Dubai - City of Merchants

My second proper day in Dubai had two components: a tour of the city, and a spontaneous catch-up with an old friend and her new family. The tour was was planned to ensure that I got a sense of what Dubai was like. The catch-up demonstrates the facility that Facebook provides of keeping you informed of when people you haven't seen in years are next door! Even in a foreign country.

Burg Al Arab

Roxy!

I was collected from my hotel for the tour and driven to a large empty carpark, effectively in the middle of nowhere. It was in sight of the Burg Al Arab, the world's most expensive hotel (so claimed). The carpark was where Arabian Adventures (my tour company) stored its buses and acted as a collecting point. Once everyone had been collected, we were introduced to Roxy, our tour guide. Over the tour, Roxy turned out to be a wonderful guide and a quite extraordinary woman. She's Czech/Romanian (literally, a Gypsy), who's travelled the world quite a bit, has excellent English (plus four other languages) and is a convert to Islam. She dresses like a Muslim Santa Claus, she once described herself. Roxy was a highlight of the tour.

Marjeesh building

Welcoming 'lounge'

We drive for probably 45mins on a freeway (across town, essentially) to our first stop: the city's marjeesh (sp?). This building represents the same thing that all major households have: a 'lounge room' where one welcome's guests. It is normally separate to the actual house (when one's wealth allows) and is designed to be a comfortable place where the house owner can receive guests in comfort. This one has been built specifically to provide an example of the concept within the setting of a formal Arabian garden for use by the city as a whole (so claimed). I suspect that the Sheikhs and other wealthy families (basically, all the Emiratis) would have their own version. The extent to which the city uses it is uncertain. It is, however, a helpful tourist destination.

The Dubai Skyline, from the bus

After our visit to the marjeesh, we were back in the bus and headed off to a long-standing mosque. I've seen plenty of mosques by now, so that stop wasn't especially noteworthy. Then another example of 'traditional' architecture. This time, it is a restaurant housed in a building that was once a traditional home, to two or three families. The architecture is quite distinctive: large, open square of mud-brick construction where high windows allow breeze movement but not much sun. The rooms all face the inner courtyard with the exterior wall quite blank and uninviting. This style is deliberate apparently, for two reasons: it's easier to keep the building cool, and Muslim families see the home as a very private place, so there's little interest in offering views out to the world, or in from outside. One thing of interest was to see examples of a sunshade made by Arab women hundreds of years ago that provides the styling for the full-covering burka.

Exterior of typical traditional houses	Inner courtyard of typical traditional houses
Photo showing women wearing sunshade face mask that pre-dates full-face burka headress	Stuffed baby camel as welcome statue

Small Souk

Dubai Museum (Old Fort)

We walked along the original creek around which Dubai was settled (albeit on a carefully constructed riverside promenade), through a small, narrow souk, to the Dubai Museum. This building, a former fort, has been set up to capture the progress of the city from the earliest discovered settlement, some 3000 year ago, apparently, through to relatively recent times. The UAE has just celebrated its 41st anniversary as a federation. Compared to the richness of historical material that I've been seeing in Egypt, Cairo, and even Turkey, the Dubai Museum is a little twee, I'm afraid.

Map of Original Dubai Settlement	Historical Arab battle gear
This exhibit shows an ancient (~3000yrs old, I think) burial tomb found nearby. The image changes through  lighting effects.

Water taxis

After the museum, we cross the creek in a small boat, which provides further evidence of the difference in attitude towards health and safety in the Arab countries versus, say, Australia, or the UK: no handrails on the boat, and it wasn't even tied to the dock as one embarked and disembarked. Of course, it all went swimmingly, I'm just saying.

The Gold Market

On the other side of the creek, we visited first a spice market and then a gold market: souks or bazaars with a majority of specialised stores, although the touts will gladly offer you virtually anything. In the gold market, I actually negotiated the purchase of a nice black leather belt and a t-shirt souvenir. The jewellery is very ostentatious, to my mind, and they simply don't offer cufflinks, it seems; they certainly don't display them in the windows.

Our tour was then at an end and we were driven back to our respective hotels. I dropped my stuff and left immediately to catch the metro from my hotel to the Dubai Mall, where I'd arranged to meet an old friend, Chris Vickery (now Werneck) and her husband and new baby. I wanted to visit the Dubai Mall because of its fame and because it is beside the Burg Khalifa, until recently, the world's tallest tower. Also, there is a water fountain display outside the Dubai Mall each evening that I intended to watch too.

Metro station interior

The metro is a very modern, fully-automated monorail installed across Dubai by the Japanese for the UAE. It reinforces in my mind the parallels between Dubai and Singapore (more on that momentarily). It's not hard to navigate, although it turns out I bought the wrong ticket for my trip and had to buy a penalty 'exit' ticket. That trip therefore cost me almost $4AUD by the time I'd got it sorted. The return trip, when I knew what type of ticket to buy, only cost $1.75AUD.

Burg Khalifa

Comparison shot!?
Makes no sense, right?

The Burg Khalifa is an astonishing sight. It's actually so big that one loses touch with the reality of it. I didn't do the trip up to the top as it's better to pre-book that, apparently (The difference between 100Dhm and 400Dhm; $25AUD vs $100AUD). Clearly, it would be worth it for the view, but I was on my last travelling day and I just couldn't get the enthusiasm up.

The Dubai Mall is another astonishing sight. Just like the Mall of the Emirates, it has all the typical elements of a large shopping mall, only it's build on a HUGE scale and all the major 'glamour' brands are present. I took a series of photos to make a panorama of the 'Fashion Atrium' because of the different easily-recognised high-stakes brands all cheek-by-jowl in the one place. Not crammed in so much though, as you could park a 747 in the atrium, I'm pretty sure.

The Dubai Mall

The Fashion Atrium (overlooking the Armani Cafe)

The Waterfall

After a light, late, lunch and a wander around, I met Chris and Ivo at a coffee shop near the waterfall in the Mall. We had a very pleasant catch-up. Chris and Ivo are travelling to Australia to introduce Gabi, their new 3-month old girl, to the Australian side of the family (Ivo is Brazilian and they live in Rio). I asked why they would transit through Dubai and apparently it was cheaper and Chris reminded me that she had worked in Dubai for a couple of years and so had friends still here. Gabi deicded that we'd had enough time catching up, as 3-month olds can do, and we parted in time for me to chose between the 6pm showing of the water fountain, or visiting the Boss store to meet Gwyneth Paltrow. As tempting as Gwyneth is, I went with the water fountain.

That show lasts only about 10mins, possibly less, but I managed to get some nice photos and some nice night-time shots of surrounding buildings, including the Burg Khalifa.

The Address (No, really)

Burg Khalifa