Davin Reporting!
After several days at sea, we finally arrived in Dubai, UAE. I have to admit that my expectations for this stop were quite low. As I got off the ship I also felt rather wary. Even though Dubai is supposed to be tolerant and welcoming, this is still the Middle East, and I really did not know what to expect. The ship also advised dressing conservatively.
In the cruise terminal there was some Middle Eastern music playing, which kind of reminded me of Amr Diab, and so far everything seemed alright. After a brief bit of confusion, the local staff was really not on the ball about directing us to where we needed to go, we found our bus to begin our tour. Our tour guide was from Serbia, and he has been working in Dubai for something like 15 years.
As the bus pulled out of the cruise terminal, we passed by the QE2, which has been sitting there deteriorating for close to a decade now. Supposedly, the current plan is to make it into a restaurant– I’ll believe it when I see it. Personally, I’m not sure why they didn’t just go forward with the plan to make the ship into a hotel? Although the Emirate totally overpaid for the ship, what’s done is done. Just having it sit there and rust away makes little sense. I suppose, this being Dubai, they probably think they need to make the entire interior gold plated, which makes the cost of renovation astronomical.
On the ride to our first stop, we learned a bit about Dubai and the UAE. It turns out that only about 10% of the population of the UAE are actual citizens. The rest, the vast majority, are imported foreign workers, like our guide. There isn’t a lot of trouble with crime or social unrest, because if anyone causes any problems they are just deported– a strategy that can really only work in a place like this. Also, from what I’ve read, the workers imported from India and other parts of Asia are often treated quite poorly.
[Kristin Interjection: We were told that the UAE has 8 million people but only 1 million are citizens. The only way to be a citizen is to be the child of a citizen. The only exception is if a woman marries an Emiratee, which is only allowed if she converts to Islam first, and then spends 10 years in the UAE. She then becomes eligible for citizenship. If a woman citizen marries a man, there is no possible way for him to become a citizen even if he is willing to convert to Islam!]
People who come here do so to make more money than they would back home. However, there is a downside that this isn’t really their country. The maximum age a foreign worker can work in Dubai is 65, after which time they are forced to leave, unless they own a house. Also by working here you are not eligible for any sort of pension, so if you don’t save your money you’ll be in trouble.
The weather here in Dubai is only tolerable for part of the year. In the summer, the temperature averages around 106 degrees, which is further exacerbated by humidity reaching 90%! Considering that 90 degrees in Malaysia with 60% humidity felt like 110 degrees, the experience in Dubai must be much worse– actually extremely dangerous! Our guide hates being there over the summer. Incidentally, the royal family of Dubai has a chateau in France where they go to live during the summer months!
[Kristin Interjection: Davin considers this summer evacuation on the part of the royal family to be a bit hypocritical! It certainly shows a certain lack of love for certain aspects of their country. Most people don’t have to same opportunity to escape the heat!]
Although Dubai was clearly built using oil money, nowadays most of its income comes from other sources. For example, it is now a major airline hub with its Emirates airline. Currently there are no taxes on income, but I suspect in the future that will probably have to change. I also wonder whether the system of using imported workers will ultimately be sustainable or if eventually they will have to integrate them more fully into their society.
Our first stop was the Burj Khalifa, currently the world’s tallest buildings. I wasn’t expecting all that much from this, because I’d already seen Taipei 101, once the world’s tallest building, and I hadn’t been that impressed. Much to my surprise, when I actually set eyes on the Burj Khalifa, I was totally blown away by it! It was like something out of a sci-fi movie: an incredibly tall spire reaching up into the sky! Not only was it physically tall, but its height was accentuated by its architecture, which tapered as it went higher. It was a sight which truly defied belief!
[Kristin Interjection: It is definitely the most beautiful building I’ve ever seen. We were especially lucky to see it in the early morning light with the sun glinting off of it. I took a picture with my phone and sent it to Scott and he thought that it was a CG image from a game!]
After viewing the building from the outside, we walked through ‘The Dubai Mall’ to reach the entrance to the Burj Khalifa observation deck. At the time the mall was nearly deserted, and I wondered if had been overbuilt?
[Kristin Interjection: There is an aquarium in the middle of the mall. The awesome thing is that there is a huge wall that is just glass and everyone in the mall can see into this tank and watch the fish without even paying to enter the aquarium!]
