A three-night stopover in Dubai. As it’s not my kind of place, I’d never come here for a holiday, so a three-night stopover was the perfect opportunity to see it… and then move on.
Initial observations about Dubai… Firstly, everything is shiny and new. Quite a lot of it is not yet finished. It’s like the playground of someone with a construction habit and ADHD. And a lot of money.
Sister (who used to live here) suggested a boat tour from the marina before I was able to check into my hotel. I decided to get the metro and the second thing struck me: men. Of the 200 or so people who I saw during my journey, I counted just 5 females, and 4 of these were western. Yet at no point have I felt uncomfortable or intimidated. Media portrayal of some Middle Eastern countries is one of huge gender inequality, yet I have seen no evidence of this so far. When I got off the metro to walk to the marina the third thing struck me: the heat. OMG, the heat. Not the warm, friendly, “wet” heat of Florida (I will remember forever the first time I stepped off the minibus and the world gave me what I can only describe as a warm, welcoming hug), but fierce, intense hotness.
Stopped for lunch at a deli, and got a “fruit and veg salad”. I won’t be posting all my meals (it’s not Facebook, you know 😉 but those that stand out. It was a delicious combination of fruit and veg that I’ve never seen in the UK: three colours of sweet pepper, coriander, cucumber, raw onion and various types of melon (topped off with a satay chicken stick).
Today was a day of firsts. It was the first time I’ve been to the Middle East. This is something I’d like to do again. It was the first time I’ve been to Dubai. This is something I could do again, with sufficient motivation. Today was also the first time that I’ve been on a speed boat. This is something I could quite happily never do again. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it – on the contrary, it was actually good fun. But it was a dissatisfying mode of transport – too much, too fast. It didn’t help that the skipper seemed to be on a speed trip, and it was only the knowledge that, being a strong swimmer, I could fend for myself if tipped overboard, that enabled me to relax. The boat trip was a great way to get a sense of the place, though. For such a new city, I was intrigued as to what we’d see. Answer: hotels. Our “guide” pointed out all the hotels and their owners, but didn’t seem to know a lot about them. For instance, the amazing thing about Atlantis is that it exists. It’s big and has a water park, but apart from that, I struggled to see why he’d picked this one out of the plethora of hotels on the shoreline. He even insisted he take our pictures:
I also saw the Burj al-Arab (the world’s only 7-star hotel, although our guide couldn’t tell me what I’d get for my extra stars), and various palaces of Dubai’s rich and royal. And lots of superlatives – Dubai is desperate to have the biggest, tallest, most expensive, of everything. Everyone seems to competing against each other, but this makes for an interesting skyline.
Back on dry land, the hotel looked like a short walk from the metro station. I remembered MC’s advice: “Find a pace you’re comfortable with and just keep going.” I would also have done well to heed another piece of his advice: “Walk in the right direction.”
Forty-five minutes later I finally stumbled (literally) up the stairs to the hotel and flopped into the chair in front of the desk. I must have looked a state because the receptionist looked at me and said, “Upgrade.”
“Huh?”
“I’m going to upgrade you.”
Oooh, I thought, that’d be good. I’d quite like to be able to make myself invisible.
Turns out she meant she’d upgrade the room, which was also good. I was hoping for a bath (I like baths). I got a one-bedroom flat. The place is bigger than my pad back home. I have a fully-equipped kitchen, a lounge and a dining room. I’m not kidding. An upgrade…and I didn’t even have to mention my three pairs of pants 😉
Sister (did I mention she used to live here?) had suggested “any of the Indian places in the Food Court of the Dubai mall”. So in the evening I took the hotel transfer and arrived at the biggest mall in the world. Dubai mall in one word: bling. Serious bling.
The Food Court had everything: Chinese, Thai, Italian, fish n’ chips, Lebanese, KFC, Japanese, frozen yoghurt, ice cream, and even a chocolate fountain. The Indian did me well, and I decided that I might only travel to places that my sister has lived. This may be somewhat limiting, so I may extend it to places that someone I know has lived.
At 9:15pm I asked for directions to the metro station. He pointed and said “Down there, left at Bloomingdale’s and then right at the next junction.” Based on that description, I thought it’d be about 10 minutes. Five minutes later, I figured I’d missed Bloomingdale’s. How can I miss Bloomingdale’s?, I wondered, but anything is possible with my sense of direction. Fifteen minutes later I reached Bloomingdale’s. It was another 10 minutes before I actually exited the mall and another 20 minutes before I arrived at the metro station. This place is big. Dubai is big. It takes forever to get anywhere. I eventually got back to my hotel at 10:45pm. An hour and a half to travel 9km.
I really wanted to like this place for what it was. But it’s almost a parody of itself, the sibling of a high-achiever that feels they’ve always got something to prove. It tries too hard, desperate to be accepted. Do I regret stopping over? Absolutely not. But I think I’m going to be glad to move on. Yet some people love it – many of the people I’ve met are very proud of their city. Another example of “horses for courses” – as someone who prefers natural over man-made, stealth over speed, experiences over possessions, the odds of me liking the place were stacked against. But Dubai has two major things going for it, and both are significant: the people I’ve met have been, without exception, absolutely charming. Not forced, not to get something from me, but in a genuine, friendly way. And I feel safe. Walking home from the metro last night, I felt safe. And, in my book, that counts for a lot.
I see they finished the twisty building… We we visited, the thing I missed the most was nature. Yes there trees in Dubai but if you are in the main city which we were for most of the stay – they are of equal height, equal distant apart, not natural to me… I missed green fields, woods & forests…