dubai. Despite being seemingly contradictory to everything I stand for, I was admittedly quite intrigued by Dubai. We gave it a day. Actually, I didn’t dislike it.
The extravagance, the ostentatious displays of wealth, the biggest, tallest, most luxurious, most expensive whatever, claims to fame that do not generally attract me to a place. But Dubai was alright.
It was cheaper to fly back to the UK from Dubai instead of Muscat. So, rather than just using the city for its airport, we arrived for our flight the best part of a whole day early and had a look around.
We had expected much from Oman and were disappointed. We expected little from Dubai and were pleasantly surprised. Leaping to a conclusion drawn from little experiential evidence: Oman = very interesting country with lots to do but Muscat is rubbish. UAE = uninteresting country with little to do but Dubai is great.
The day began with a ride on the metro. It reminded me of the London Tube (except significantly cleaner) in that the appearance and languages of the commuting passengers seemed to represent a fair spread of the world.
We got off and got a bit lost in the streets of Al Fahidi. This part of the city, though quite ugly, felt very lived in and again reminded me of parts of London. I hadn’t thought of Dubai having areas like this when the pictures you usually see of Dubai focus on the Burj al Arab or Palm Jumeirah. We ambled along the Dubai Creek riverbank past joggers, fishing boats, and taxi-boats ferrying business-suited Indians to work.
We were searching for the old part of Dubai known as Bastakiya. I’m not sure we ever found it. We found a mock up of an old Arabic Village replete with the attractive and ingenious wind towers (natural air-conditioning) but it looked in far too good condition to be original. Though I suppose the old pre-oil Dubai isn’t that old as oil only began to be significantly tapped in the seventies. Apparently it was Prince Charles who had a word with the Sheikh during a visit in 1989 and persuaded him not to demolish every last bit of old Dubai. Either the Sheikh has since changed his mind or the old town is incredibly well preserved to the point
of looking like a Middle East themed Alton Towers experience.
A bit more of the impeccably clean metro, fortunately mostly above ground so affording nice views of the city, brought us to Downtown Dubai. This was more like the Dubai I imagined. A forest of tall and fancily-shaped glass and steel skyscrapers reach up into the dusty blue sky. Gaps between them are filled with construction sites for yet more towerblocks, or tarmac, either as giant car parks or busy multi-lane highways. Occasional strips of green are present as lush gardens and palm trees in front of the posher head office buildings, maintained by furious sprinklers from which the majority of the water probably evaporates before it hits the ground.
The Dubai Mall is the world’s biggest – of course it is, it’s in Dubai – with 1200 shops. Once inside you could be anywhere in the world. The clientele are very international; Europeans, Arabs, Chinese, Americans, the shops; H&M, Topshop, Zara, Gap, the cafes: Costa, Tim Hortons, Starbucks, the restaurants; McDonalds, Yo Sushi, Pizza Hut, the only thing that stopped me thinking that I was in the Bullring was the fact that seemingly
all of the staff were Philippino. We ambled around the shops, tried on a few clothes, but chose not to buy as the prices are comparable to the UK. The sushi lunch though was very good.
There are a few reminders in the mall that you are in Dubai, namely a gold souq, an ice-skating rink and a gigantic fish tank. The fish tank, perhaps more correctly called an aquarium, is surprisingly not quite the world’s biggest. No goldfish in here, rather hundreds of sharks, groupers and manta rays. It was a little sad to see these mighty creatures restricted to a tank, though it is massive; 51m x 20m x 11m. Still, I, along with crowds of others, stood entranced in front of the big glass wall watching the fishes go round and round (perhaps secretly hoping one of the big sharks might take an interest in one of the scuba divers who had paid £1000 to learn to dive in front of thousands of people in a shopping centre).
Just outside the Dubai Mall is the Burj Khalifa – the world’s tallest building. At 830 metres it is the world’s tallest by
absolutely miles (200m bigger than its closest rival, the Shanghai Tower). We first saw it through the early morning haze from Bastakiya, over 10km away, spearing up into the sky like a needle. Up close, from the cafe terraces and pond outside the Dubai Mall, the Burj Khalifa is unfathomably tall. From an engineering perspective I was very impressed. However, being so tall, it’s very difficult to photograph. Some tourists resort to laying on the pavement to get it all in while others just settle for a selfie with only half the tower behind them – generally the camera of choice being an Ipad. We found that resting the camera on your flip-flops works the best, though you need some interesting foreground either side of the tower otherwise your photo contains rather a lot of sky. This led to long waits then a mad scramble to turn the camera on and focus whenever a traditionally dressed Arab wandered past.
Across the pond is the “Traditional” Souq al Bahar. There is nothing ancient or traditional about it but it is very attractive inside. Outside we chased a few Arab families around still trying to get a good photo
Wind Tower
Old School Air-Conditioning of the Burj Khalifa and had to settle for a Botero sculpture as foreground instead. These bulbous statues seem to follow me around the world; Yerevan, Oviedo, Dubai, I’m sure they are strategically placed as a portent that I should move back to Colombia.
The conclusion I reached about Dubai was that if I ever have to go and work there for a bit (like about a month), that wouldn’t be too bad. Could be worse. I wouldn’t want to live there nor would I recommend it for a holiday but if you have a long layover on the way to somewhere exciting, I’d say you’d be daft not to pop into town.
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
I plan a "pop over" for eight hours...
in Panama City, Panama on 9 May. Time enough for the Canal and the old town. I agree that one should take every opportunity to see some of a country, even if it only serves as an introduction.