Unfortunately, I didn’t feel that looking out from the observation deck was as impressive as seeing the building from the ground. When you are so high up, you lack any real perspective, so it’s hard to truly appreciate how high up you are. Dubai as a city is also fairly unimpressive, because it only extends for a few miles before giving way to the desert. On top of all that, it was fairly hazy, either from pollution or dust– I guess it’s only entirely clear here right after it rains, which is rare– which further detracted from the view.
When we first got to the observation deck it was pretty empty, but as we were up there it really started to fill up. It seems our guides knew what they were doing, and got the Burj Khalifa out of the way before the crowds started to show up. That’s definitely an important point for anyone visiting Dubai: hit the Burj Khalifa observation deck early in the morning, preferably before 10:00 AM! We had little to no wait when we were there, but in the afternoon, the place is probably a madhouse!
We walked back through the mall and boarded the bus to our next destination. On the way we learned that Dubai has a lot of mosques: because it is so hot there it was decided that no citizen should have to walk more than 300 meters to reach a mosque. In addition, most real estate is limited to being owned by locals, so foreigners are forced to rent.
[Kristin Interjection: Also if a foreigner wants to buy property it must be in certain parts of the town. A lot of areas are forbidden to be sold to a foreigner. So, to live in those parts of town a foreigner can only rent.]
Our next stop was the Burj Al Arab (burj means tower in arabic), which is one of Dubai’s iconic buildings. The outside is shaped like a sail, and it’s the world’s only 7 star hotel! Rooms start at a couple thousand dollars per night! Our view of the Burj Al Arab was from a beach, which had some pathetic little waves (before this trip, I never realized how good the surf was in San Diego). The water was warm, but there wasn’t much you could do there besides swim.
A couple of interesting cultural notes: Women can wear bikinis on the beach, but they need to cover up before they leave the beach or they will be arrested. Also, you get a minimum of six months in jail for kissing in public! While seeing people making out in public can be annoying, that penalty seems a bit excessive to me. In my estimation, a few canes across the butt, or a swift kick to the balls, would be more than sufficient...... Just kidding! Anyway, there are some definite idiosyncracies here in Dubai.
[Kristin Interjection: So, the ship handout said that you could be arrested for wearing shorts and tank-tops in public. I asked our guide and his response was, “Maybe 20 years ago!” This response made sense to me because there were women in both malls we visited with their cleavage showing, and wearing short shorts. So, the ship handout was outdated. But, there are still many things that can get you into trouble which is interesting, funny or surprising to us Westerners.
For example, there is the kissing example. Also, swearing or making rude gestures (the middle finger) gets you a minimum of 6 months in jail. You can get four years in prison if you are found with a single joint of marijuana on you!
There is freedom of religion in Dubai, except that you must also respect Islamic holiday traditions, so noone can eat or drink in public during Ramadan. Our guide said that he takes his snack and drink into the bathroom stall and sits in there to eat during the day.
Also, it is illegal to proselytize. So, Mormons are basically not allowed in Dubai because they can’t resist that basic tenant of their faith. If anyone, Mormom, Jehovah’s Witness, whoever, goes door to door handing out pamphlets, they will be arrested. Now THAT is a law I could get behind! Hahaha!
There is a $500 fine for spitting in public, and a $150 fine for littering. Plain clothes police roam the cities catching people breaking the laws.]
Back to the Burj Al Arab, apparently it is still considered to be Dubai’s premier architectural landmark, despite the construction of the Burj Khalifa. Personally, I found the Burj Khalifa to be much more impressive. There’s also a common misconception that there is a tennis court on the top of the building on what’s actually the heli-pad, thanks to a past advertising campaign. I remember that ad, but I don’t think I was ever under the illusion that there was actually a tennis court on top of the building!
[Kristin Interjection: The Burj Khalifa is way better than the Burj Al Arab. It’s an amazing building that looks good from every angle! It is very photogenic! Lol!]
Continuing our tour, we drove past the Palm Jumeirah, although you really could not see much of it from the ground, besides the hotel at the far end. We also passed by a marina area, with some other interesting buildings. All on the way to The Mall of the Emirates (another shopping mall), where we saw Ski Dubai: the only internal ski slope in the Middle East! And maybe also the only one in the world?
Ok, the whole concept of this place is kind of ridiculous, but it’s an internal ski slope. The temperature inside is obviously maintained below freezing, at the cost of god knows how much power. From outside in the mall you can watch people skiing, snowboarding and sledding inside. Also, they have large black, thermal niqabs for conservative women to wear. It was pretty weird to see women playing with their kids in the snow, with only their eyes showing.
