Coming in to land in Dubai, the new huge city seems to rise out of both desert and sea into what looks like a super-city from some sort of sci-fi / dystopian world. We were embraced into this world from the get go on arriving in Dubai in the late afternoon on 27th December. The airport itself – famous as a modern, global transport hub – could not have been more different to Zanzibar’s with its vast entrance halls, ultraclean and shiny surfaces and generic, international shops and restaurant (we confess we did have a Subway sandwich each on arriving which was quite exciting after 3.5 weeks in East Africa). Our uber ride was a black Lexus limousine (turns out they all are and regular taxis here are the cheaper option due to UAE government taxi regulations). This squeaky clean, generic international consumerist feel did not stop at the airport.
Our hotel was a fairly characterless 10 storey (or so) building on Al Rigga street, fairly near both the airport and the “old” centre of town. Hilariously and possibly concerningly, it somehow had two nightclubs: an Indian Bollywood-themed one and a strange Thai / Route 66, a “pub”, shisha lounge and spa. Settling in, we took a taxi to “downtown Dubai”, an area that is something of a huge hub in the new Dubai that has risen out of the desert. This is also where the towering, dominating Burj Khalifa is also located. At 800m high, the world’s tallest building just goes on and on. It looks like some kind of sci-fi tower of Babel, dwarfing the rest of the city’s already very tall skyscrapers.
Around this beast of a building, an immaculately beautiful homage to the modern consumerist human has been created: a vast set of pools with a huge set of tens of fountains that every 20 minutes or so perform a light, sound and dance / show which really is mesmarisingly impressive. The shows also include astonishing LED lights going right up the entire 800m side of the Burj Khalifa, effectively turning the entire building into a huge TV screen / projection with myriads of changing colours in time with the music. The fountains, of course, sway and spray in time with the music as well. This incredible spectacle was not even anything special… it happened every day!
Flanked on all sides of the fountains are a range of shopping malls. We had dinner in an excellent Lebanese restaurant on a terrace overlooking this spectacle. We would get up from our table every 20 minutes to see a totally fresh show. The restaurant itself is attached to what we can confidently say was the most immaculate shopping centre we have seen: perfect marble and granite flooring, ceilings, walls, windows, lamps, chandeliers etc. are all built in classical Arabic patterns. Wandering a little further along the pools after dinner, we realised there was a Liam Payne (from One Direction) concert happening in the adjacent square and a big screen had been set up in front of the Burj Khalifa. Finally, we took the daunting decision to wander into the “Dubai Mall” on the north side of the pools. We wanted to see the aquarium that lay within, but just finding it and getting there proved to be a challenge in the vast endless halls of the shopping frenzy. The aquarium itself was incredible – a simply enormous tank (maybe 4 storeys high) filled with large sharks, manta rays and all manner of smaller fish and choral. Even leaving the mall proved to be exhausting. We had to wait in a Wimbledon-esque queue for about 25 minutes for a taxi. While this was all to a great extent business as usual in Dubai, the crowds were particularly manic because of the official “shopping festival” that was into its 2nd day.
Highlights from our Dubai hotel included discovering our 1st floor bedroom was directly above the (by the late evening) fully pumping Bollywood nightclub – we were mercifully granted a room several floors higher; and an Indian lady deciding to take an entire fresh batch of chicken nuggets (~20) at the breakfast buffet. We don’t generally eat nuggets, let alone for breakfast, but for a bit of a novelty/ western food nostalgia factor we fancied some… Katharine called the lady out on this to which she protested “they are for my children” and proceeded to scoff them! Despite going nuggetless, this provided some top quality entertainment value for us!
