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Published: October 1st 2013
Dubai - Michelle How to describe Dubai? Hot for a start! After great flights but only a few hours sleep we arrived in Dubai. With an outside temp of 38 degrees at 6am we made our way to our hotel. Unfortunately Friday and Saturday is the Dubai weekend and nothing opens before 10am so it was four hours of directionless wandering and time wasting before our adventure could properly begin. Now rather than narrate our time in Dubai chronologically I’m going to split it into what we did in Deira City (Old Dubai and where we stayed) and New Dubai.
Deira City is what I would expect most Middle Eastern cities are like. It’s relatively poor and the shopping is functional with pretty basic malls. The people are quite conservative but for the most part dress in a western manner, albeit covered neck to foot. Our highlight in old Dubai was on our last day when we hired a taxi driver for four hours to take us around the more authentic spots, which he did. We went to a few of the souks which are outside street markets that have a common theme. We visited the gold souk and
the spices souk. You really got an understanding of how it would have been back in old times. The street vendors are seasoned pros at getting you into their stores and harassing you out of your dollars but we managed to get through, dirhams intact! The markets stink (as does much of old Dubai) as litter is rife and I suspect many people live on the streets.
The construction of New Dubai began around 2005 according to our taxi man and was purely built to encourage tourism. Money is no object and construction workers from many countries were bought in to build big buildings quickly (only 10% of the labour force is from the UAE). It is hard to comprehend the opulence and wealth of the place. Everything is OTT. Buildings are taller, shinier, grander. The malls all outdo each other with special features like internal three story waterfalls, ice rinks where ice hockey is played, basketball ½ courts where two on two sponsored competitions are played. Retail is all the top end stores and brands. Very few products have price tags – as the saying goes if you need to ask the price you probably can’t afford it!
We had dinner on our last evening at a restaurant on the outside of the Dubai Mall where we watched the famous fountain show, probably 500m of water jets in total performing to music and shooting up to 60 feet in height. But despite the absolute wealth new Dubai still attempts to retain its conservative roots. It is offensive in Dubai to publically show your shoulders or above your knees but there still are ignorant tourists in their daisy dukes and singlet tops. Mixed with this however are the rich Arabs who mainly wear traditional garb including burka and full face veils for the women. Alcohol is frowned upon and whilst served in some places such as hotels at the restaurant mentioned above we had our sparkling water that they served in wine glasses.
Dune Bashing and Safari-Jacob On our first night at Dubai we all went on a safari. This wasn’t your ordinary safari, this was a safari…. IN DUBAI. We started out at the hotel waiting for our taxi to arrive. After waiting for a little while this local man in a white shirt, black pants and black shoes arrived to take us. We followed
him and sat in the white station-wagon.
After a little while in the car with the man discussing the history of Dubai with us we stopped for a little bit next to a dairy in the middle of the desert. We were parked there with a lot of other cars on the same safari (around about 50 other cars). We all got outside and went into the dairy to buy drinks. Suddenly random locals starting ambushing us and tying bandannas around our heads. We all thought this was really neat….. Until they mentioned it cost money. Then we got back into the car and travelled off towards a special section of the desert.
After the horrific bandanna incident we finally arrived at this closed off section of the desert. In the distance you could see cars nearly vertical in the sand dunes. This was when my mum started to get really nervous. My father and I were getting really pumped when we saw how the cars were surfing the sand dunes and diving into the hill sides.
There was a quick stop and we were right into the bashing. We started out nice and slow just driving
around the tops of the dunes but within 10 seconds it went from that into full speed mayhem. Throughout the whole experience we dipped and dived into the sand, we shot up over the hills. At a couple points we nearly went fully vertical. We also saw 2 cars that crashed. The first had a broken chassis and the second was half buried in sand. My mother did tear up during the dune bashing but good on her for giving it a go.
After the dune bashing we arrived at the safari camp my father and I rode the camels… They could barely stand up and sit down so they practically fell. My mother got some henna painted on her arm and we had dinner while watching belly dancers shake their bellies.
Water, water everywhere-Mike Up for brekky and we catch a cab to The Palm – Jumeirah. Jumeirah means ‘beach or sea side’. The Palm is one crazy piece of real estate development where if you look at it by the air the Palm is literally a Palm reaching out into the sea. There is hotel and private accommodation and you live or stay at Frond
O or Frond K etc.
At the end of the palm is the Hotel Atlantis - at a grand a night a bit out of our price range but we had come to visit the other attractions. We got a combo ticket and hit The Lost Chambers of Atlantis. WOW! The most amazing aquarium I’ve ever seen. Sting Rays, fish of all varieties, lobster, crays, piranha, crabs (patted a horseshoe) and you really feel like you are in the water with them.
This is all set to the theme of the legend of Atlantis so each chamber is the organic computer, the generator room, the knowledge room etc. History meets legend meets nature…truly wondrous.
Highlights – the mesmerising glowing jellyfish – being surrounded on three sides by lobsters, the awesome art and sculpture of the Atlantean world (of course I had to sit in the Kings Chair in the Chamber of the Seven Sages), and sitting on a cushion watching the ebb and flow of hundreds of fish existing within an ancient ruin – the only occupants of Atlantis now…
After our bit of kulcha it was time to get wet so into the aquaventure theme park. You could spend two days here and not see it all. We grabbed our lifesaver/innertubes (better than sitting on the sand) and floated on the circular river soaking up the sun. Once you get bored with that you can turn off onto the rapids, or the torrent (waves) or onto the slides which only Jake and I ended up doing.
The slides were cool – we did three and then it was lunchtime. Jake was a bit off colour so back to the hotel for a break (I shot down to the bar to watch Tottenham Chelsea over a couple of brews).
We then caught a cab back to Dubai Mall to see the Dubai Fountain at the foot of the Burk Khalifa – the world’s tallest building – 124 stories +?! Shows on the half hour – Pavarotti, Motown, Asian Music, all synchronised with the fountain shooting 2-3 stories into the air. Beautiful. We had dinner in a restaurant at the edge of the fountain – Italian of all places…then we retired back to the hotel for another well-earned sleep.
So water – in Atlantis, water – at the Aquaventure and water – at the fountain…and nothing to drink but Heineken.
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Katrina
non-member comment
Yay - the first of many I hope! Love the three voices format xx