Nearby Ski Dubai, we found a large bowling alley and amusement area. At the time we were there it was basically abandoned, but it might be a happening place to be on Thursday night! That’s right, in Islamic countries the weekend is Friday and Saturday, with Friday being the holy day.
That was the last stop on our tour and we now returned to the ship. We did ask the guide a few more questions. First of all, you can pretty much wear anything you want here. According to our guide, the ship’s advice to dress conservative was how things were 15 years ago. Women can wear short skirts and open tops exposing their bosoms.
The other interesting thing was that knowing English was more useful in Dubai than knowing Arabic. The reason: all of the imported workers, like those who work in the mall, are expected to speak English, but not necessarily Arabic. I think it must be odd having to learn a foreign language to get around in your own country, but then again I suppose most Emiratees are not complaining.
Finally, while Dubai is generally tolerant of other religions and relaxed about dress, there are still some ways that its conservative roots can be seen. During Ramadan, no one is allowed to eat in public, whether or not they are Muslims. The aforementioned kissing thing, and the fact a woman can wear a bikini on the beach but not off of it. It didn’t come up, but I suspect the country’s acceptance of gay and transgender people probably sucks. So, while it may be the most liberal city in the Middle East, it’s still in the Middle East.
We got back to the ship and decided to head back on board to get some of our postcards to mail at the Mina Rashid postoffice, located in the cruise terminal. This postoffice is really just a small cardboard stand, manned by an attendant. Unfortunately, getting back on the ship proved to be problematic because over 1200 passengers were embarking here, and the gangway was backed up by hundreds of people waiting to get on! This was a serious inconvenience for those of us already on the cruise.
Finally, we made it back on, collected our postcards and returned to the postoffice. There we elected to purchase some postcard stamps, but we decided to pass on mailing our larger envelopes because the price was higher than it would be from the ship. It seems that you can game the mail system on the ship, since it’s not based on weight. You get ripped off if you mail something like a postcard, but you actually come out ahead if you mail something more beefy!
We proceeded out front of the cruise terminal and grabbed the cruise shuttle bus back to the Dubai mall, where we proceeded to the food court. First, an interesting note: the bathroom stalls in Dubai have a spray hose attached to the wall. Some people claim this is somehow more hygienic than wiping with paper, but I’m not sold on that. There was water all over the floor, so you clearly cannot operate it without getting water everywhere. Personally, I don’t think having shit tainted water all over the ground is hygienic at all. And if you make a mistake while operating the hose, you run the risk of splashing that aforementioned water all over your clothes, too! Paper just leaves more margin for error.
Continuing our Pizza Hut World Tour, we elected to order a couple of Pizza Hut pizzas. We got a classic tomato and pineapple pizza, and also a local chicken shawarma variant. To drink, we visited another restaurant and ordered a glass bottle coke, which turned out to be very expensive, since it was a Mexican coke (imported halfway around the world from Mexico). At least we know the coke was made with sugar, so it may have actually been worth the high cost.
[Kristin Interjection: I thought it was funny that we were in Dubai drinking $6.00 Mexican Cokes that we buy locally at Home Depot in San Diego. What luxury we have at home!]
When our pizza was ready, we were surprised to receive ketchup packets along with it! At first we thought it was ridiculous, but then we discovered that our pineapple and tomato pizza really didn’t have enough sauce on it, even though we requested extra sauce. With nothing much to lose, we tried adding the ketchup to it, and amazingly it actually did improve the situation. While the concept of putting ketchup on pizza may seem weird, both pizza sauce and ketchup are tomato based, so it probably makes sense that they can be substituted for one another!
After finishing our pizzas we spent some time writing postcards, and then went outside to watch the fountain show in the man-made lake next to the mall. After seeing Singapore’s fountain show, my expectations for this weren’t very high, but surprisingly this was another thing that Dubai got right. Instead of being some weird video display on the fountain, this was instead a water display accompanied by music. It actually turned out to be quite impressive.
Next we purchased an ice cream and walked around the outside of the lake– a process which turned out to be more difficult than expected. In the process we ended up seeing a lot of views of different buildings in the downtown area, including a number of additional views of the Burj Khalifa. We also saw the water show three more times, with the music and show being slightly different each time! I’m not sure how many different variants there are, but it’s nice that the show is not always the same, so there’s a reason to stick around for more than one (it goes off every thirty minutes).
