Advertisement
Published: September 5th 2015
Edit Blog Post
It's an odd place, Dubai. It could be LA or Phoenix, except that the buildings are taller and more futuristic.
Only a tenth of the population is native Emirati. They're the guys in the spotless white dish-dashes, and the women in their black abayas -- their heads covered; though their faces not necessarily veiled. All the rest – from cabbies to store clerks to contractors – come from someplace else: India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Eastern Europe, the USA, and Canada.
We were there for a week last May, waiting to catch a ship bound for Istanbul via the Suez Canal. We stayed in
Bur Dubai, an older neighborhood on the west bank of Dubai Creek. Our hotel, The Arabian Courtyard, was situated just across from the Dubai Museum and Cultural Center where, along with a bunch of other tourists, we were privileged to share a traditional meal. Our hosts, the products of American academies in Dubai, spoke perfect, unaccented, American English. They invited us to ask questions about the culture, and of course, we all wanted to know about the
burka, and why women in the Middle East are forced to cover themselves in this
godawful heat. Our hostess gave several reasons, none of them particularly satisfying to us skeptical Westerners: that the
burka is a form of traditional costume; that it's really a matter of fashion; that in the old days, the women of the royal family covered themselves so as to be able to mingle safely in the market place; that it's actually a way to establish equality among different classes of people, and so on.
But I wasn't buying it. I stood up and said that in Iran women did not wear the veil under the Shah, but that after the revolution, the first thing the ayatollahs did was to cover them back up. Our hostess replied that while such might be the case in more traditional Arab cultures, in Dubai women are free to dress as they choose. Maybe she's right. Dubai is, after all, one of the more enlightened places in the Islamic world.
Bur Dubai, appeared to be inhabited by Indians mostly. Many of the shops, in fact almost all of them, were owned, or at least staffed, by Indians. The restaurants were all Indian, as were the supermarkets. One store in particular caught my attention; the
Me and Backshish
That's me and my boy Bakshish, the legendary doorman at the Arabian Courtyard. Indian/Emirati equivalent of the Dollar Store. Everything there cost between one and ten
dirham, a dirham being worth around 27 US cents. I bought myself a lightweight ball cap for 8
dirham, and then proceeded to leave it in a taxi cab in Muscat, Oman.
Mainly what we did during our week in Dubai was to visit the shopping malls, all of which were as big and glitzy as Vegas casinos and air conditioned to the max. The crown jewel of shopping centers is the Dubai Mall, the world's largest which, appropriately enough, anchors the world's tallest building, which would be the Burj Kalifa. The mall covers an area the size of 50 football fields, and houses an aquarium, and an ice skating rink large enough to host an Olympic hockey tournament. Among its features are seven waterfalls with sculpted divers in free fall mode, as well as the world's largest bookstore. We wandered around in slack jawed amazement and then had lunch in the food court at a Subway that was owned by a Lebanese business man and staffed by Philippinos.
We hit a few other malls as well. One, called Ibin Batutu, was named after a
Burj Khalifa
The world's tallest building 15
th century Arab explorer, and featured a series of interior courtyards honoring each of the old voyager's destinations: China, Tunisia, Spain and so on. On another day we went out to Palm Island and hung out in the mall that surrounds the Atlantis Hotel. This one featured an ATM machine that dispensed – I kid thee not – solid gold ingots.
That was pretty much our week in Dubai, traipsing from one air conditioned colossus to the next in taxis driven mostly by homesick Pakistanis. Mainly our objective was to stay out of the merciless desert heat, with temps exceeding 100 degrees every day we were there. But also, there isn't much else to do in Dubai unless, of course, you work there.
I forgot to mention that the Dubai Mall broadcast the call to prayer over the speaker system at the appropriate times, and that virtually every mall we visited had a prayer room and a bathing area where the faithful could perform their ritual ablutions before offering prayers to Allah and his Messenger. Despite the glitz and the relative liberalism, the sense of religiosity pervades the atmosphere. The call to prayer awoke us before dawn each
Freefall
One of seven waterfalls in the Dubai Mall day. On Fridays the shops are closed (as they once were on Sundays back home) and the mullahs' sermons are broadcast from loudspeakers atop the minarets.
I had an interesting chat with an English woman who lives with her husband full time in Dubai. "It's an integrated city," she said, "and it works in a way that it never has back home. Our neighbors are Indians, Pakistanis, Arabs, Russians, and somehow we all seem to get along."
Advertisement
Tot: 0.172s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0672s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
WelshWanderer
K.
I've just moved to Dubai and still have a lot to learn about the Emirate. Thanks for sharing this - fascinating stories! Had a similar experience at the cultural centre! But yes, it certainly is an integrated city... and I'm enjoying it immensely so far. :)