The Miracle of Dubai

It’s true that the longer you procrastinate, the longer it takes to get the job done. We’ve been home from our big trip for more than six weeks. In fact, six weeks ago today we were leaving Dubai for Ireland. And I haven’t finished the blog. I do it for myself, not for anyone else, so that was my excuse to put it off until tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…

Five days ago, the cyclone hit Myanmar, centering its destructive force in Yangon right where we rested our heads just ten weeks ago. Thank God, we have heard that our wonderful guide, Nu Nu, and her family, are all safe, although the roof was blown off her house and now that tourism is last on the list of viable money makers for Myanmar, the Lord only knows what she will do for a livelihood. If any good comes from this terrible tragedy that has stricken an already stricken people, then maybe it will be the overthrow of the government that couldn’t even find it in its heart to warn the people of the impending danger; and then, after the fact, refuses to allow UN and US aid into the country.

That was a long-winded way of illustrating that procrastination is not a good thing. You never know when your ability to do whatever it is you are putting off will be snatched right out from under you. So, once again (I’ve done this before), I vow that I will seize the day, stop wasting time (OK a little wasted time is rejuvenating and good for the soul), try to accomplish at least one worthwhile thing every day, and in the long run feel better about myself. In graduate school I learned a wonderful truism: the routine drives out the non-routine. In other words, today I will write a chapter of my book (begin work on a new bedspread, sign up for water color classes, begin plowing through that Spanish course on the internet, continue my Photoshop lessons, catch up with an old friend, exercise til I’m blue, or whatever floats your boat). But first I have to go to the grocery store, straighten up the house, read the paper, figure out what to have for dinner, pay a bill, call my friend, surf the net, do a crossword, etc. etc. etc, until voila! It’s evening and then I have earned the right to relax with a glass of wine because I’m exhausted from all that work. Do you catch my drift? The really important thing has gone undone yet again. But my house is tidy.

So while the spirit is willing, the flesh is ever weak, and I hope my new-found enthusiasm will last at least until I finish the blog. Then I’ll work on working on something else.

We chose to go to Dubai because it was kind of on the way to Ireland. Almost everyone knows about Dubai, but unless you have business there or you really are a seasoned traveler, most people, Americans at least, don’t think about going there. It’s a popular spot for Brits because it’s only about eight hours from Heathrow and obviously a polar opposite in atmosphere and feel from the stiff-upper-lip English traditional way. Dubai is synonymous with FUN! ADVENTURE! CAN-DO SPIRIT! Lots To Do and Lots To Buy—that’s the motto of Dubai.

For Americans, we already have a lot of that fun, adventure, and can-do spirit right here in the good old US of A. Also it’s a really long plane ride from anywhere in America to Dubai. But in our case, we were continuing on from Myanmar, to Bangkok, to Ireland and what better place to pop in on than the United Arab Emirates, specifically Dubai, which a mere thirty years ago was a small fishing village with a modest amount of oil and nothing going for it but a huge expanse of blazing desert and the Arabian Sea. Our thinking was: we’ll go for a couple of days, probably turn up our respective noses at the Disney World/Las Vegas type atmosphere, but we can say we’ve seen it and that will be that.

We were oh, so wrong! What is going on in Dubai is nothing short of phenomenal. My only regret is that we had only two days to see as much as we could of the miracle that is called Dubai. We were so impressed that our goal now is to return in two to five years just to see what further astonishments have been wrought in the meantime.

We arrived at Dubai International from Bangkok around 11:00 on a Wednesday night. Late, but we had no choice. By the time we got into the passport control line it was midnight or later. One would have thought it was twelve noon, not twelve midnight. There were hordes of people lined up and milling about, the energy fairly pulsated and to entertain us while waiting we were treated to an International Fashion Show. No, no models were strutting down a runway. The fashion was in the form of abayas, thobes, dashikis, djellabas, muu muus, caftans, and a myriad of other traditional garb that I can neither name nor pronounce. Of course there were many men dressed in dishdashahs, or thobes--the traditional Arab white robe--and wearing the traditional headdress of white or red-checked cloth topped with a black band to hold it in place. There were African men in full regalia, colorful dashiki robes or pajama type outfits, or the Moroccan djellaba, also wildly colorful and variously fitted from tight to baggy. Afghani men in strange outfits I can’t name, vests and robes, loose flowing pants, tajiki hats and turbans, feet in all types of flip flops and well-worn sandals. And then of course Indians in dhotis, similar to the Burmese longhi, which is a length of colorful cloth wrapped at the waist and then topped with an ordinary Western shirt. Many wore turbans or other traditional headdresses.