[Kristin Interjection: I thought it was a poor design that there isn’t actually a pedestrian walkway around the entire lake. We got lost in an apartment complex for awhile. The only benefit of this was accidentally stumbling on the location where one of the postcards of the Burj Khalifa, which we had purchased, was taken!]
Back in the mall we went back to the food court for our dinner. After briefly considering a Lebanese place (our guide claimed that it was one of his favorite foods, but I was not impressed by the look of it), we settled on a burrito from the Mexican restaurant where we previously purchased our Cokes. The burrito was OK, but it wasn’t really authentic. I don’t know why you just can’t find authentic Mexican food outside of a few hundred miles from the border? Maybe it just doesn’t sell?
We toured the mall for a little bit longer to see how it was. For the most part it was like a standard Western mall, such as those seen in Singapore and Hong Kong and the Philippines, however there were some local twists. For example, there were shops selling traditional middle eastern garb.
Another interesting and weird thing about the mall was how you would see women dressed in revealing western clothes, and then see other women veiled in black from head to toe. According to our guide most of the people wearing this form of dress are from Saudi Arabia, as locals did not dress that way. But still, the clash of cultures was still totally weird.
Actually the topic of dress is an interesting topic in general. You’d have men dressed in fully western style clothes, accompanied by their wife who was covered except for her eyes. Some women with only their eyes showing, nonetheless wore makeup around their eyes, which at least on the face of it (pun intended) seemed immodest.
Women who were covered entirely in formless black robes except for their face and hands, could be seen wearing stiletto high heels. Other, usually younger women, would wear more colorful head scarves, and one woman we saw wore her head scarf so far back that it didn’t really cover her hair at all and kept threatening to fall off and she had to keep pulling it back up! It seemed like everyone was trying to get away with as much as they could.
The mall also had prayer rooms, and the call to prayer played throughout the entire mall. But no one really seemed to give a damn about it, and just went about their business as normal. There may have been a few devout Muslims praying, but most people seemingly couldn’t be bothered. Actually, it’s probably not that surprising: there are no religious police in Dubai, and it’s probably not possible to get people to pray five times a day unless you can beat them!
Our last stop in the mall was a SEGA arcade to see how it compared to the one we saw in Japan. It turned out to be nothing even close. They had a few crane games and video games, but most of it was actually a large indoor amusement park. They had large slides, an indoor roller coaster, and other rides. There was also a section where you could sit on couches and play video game consoles– if this was timed or something it was not clear.
At the arcade we observed a group of black robed women playing a water shooting game, and one walked away with a large plush toy. Once again, it was interesting to see, because it simply is not what you’d expect. Dubai is definitely a place in transition. In another couple of decades, maybe it will be indistinguishable from Europe? On the other hand, maybe global warming will make the entire place uninhabitable, and it will just be a flash in the pan.
It was now getting late, so we hopped on the shuttle bus back to the ship, passing by the forlorn hulk of the QE2 one last time. Although I went in with very low expectations, I came away quite impressed by Dubai. I did not feel uncomfortable or unduly restricted there. It was very cool to see the Burj Khalifa and other man-made wonders, but maybe the best thing was actually viewing the fusion of totally different cultures.
I don’t think I’d want to live in Dubai. For one thing, I could never trust a country that is essentially a dictatorship, and where the rule of law may or may not always apply. But I definitely think that it’s worthwhile to spare at least one or two days to visit the city, especially if you are already flying through on Emirates Air.
[Kristin Interjection: I really liked Dubai but it is very weird to be in a place where certain freedoms are not guaranteed. It is scary to think that you can get in serious trouble for very innocuous things. It would be easy to get arrested simply out of ignorance of the rules/laws! Dubai is pretty much like a Western shopping mall.
I really don’t think there is anything worth doing in Dubai other than going to see the Burj Khalifa and Burj Al Arab. It reminded me of Las Vegas minus the gambling (which is illegal, of course! ;p), and the shows. But Vegas without gambling or shows would pretty much not be worth visiting, right? Lol. I guess you can go to a water park, a ski slope and a beach. All of which we have in California though, so not really very enticing!
Just come to see the world’s tallest building. After Saudi Arabia finishes their world’s tallest building around 2020, then still come to Dubai to see the world’s tallest building that Westerners are allowed to visit! Lol! It is a truly magnificent building.]
Next Stop: Muscat, Oman (April 19, 2016)
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