Dubai - Exploring the City

We got home from Dubai this evening, and I am sort of overwhelmed at the thought of recapping it in a blog post. We'll see how much info I actually include here, or how long it takes me to actually get it posted. [Ed note: at the time of posting, it's now Sunday, the seventh day after I started writing!]

The trip was, well... it was kind of amazing. Mark and I would could never have made a trip like this on our own dime. (Thanks for the invite, Dubai!) Everything was luxurious and fancy and at least 32% classier than Mark and I are used to experiencing when we travel. Except for the $150 we had to pay for Mark to join me (well worth it!), it was all paid for. Flight, hotel, meals, tours, admission to sites, everything. Yes, I am still pinching myself.

We flew over on Emirates, one of the nicest airlines in the world. The plane was the Airbus A380 -- the biggest jetliner in the world. (Remember when it got all that press a few years ago when it was first built?) It can carry up to like 850 people, depending on how the airline chooses to configure the seats. I don't know how you people count, but by my books.... yeah that's almost a thousand. A thousand. (Just the fact that it was a double-decker would have impressed me, I'm not gonna lie.) Anyway neither the airline nor the plane disappointed. Excellent service, decent food (it was still airplane food, though, don't get me wrong), mood lighting, wide seats (even in coach!), ceiling with stars when the lights were out, in-flight entertainment on personal screens that were nicer than ours at home (that's becoming a theme, huh? maybe we should upgrade our tv), and backpacks full of toys for the kids -- in our case, even the kid who was left at home (but now can't get enough of his Emirates backpack).

View of Jumeirah neighborhood from our hotel room.

Our hotel - also amazing. We stayed at the Monarch, and our room was beautiful. Beautiful. We had floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides of our room (we were in the corner - yay!), although one of those sides just overlooked the hotel's adjoining tower. (Architects in Dubai are all about the connected tower.) The room was huge, the bathroom was gorgeous (pretty much every one we encountered was; in a culture where people wash themselves five times a day before prayer, the bathrooms are sparkling almost without exception), we had an amazing view of the city, and (brace yourself for this classiness) they had robes and slippers for us. Now I don't know where you usually sleep on vacation, but this was the first (and probably last) time that we stayed a place with robes and slippers. Stop rolling your eyes; for me, this was a big deal!

Our first morning there, we explored the older part of the city, the part we assumed they wouldn't want to show off to the westerners. I was so glad we were able to wander the old streets and explore the souks (and haggle! oh how I love to haggle! I know you're all shocked) and talk to people and do one of my favorite things when I am in a new place -- look around the grocery stores. (I am so my mother's daughter.) In case you're curious, the Arabian produce puts ours to shame. More kinds of fruit than you can imagine, and all ripe! More kinds of (fresh!) juices at breakfast than I even knew existed. (Seriously, who drinks watermelon juice? Anyone?) And they even had camel milk, though we didn't actually drink any of that.

Mark, in the Bastakia quarter.

Anyway while we were downtown, we rode back and forth across the Creek (the river/harbor/whatever-it's-not-actually-a-creek that the older part of the city straddles) in a little wooden boat called an abra. It's much cheaper (about 25¢ per ride) than taking a taxi over one of the few bridges, and it meant I got to put Mark in yet another travel situation where we're the only westerners in sight. I can't tell if he loves me or hates me for continuing to do this to him (I think it was less love when we got lost on the buses and rickshaws of Beijing), but I will continue to err on the side of saving a buck. And meeting locals. And riding in a boat. All of which are things I love. Plus, the next morning when we took a city tour, they ended up taking us to that area after all (along with a zillion other tour groups - ugh - so glad we had already done it on our own!) and then there were only westerners in sight! So it goes both ways I guess!

Riding on the abra across the creek.

The best meal we had was at a Lebanese restaurant in the courtyard of Emirates Towers. We got to see Lebanese dancing, eat lots of new food (they did the best kebabs in the city... and we should know, they fed us kebabs everywhere), and (for some reason) watch dry ice bubbling in a cauldron while we ate dessert. I can't explain it but it was cool.

That dinner was also one of the few places where they served us alcohol. In many other places, the Arabian version of "cocktail" meant fruit juice or smoothie! Which I guess should have been expected in a Muslim country!

Our tour package also included stops at two big fancy (expensive!) malls, but we opted out of both of those. The first one for a smaller (cheaper) shopping center nearby, and the second one for the chance to go inside a Mosque (which might need to be a later post, I am getting tired).

The new and modern parts of the city were cool too, in a very different way. All the "novelty" skyscrapers (tallest, fastest rotating, on its own island, etc) are part of what has made Dubai very famous of late. Especially this one on its own reclaimed island; Mark and I didn't go in (again with the cheap) but we did spend part of a morning lounging on the beach, admiring it from a peasant's perspective. And one of the most famous reclaimed islands in Dubai, the Palm Jumeirah, houses a neat waterpark where we also got to play for an afternoon. (More on both of those also in a later post, as well as pictures from our super-fun desert safari.)

Interesting info about Dubai:

- Only 10% of the people who live there are actually Emiratis. (Formerly wandering Bedouins who lived in the desert.) We didn't even meet one Emirati (that we knew of).

- Emiratis love their Sheikh. He has made the emirate into a high-end tourist destination, and the results for citizens are very good: free healthcare, free education, and amazing wedding gifts (if you marry another Emirati) -- $20k to pay for the celebration, and a new house. All courtesy of the Sheik's money. Why wouldn't they love him? His picture is on buildings and billboards and in hotel lobbyies across the city.

- Most of Emiratis are considered part of the Sheikh's (royal) family and live in palaces, either in the city or out in the desert.

- The royal family runs the government, the tourist bureau, Emirates Airlines, several tour companies (including the one who hosted us, Arabian Adventures), and is in charge of all the mosques and religion in the emirate. So believe me, they have sources of revenue besides oil!

- If Emiratis work, it's usually for the government, or by selling their names (for a commission) to foreigners who want to open businesses in Dubai - foreigners must have a citizen backer, though often it's in name only.

- The country of UAE uses more water, per capita, than anywhere else on earth. It's probably due to a combination of the hot weather, the fact that to keep the city green, everything is artifically irrigated, and that citizens don't have to pay their own water bills.

- Although the country's official religion is Islam, they are very tolerant of other religions and cultures (unless you're Jewish, of course, it's against the law to use the term Israel). In the older part of the city you can still hear the call to prayer, five times a day, coming from one of the 1300+ mosques in the city. Want to know what that sounds like? Click here.

- The UAE is also very sensitive about its beautiful location on the gulf. In most of the world, we call it the Persian Gulf, but since it's technically not all Iran's, in UAE that term is also against the law -- you're supposed to call it the Arabian Gulf. (You can see exactly what the Persians think of that name change by clicking here.)

I will have to do another post (or two!) with the rest of stuff from our trip. In the meantime, you can see all the pictures from our trip by clicking here.