Having experienced some of the madness and beauty of Dubai in our first night, day 2 in the UAE saw us venture to Abu Dhabi. The bus to Abu Dhabi was the easiest bus we had so far got – very modern and if anything too air-conditioned. Somewhat bizarrely we discovered there were gender segregated queues for tickets adjacent to one another when Katharine was told off for queueing with George – our first view of how Emirati customs materialise in life in the UAE. The fact that the bus was filled with South Asians and tourists (we did not expect many Emiratis get the bus…) made this somewhat ironic. The bus took about 2 hours, during which time we crossed skyscrapers, dusty, stony desert, massive desalination plants (it turns out almost all fresh water in UAE is produced from the sea) and a glimpse of the mangrove conservation area in Abu Dhabi.
Upon arriving in Abu Dhabi, we grabbed some samosas from a mall and hopped in a taxi straight for the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. Our visit proved to be effectively one long queue (due to peak holiday season). When we eventually did get in, we encountered a jaw-droppingly ornate and beautiful religious site. Every surface has emaculately carved granite flowers embedded within pristine white marble. Pools of water surround the exterior of the building. Stunningly colourful tiles in the corners of the hallways. Huge colourful chandeliers (in an almost modern art style) hang from the interior worship areas. All in all, the mosque is a modern carnation of the Taj Mahal (no exaggeration) and must have been beyond horrifically expensive to construct. Of course, entrance is free: charging entrance fees would probably appear cheap in the eyes of the Emirati administration.
After the grand mosque, we hopped into another taxi for the Louvre satellite museum. The museum is newly built on what until recently was sea on a part of town that is rapidly expanding (also into the sea). The museum exhibition was a very enjoyable and coherent short story of human history. It included artefacts from across the globe and drew insightful comparisons between cultures from distant corners of the world. The real appeal of the museum, however, is the building itself. It is built on polished, perfectly proportioned right angled concrete blocks, giving the sense that the building rises out of the water. Covering the entire space, is a truly incredible dome of several layers of overlapping lattices – each layer different. The effect is that every part of the roof is totally unique and light shines through in unique and angles and patterns. Satisfied with our sightseeing, we checked into our hotel in central Abu Dhabi and had underwhelming but cheap Chinese food for dinner.
The next day, 29th December, was a proper treat day for ourselves: we had bought tickets in advance for Wild Wadi waterpark in Dubai! We managed to get there in good time – shortly after mid day having got the bus back from Abu Dhabi in the morning. The waterpark was very busy again but was a nice way for us to switch off from the constant moving around we had been doing. We went on a few log flume-like slides that propelled you up at speeds with jets of water before descending again on normal slides. George braved a slide that launched you straight down at terrifying speeds from a standing position and through a trap door. One time was enough… In the evening, we ventured into the older part of town (still felt like it was probably 1970s buildings at most) and walked through the gold and spice souks. After a seeing what was allegedly the world’s largest gold ring and getting a quickfire presentation of what the various spices were by an enthusiastic merchant, we had dinner at a “traditional” Emirati restaurant that was a little bit of a tourist magnet but quite interesting. The restaurant was housed in a genuinely old Emirati building (seemingly the only surviving one in the whole area). The minced shark – apparently a local speciality – was a bit like dry strong tasting tuna and not particularly exciting… Thankfully, we were staying in a different hotel to the Bollywood madness from 2 nights before and managed to get a good night’s sleep before heading back to the airport once again for our next leg of the trip: the Caucasus (Georgia and Armenia).
In all 3 days felt about right for Dubai and Abu Dhabi. We were glad we stopped and had some genuinely enjoyable experiences / sightseeing along the way! The sheer scale of modernity and construction is also, in a way, an interesting view of what city planners can do with a blank slate and a blank cheque… In an age of massive and growing inequality and human-driven climate change, it is an investment and level of consumption that seems hard to justify. It is also an undeniably strange demographic setup with the local Emirati citizens only making up around 20% of the population and most of the economy being fuelled with oil and cheap labour from India and Pakistan (the taxi drivers we spoke to worked intensively on rotation, spending several months off at a time back home with their wives and children).
tranetrottingthemegamoon.travel.blog 