Dubai

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07 October 2015

A long and tiring day touring around the contrasting and in many cases extreme Dubai sights in a stiflingly hot 35°. Fortunately all the buildings and vehicles were air conditioned. We decided against the tourist bus but instead bought a very reasonable day ticket on the modern overground metro which quickly whisked around the spread out city. We also had a taxi tour with a friendly Indian driver and did some gentle walking.

We started with the hotel shuttle which took us to the Dubai mall, built on 4 levels it is the largest in the world and contains every imaginable upper class shop. Adjacent to it is the tallest building in the world, the 828m high Burj Khalifa.

It was then onto the Metro for a ride through sprawling suburbs to the Dubai Marina and its nearby impressive skyscrapers. It was there we picked up our taxi which took us to see some of Dubai’s most iconic hotels. First it was to the Atlantis holiday resort on the Palm Jumeirah, the biggest artificial island in the world built at a cost US$12 billion, the size of which couldn’t really be appreciated from the car. Then it was to the Burj al Arab (the Tower of the Arabs) commissioned by Sheikh Mohammed, Dubai’s ruler as a global icon rather than to recoup the original US$2 billion investment.

The Metro then took us back to the other end of the city to Bur Dubai, the oldest part and its adjacent Creek We strolled through the narrow streets of the Bastakia distict with its traditional Gulf houses topped by wind towers a pre electric form of air conditioning. We had our lunch in a beautiful example, walked along the waterfront past several mosques, went through the traditional textile market and crossed the creek by an old fashioned abra ferry.

We brought the day to a climatic end by returning to the Dubai Mall and watching a wonderful illuminated fountain display in the Burj Khalifa Lake.

Unfortunately there was no relaxing evening for us in the hotel suite as we had to return to the airport and catch the overnight plane to Johannesburg.

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