The women, who were by the way in much fewer numbers than the men, were also dressed in a great variety of styles. At one extreme there were burkhas--the black robes which cover the entire woman, even her eyes--at the other extreme there was me--dressed in my Chico’s Traveler no-wrinkle knit basic black airplane uniform.

Just below the burkha in modest Muslim garb is the abaya, the black robe which just covers the woman from the neck down. With the abaya, the woman wears a hijab, a head scarf which hangs gracefully, sometimes revealing just a bit of hair and often a strikingly beautiful and professionally made-up face. Amazingly, when you look closely, some of these abayas are really beautiful, the high quality fabric hanging just so and as soft as can be, and fitted to show off a shapely figure. We were to see more of that in the days to come. But for now, I was astounded at the variety of cultures standing together just as naturally as if they were all good ole boys on the ranch. Among the women there were Africans in full robe and headdress, Indians in saris of golden thread and embellished with jewels and sequins and wearing the bindi, or red forehead dot. There were also both men and women in tribal dress, although which of the hundreds of tribes of African, Middle Eastern, or Asian derivation I haven’t a clue.

I should add that about half of the people were dressed “normally”, that is, in pants and shirts and skirts and dresses, just like me and Tom. How boring we looked compared to the other half. I would have loved to have taken pictures but of course I didn’t dare.

Class distinctions were quite evident as well. You could almost pick out those men that were there on business, smart in their bespoke suits or designer caftans, and women in elaborate silks dripping with jewels or carrying Gucci bags over their abaya-draped shoulders. In contrast, many others looked as poor and bedraggled as those we had seen in Myanmar, exhausted from their travels, with fear and/or hope in their eyes as to what lay ahead. These were the ubiquitous “guest workers” with whom we are by now quite familiar.

But all this, and we’re not even out of the airport yet! We stayed at the Sheraton on the Creek—I wouldn’t recommend it, too old in a city that screams new and shiny, but perfectly located for our purposes. The next morning we took a taxi (cheap and plentiful) to the nearest Big Bus location. The Big Bus, a franchise I suppose that operates in many large cities (we did this in Dublin as well), is a great way to get an overview of a city in a short amount of time. The buses are double-decker and modern with knowledgeable and perky guides who know everything there is to know about Dubai. There are about twenty stops on the circuit and you can “hop” on and “hop” off at any of them to linger at a particular site. When you are ready to hop back on, the wait is short as they come in about ten or fifteen minutes intervals.

A few facts to get you oriented: Dubai is an emirate or city state, one of seven in the UAE, with 1.3 million people of whom about 20% are natives and the rest ex-pats. There are 190 nationalities represented there (I guess I missed a few in the above fashion show). The first high rise was built in 1979 when there was nothing there but desert and a fishing community. It boasts the tallest building in the world, the Burj Tower, which is already 160 floors tall. Even when completed the design is such that if another building somewhere in the world surpasses it in height, the Burj can be added onto. Ingenious.

The city is roughly divided into “the beach” (called Jumeira) and “the city” (called Deira) which are separated by Dubai Creek, not a creek as we know it but a wide river, teeming with river traffic both commercial and leisure. Cargo ships share dock space with yachts and the idle rich sip champagne while “guest workers” load and unload thousands of crates of goods of every variety. On the beach side there are opulent residential areas, hotels and shopping, and on the city side there are skyscrapers, hotels and shopping--an over-simplified description of course because everywhere the undercurrent of commerce pulsates. You can just feel the deals being done, the contracts getting drawn up and the rich getting richer. And while the whole city is under construction to one degree or another and will be for years to come, the massive building boom doesn't interfere with one's enjoyment of the scene. The national bird is said to be the “crane” and we were told that 40% of the world’s cranes are currently in use in Dubai. This may or may not be true.

