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Published: December 15th 2007
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Dubai
How many cities have a hotel as its major tourist attraction. 7 stars. A couple of lightning blogs will be ripped out during the next week or so as we inch our way home to the land of milk and honey. First up, the UAE, or more specifically Dubai. Twoish nights here hardly justifies a blog but by including it we get to fill in another country in red on the blog's world map.
What do you say about a place you only spent about 40 hours in? Plenty, because I'm a charlatan and don't need a lot of information to develop a whole bunch of uninformed opinions. I'll just fill in the gaps with whatever BS I can make up.
Dubai is - steel, concrete, glass, contemporary cars in major traffic jams, clean, progressive, businesslike. ie. boring? Double ie. expensively boring?
That's probably a tad harsh but while Dubai/UAE may share land on the same peninsula as Yemen, the exotic divide is of Grand Canyon proportions.
Dubai is metaphored as a Middle Eastern Singapore, which isn't too far off the mark. I've always considered Singapore on the sterile side and Dubai could be similarly pigeonholed. Authentic Arab culture is camouflaged by large dollops of Western glitz.
Having said that, Dubai was fun and
Dubai
The hotel at a mere 5 stars - peasants! the one full day we spent we:
*saw people snow skiing.
*viewed the world's most expensive hotel.
*had Penny take a 7 star beach swim in her zero star underwear.
*sampled the most refreshing drink in history - fresh, minted lemonade in crushed ice.
*were offered, numerous times, the opportunity to purchase "genuine copy" brand name whatevers. "Genuine Copy" just may be the Grand Poobah of all time oxymorons.
I know I promised a lightning blog so a few quick tit bits before signing off:
*the population makeup of UAE is only about 25% locally born Arabs. The rest are expats, often Indians. These expats can NEVER gain citizenship and the men are not permitted to marry UAE women (so one Indian guy told us).
*the weather is wonderful as long you don't come in summer (unless you enjoy temperatures pushing 50 degrees).
*almost everyone speaks some English.
*they have a fantastic Rugby 7s tournament which we just missed.
That's Dubai. If you are flying into the region, chances are you'll land here at some stage. In that case, a couple of days can be real fun. Then again, if you simply decide to transit, you won't leave this life
Dubai
We stumbled onto this guy filming an art documentary. We knew him before he was famous. unfulfilled just because you missed Dubai.
Yeatesy.
Bling bling Dubai. From Yemen to the UAE shouldn't be that different, or so I thought. While the local women still often wear black from head to toe, rarely do they cover their faces. These faces are also often made up and the girls can be dripping with gold. It certainly has a much more western feel to the place.
One full day was probably enough but that particular day was a really nice day shared with a South African mother/daughter couple wandering amongst the most lavish of shopping malls, visiting souqs that were a sterilised version of its more rustic cousins, watching people snow skiing, sipping drinks at chic little bars and swimming in the Arabian Gulf. The SA couple had the foresight to bring along their swimming costumes. We, on the other hand, didn't. The water looked so inviting that the only solution was strip off down to my trendy underwear and dip into the ocean in the shadows of the Barj Al Arab, the world's only 7 star hotel. I figured I didn't know anybody in Dubai, so what the hell.
Would I recommend Dubai? I guess Gary summed
Dubai
Skiing in the desert. Kitsch. it up pretty well by saying it justifies a pair of days if you happen to be in the vicinity but don't forget to weigh in the horrendous waits at the airport, coming or going, which can take a large chunk out of those 2 days. Plus don't make the same mistake we did and find accommodation on the outskirts. Public transport is a rare commodity and taxi fares can stack up damn quickly.
Penny.
More images at:
www.colvinyeates.zenfolio.com
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