One place Katie and I were really curious about seeing was Dubai, a city that we have heard described as “a city of superlatives.” For better or for worse, we certainly found that to be true over the four days we were there. Unlike in Amman, where governmental officials seemed quite stiff, the immigration officers in Dubai were relaxed, a bit portly, and the young features of my officer were only further emphasised by the braces on his teeth. All of this, along with the endless Blackberry ads that lined the arrivals gate, made us feel right at home. Over the past few weeks, in many of the cities we have visited, we have been amazed that we have actually found our hostel. That is because they often just give the street on which they’re located, but do not provide a number or even a cross street. (The directions rarely include anything more than “located in downtown.”)
So when the airport bus dropped us off at its terminal station on Al Sabka, the same street that our hostel was located on, we had no idea where to go! But after asking about a half dozen people for directions, and averaging their replies, we manged to find it. We were so exhausted from walking in the 105+ heat though we ended up taking a bit of a nap and waiting until dusk to attempt venturing out again. I read several months ago in an article in Geographic about the huge numbers of migrant workers that are responsible for building the amazing skyscrapers that Dubai has become famous for. Similarly, I recently read a statistic that only 17% of the UAE population is composed of its own citizens. I’d certainly believe that judging from the areas we saw; it seemed to be composed overwhelmingly more of Indians than Arabs, though interestingly, they seemed to be mostly Muslim. We were still a bit exhausted so our night walk didn’t carry us too far. We also got to see the city’s famous “gold souk,” a huge conglomeration of nearly identical jewelry stores selling gold and diamonds in nealy every style or design imaginable. Quite sweaty by the time this was all over, we treated ourselves to a huge pitcher of a “mixed cocktail,” a juice drink composed of blended strawberries, kiwis, mangoes, banana, and papaya before we finally retired for the night.
Dubai is a very interesting place. Though it is well known across the globe, I doubt few people can name a famous Emirati artist or politician. It is a city known for it money and its excesses. I often found myself wondering, if all the wealth and the materialism are stripped away, what IS Dubai?
The first thing we wanted to settle on our second day in Dubai was our bus ticket to Muscat. We found ourselves on a bit of a wild goose chase, as when we arrived at one station, we would be told we were at the wrong one, and would be sent to another. Usually, someone would tell us to take a taxi to the “Omani Bus Station” but aside from that advice, no one actually knew were this station precisely was.
After wasting several hours running around stations, we ended up deciding to head to the Mall of the Emirates, one of the few “sights” in Dubai, and just leave the tickets to the last minute. Using the Dubai’s bus system reminded us again of Dubai’s many strange ironies. It is a city that contains the world’s largest malls, the tallest buildings, and from what I’ve seen, likely the most Hummer dealerships per square mile anywhere. But the complete failure of the state to provide a similar state of the art infrastructure for its working poor is quite shameful. We got to experience this firsthand by using the public bus system. It is likely the worst public transport system of any global city we’ve ever visited. Over the three days we stayed, we waited between 30 minutes to once as much as 2 hours for a bus to show up. The public transportation map, plastered with mission statements and company visions, sounds like it was written by someone who has never actually ridden on a bus.
Nevertheless, after about a 3 hour odyssey across the city, we finally arrived within a mile of the Mall of the Emirates. To further emphasize how tacky we found Dubai to be, I’d like to mention that the mall contains the world’s largest indoor ski slope. Though I can not imagine how much cheap Emirati oil is being used to create a ski slope in the middle of the Arabian desert, I would like everyone that is paying $4 a gallon back at home to know, I boycotted the ski slope for you. Katie and I did have a fun time in the mall. We got to plop down in a Borders to read up on worldly events (and look at a wedding magazine or two). We also went into furniture stores and began planning how to decorate our new apartment (We just signed a lease on an apartment off Cleveland Circle!) We also walked into a Harvey Nichols store and saw what an $8,000 dress looks like– it was actually quite tragically ugly.
By the time we exited the mall to the time we stepped back into our hostel, well over two hours had gone by. Dubai is a lot like many American cities. There is a central downtown that is mostly used by businessmen during work hours and many of the other sites are distanced far apart, making bus travel quite lengthy, both in terms of waiting for the bus itself and making so many stops on what is already a long distance. Tired and quite mesmerized by how so much of the day had flown by, though we had not really done all that much, we headed to bed and decided to spend the following day at the beach and perhaps visit a few more iconic landmarks. We woke up with a little bit of stomach trouble the next morning. It was a bit ironic that it was off the American food that we ate in the mall! During the last few countries we have visited in the Middle East, breakfast has always included hard boiled eggs. Same has been true here in Dubai, though it has also included some interesting sides such as baked beans and hot dogs, like we had his morning. Before we went out to the bus stop to take us to one of Dubai’s public beaches, we thought it would be fun to go to the top floor of the Hyatt Regency and try to see if we could make out “The Palm Diera” that is currently under construction. An unprecedented amount of dredging has been required to build them. Everyone from marine biologists, to scuba divers, to fanatical environmentalists has complained about the incredible ecological damage that these artificial islands have created. It’s also a bit creepy, in a 1984 kind of way, that no one calls what they’re doing dredging, but “land reclamation.” Well, we were blown away by what we saw– even on the 20th floor, you can’t even make out what you’re looking at. It’s absolutely enormous and terribly tacky.
After waiting at a bus stop, a bus finally arrived and we took off to spend the day relaxing on the beach. The beach was actually in a very controlled area, where you had to pay an entrance fee. We thought it was a little strange, but at the same time, the beach was quite nice with lots of huge palm trees planted for cover. After spending a sufficient amount of time at the beach, we thought we’d head out and try to find a late lunch as we were quite hungry and the hostel’s breakfast that morning of baked beans and shriveled hot dogs didn’t quite hold us over long enough. Unfortunately, outside the beach was just a small strip mall and hardly anything more for miles. And the only restaurant in the strip mall was a Chili’s, so shamefully, we went in for a light snack. What was amusing was when we ordered some dip the waiter told us that it was made “manually;” that it wasn’t cooked in the United States but in their own kitchen. What was not so amusing was the way our tummies felt a few hours later. Two days of American food, two days in a row of feeling ill. (Yet as as I write this after having spent the last 5 days in India, we have yet to get sick once.)
We had hoped to go see the Burj al Arab hotel, the only self-declared 7 star hotel in the world, but the “Welcome Center” kept us from going to see it. We planned to catch a bus back to the hostel, but after waiting for 2 hours, we decided simply to split a taxi to the Gold Souk with an equally frustrated Canadian couple. Exhausted after a long day in the heat, we returned back to the hostel and slept till well into the next morning. We spent our final day in an Internet cafe before boarding a mid-afternoon bus to Muscat. Actually leaving was a bit of an adventure than we had anticipated because the official government bus broke down right before we were to leave, so we had to get a refund, and run to the private bus before everyone else got on it. Though it was more expensive and a bit more dirty, it still managed to get out around the time we had originally planned.