Dubai was a relatively comfortable 85°F (32°C) for most of
the day. By afternoon, however, we were all feeling the rising temperatures and
humidity. Tucson is very hot in the summer months (May through September) often
having over 100 days over 100° (38°) albeit with relatively low humidity. My
friends coping with the Tucson heat right now will appreciate this: in the summer
months Dubai reaches 122°F (50°C) but with 80% humidity. I’ll take Tucson’s
heat and (lack of) humidity any time!
We were late again into port, only and hour and a half this
time. A mere nothing in the world of travel problems, certainly not compared to
those of our shipmates who disembarked in Mumbai to travel to the Taj Mahal.
They missed their flights and finally arrived in Agra at 10:30p, had dinner and
had to be up at 4a for the trip to the Taj. All went well until they arrived at
6a in Dubai airport—where they sat for almost three hours as Princess had
forgotten to send busses for them! One passenger apparently was so incensed
that he physically threatened the staff, police were called, and the Captain
Froude felt compelled to make a ship-wide, you-must-listen-to-this, broadcast
to the effect that we passengers were NOT to threaten his staff! He was
definitely pissed!
We on Narelle’s tour were blissfully ignorant of this drama
unfolding at the airport and at shipside where these poor passengers—up since
midnight to catch their 4a (!) flight—were denied boarding until ALL the disembarking
passengers had gotten off.
We had a wonderful tour of Dubai with a guide who is South
African but has been in Dubai for 16 years. She even brought her 16 year-old
daughter Camilla with her so she could better understand her mother’s job. She
was offered a hundred camels for her while on tour with us. Our guide had no
concept, however, of what a “short walk” was. Poor Narelle, who has mobility
issues, gamely walked places that she probably shouldn’t have because the guide
said, “Just a few steps!” For example, to get to the Burj Khalifa, the bus had
to drop us “just a short walk from the Mall,” which I estimate was about a half
mile, mostly in the heat and humidity of the late Dubai afternoon.
We saw the modern: the Jumeira Mosque (Jumeira means “paradise”
and lots and lots of places are called the “Jumeira fill-in-the-blank”); the
Burj al Arab hotel (the one shaped like a sail in the wind)
http://www.jumeirah.com/en/Hotels-and-Resorts/Destinations/Dubai/Burj-Al-Arab/The-Resort/,
a hotel so expensive and exclusive that you may not even walk into the hotel
unless you have a reservation for something going on in the hotel such as the
least expensive option, High Tea at $111 per person; the Dubai Mall, the
largest mall in the world; and of course, the Burj Khalifa
http://www.burjkhalifa.ae/ , the tallest
building in th world. The fairly small area of Dubai that contains all the new
and wonderful buildings has only been built up in the past 10 years; that short
time ago it was sand.
And we saw the old: the Gold Souk (market) and the Spice
Souk. What absolutely marvelous smells surrounded the spice souk! Spices I’ve
never heard of or seen as well as the much more familiar, such as cinnamon and
saffron.
To get to the gold souk we took a boat, if you can call the
dilapidated and barely floating thing we were on a boat, across the Dubai
Creek. But our boat was more together than several of the other “boats” we saw.
At one point I was sure it was going to tip over as more than half our group
stood on one side of the boat—nobody wanted to sidle over to the other side for
fear that any movement at all would upset the boat. The short boat ride really
reminded me of my days in Bangkok from 45 years ago. People live and work on
the river in whatever floats and they use the boats to transport and to survive
in any way they can. Trade is the heart of Dubai and it all started with boats
such as we rode on, some going to Africa to get goods to trade—which they still
do even today in the age of airplanes and railroads and trucks.
Move over, Texas, Dubai is the land of superlatives! They
have: the tallest building in the world; the highest toilet (!); the highest
restaurant; the fastest elevator; the largest water show (built and designed by
the same company that did the Bellagio water show); the largest mall; the
longest driverless, completely automated train; the highest temperatures (this
may questionable, but I’m pretty sure they have the highest temperatures in any
city in the world). They don’t have the most expensive residence in the world,
that goes to Mumbai, $1,000,000,000. And I almost forgot: the largest (only?)
INDOOR ski area! It has a bunny slope, an intermediate slope, and a black
diamond slope! As well as other snowy participatory sports. Unbelievable! They have
no water to speak of and are one of the hottest spots in the world and they
have an indoor ski area!
Guides the world over love to talk facts about their
homeland and ours was no exception: 80% of their water is desalinated or
reclaimed from sewage (yuck!) and she did not recommend drinking anything but
bottled water. Duh! Couldn’t get a beer in Dubai, either. Their bus stops are
air conditioned. There are over 1000 mosques in Dubai. Men and women in mosques
are separated and womens’ areas are smaller than the mens’. But only because
men must go to the mosque to pray and women don’t. She also made a great point
of telling us that muslims are forbidden to commit suicide; it seemed that she
had taken upon herself to convince us that “true” muslims would not do all the
dastardly things that they do seem to be doing.
An architectually beautiful (if you like modern
architecture) city, but not one that I am in any rush to go back to. It does
not seem to have a soul, except perhaps in the old part of the city. I think that
old part won’t last too long, the Dubai people seem to want new, new, new. If
something is approaching 30, it’s time to tear it down and build new.
Written in the Arabian Sea, off the coast of Oman at 2:30
local time, June 8, 2012, still with guards posted.
19° 52’ N
No comments:
Post a Comment