Off the coast are several sets of man-made islands which we didn’t see but two are in the shape of palm trees and one in the shape of the world. For those of you with the financial wherewithal, one of the fronds would be a lovely spot to build an estate; or perhaps the island known as Rio de Janeiro on the continent of South America would be more to your liking.

Mohammid bin Rashid al Maktoum, lovingly known as Sheikh Mohammid, is the brains behind Dubai. He is revered by Dubaians, billboards with his picture dot the cityscape, even the Sheraton has a large portrait of His Highness in the lobby. This is why:

In the eighties he figured out that the oil reserves of Dubai were not large enough to sustain the country into the 21^st century and that something else had to replace them. He envisioned the city of Dubai as a place that would attract international investment, would attract visitors from all over the world and would stand as a model for modern achievement. He has not disappointed, as building after building grows out of the desert. By 2010, 5,000 more buildings will be built. What exists now is only 10% of the sheikh’s vision. One of the major projects currently under construction is Dubailand, which will be twice the size of Disneyworld and will attract 15 million tourists by 2010, only two years away.

One of the wildly popular current attractions is SKI DUBAI, an indoor ski slope that has five runs, including a black; a quad chairlift; and is the size of three football fields. Now, I should say that I could care less about theme parks or indoor ski slopes, to the point where I wasn’t even particularly interested in seeing the latter. But it was so easy to hop off the bus that we decided to run in, give it a look, and than run back to the bus.

It’s incredible. You walk through an enormous shopping center, follow the signs, and eventually you reach the entrance. We were a little disappointed that you can’t go in unless you pays your money and intends to ski, but then we walked around the perimeter of the “resort” and found that you could be a virtual voyeur without paying a cent. You put your nose up to the glass and immediately you forget that behind you is a bustling shopping center filled with upscale boutiques and fancy restaurants. Beyond the glass you see Vail, or Beaver Creek, or at the very least, Stowe! By that I mean that the illusion is so perfect, that you feel like you are standing at the bottom of a lift at a real ski resort as you watch the skiers and the boarders, the hot dogs and the beginners, and you can almost feel the 21 degree cold. Even the “sky” has a realistic look. Although you can tell it is ceiling and not sky, the cloudy texture has an outdoor feel to it and the can lights could just as well be glistening snow falling. Of course everyone is dressed in ski clothes, included in the entrance fee.

A word about the shopping centers: Dubai is known for its shopping (lots to do and lots to BUY, remember?) and again I had no interest in shopping centers which conjure up images of NorthPark and the Galleria, all fine and good but not to travel to the end of the earth for. But Dubai takes the term “shopping center” to a new level. One of the stops on the bus tour was to a “shopping center” called Souk Madinat, a souk being an old Arab market place. Madinat is not old, but again the illusion is complete. You feel as if you are walking through an ancient market of textiles, carpets, jewelry, silk shawls, copperware and burnished metals, with cobblestone paths and heavily draped stalls. At the rear of the maze of walkways is a creek lined with restaurants with posh condos on the opposite side. An old dhow sailed by carrying a bride and groom and although I think they were just models, they looked authentic and in love. We ate lunch in an Arabic restaurant with a view of the Burj al Arab to our right.

Most people have seen pictures of the Burj al Arab, its unique sail-like design jutting improbably out of the sea off the Jumeira coast. It is the only seven star hotel in the world, where rooms start at about $2,300 a night (I think they have mid-summer specials at about $1,700), and you can’t even go inside unless you have a reservation for something. We tried to reserve for tea, the cheapest thing you can get there at $80 a person, but alas there was no room in the inn. We had to content ourselves with a look from the passing bus until it turned up in our visual field at lunch. Most of our first day was spent riding the Big Bus, gawking at the buildings like rubes off the farm, and selecting a few amazements to enjoy at greater length. Included with our Big Bus ticket was an hour long cruise on a dhow, so we decided to take advantage of that the second day and to explore the city on foot. Still ahead, the Gold Souk!

To see my pictures of Dubai, click here.