Dad and I in Dubai

Dad and I in Dubai
In this episode I...
-Smoke a sheesha pipe with my pops
-Sneak into the world’s most luxurious hotel for free
-Ski
Ah Dubai. Whether you think of it as the Jewel of the Persian Gulf, the Vegas of the Middle East, or that place where underwater hotels and desert ski resorts seem like viable business decisions, odds are you’ve heard of the headline-grabbing boomtown, even if you’ve never head of the U.A.E. (the United Arab Emirates, the country in which Dubai lives).
Like many people, I found myself headed to Dubai en route to somewhere else (in my case, Johannesburg) taking advantage of the savings in airfare. That said, Emirates airlines are no no-thrills enterprise. The flight to Dubai from Toronto was the smoothest (and longest) I’ve ever been on, with a brand new aircraft, free-flowing liquor in coach, your choice of movies, games, tv, etc, and even cameras mounted on various parts of the aircraft so you can follow what’s happening (including watching the pilot’s view of takeoff and landing). That said, Emirates is a state-owned corporation in Dubai and its diplomatic maneuvering to get more landing rights in Toronto caused a major diplomatic snafu between UAE and Canada, resulting in new visa restrictions which added a huge headache and almost a large new sum to the trip. Luckily though, everything got resolved and I ended up not having to pay a large fee as had been the fear.
Once arrived, we checked into our B&B, a pleasant modern villa in a residential neighbourhood run by a friendly Indian couple, Ancy and Thomas, and their Nepalese assistant, Debela. We were the only guests staying there at the time (they only have two rooms), so we quickly felt right at home, having drinks on the balcony and barbequing up kebabs in the backyard under the bougainvillea. Hard life eh? Of course we did eventually get out and explore the place.
Dubai is a city on a grand scale. On a scale even greater than Shanghai, you see new buildings everywhere, constant construction, and the 2008 economic slowdown appears to be nothing more than a slight hiccup. Dubai often gets criticized as being too new and superficial, but really, when you consider that 100 years ago this place was nothing more than a fishing, pearling village of less than 20 000, the fact that it has blossomed in a vibrant, clean, safe, multicultural, and functioning metropolis in basically a matter of decades is nothing to sneeze at (granted oil revenue might have had something to do with it, although now oil represents only 6% of the local economy).
Unlike some “new”cities, however, Dubai has not completely built over its history. The old part of town, especially the area around the Bastakiya Quarter, retains its traditional style architecture, hectic souqs (markets), and wooden boats still plying the same trade routes they have for centuries (although now tourists represent a big moneymaker for them). There also plenty of mosques—in the new part as well as the old part of the city—with the call to prayer being heard 5 times daily (and sometimes far too early in the morning) and many—but not most—people walking around in traditional dress—women in black often in hijabs or burkas (must be really hot in the Arabian sun) and men in white robes with wrapped head scarves (although occasionally these head scarves will carry a name brand like Calvin Klein).
Many people had told of us of great bargains to be found in the various souqs in the old quarter, including the cloth souq, the spice souq, the fruit and vegetable souq, the seafood souq, and most famously the gold souq; where aggressive salesmen try their damndest to convince you they have “good price.” Unfortunately, the prices, in our experience, weren’t terribly good, being far higher than what we were accustomed to at home (even with bargaining accounted for), but this may have been due to the price of gold being so high. The situation was more dire for my Dad than I as he had promised to get my Mom a necklace.
While the Dubai Museum and other places in the area had some interesting sights, our most memorable experience was probably went we tried to go for dinner in the district. Our guidebook had recommended a place called Bastakiya Nights as one of the few places offering authentic Emirati cuisine, although it was bit off the road and so we had trouble finding it. At that time of night, the area was quite deserted, and we only saw one place where people appeared to be sitting and eating, so while there was no sign (just multitudes of UAE flags and celebratory portraits of the ever-unsmiling Prince Makmoud Al Bin Rasheed Something... basically the king of Dubai). The Prince and his royal family, although never apparently smiling, are often credited with steering Dubai into a modern liberal (as far as the Middle East goes) prosperous city and a bastion of safety and stability in the world’s most notoriously rickety region. But I digress.
So basically we went into this place assuming it was the restaurant. After all there were people there, they appeared to be barbequing something, and they quickly encouraged us to sit. A series of men with varying degrees of English skills, gave us first a kebab, then some coffee, and then an orange. While in another room it appeared a family had a gathered to do karaoke or something and another group of men had opted to do the Arabic version of bridge. I asked one of the men what he called the kebab. He looked at me, confused, and said “chicken.”
It quickly became clear that there was no menu and this was no restaurant, but what it was remained a mystery. Dad suggested that we might consider leaving.
Soon though two men started preparing a sheesha pipe for us, and insisted we stay and smoke the sheesha (traditional middle eastern smoking pipe, something like a bong). Before long, Dad and I found ourselves smoking oriental pipes in what his mind must been something akin to an opium den. We discreetly left and found our intended restaurant 10 metres away.
New Dubai.
The new quarter of Dubai (ie about 80% or more of Dubai) is a world apart. Shiny new glass towers rise up almost effortlessly from the sand while a state-of-the-art metro runs speeds along. Dubai is an architect’s dream city, although perhaps not a pedestrian’s. Very much a car city, it seemed inevitably whenever we tried to walk somewhere, a large expressway would end up barring our way. Most of the time, when we asked for walking directions, people would say “taxi,” although we got annoyed with taxis after it became clear a couple of drivers where obviously taking overly circuitous routes. We tried using public transportation, and while the metro is new and very affordable, it seems every station we wanted to get off at was still quite far from where we wanted to go. For example, at the Dubai Mall station, we still had to take a bus to get to the Dubai Mall, which I found perplexing.
Speaking of malls, while I know West Edmonton Mall was, at least back in the 90s, the world’s biggest mall, I’m sure one (or 15) of Dubai’s shopping behemoths must give it a run for its money (if not entirely eclipsing it). These malls are gargantuan and appear everywhere (you cannot enter any major attraction in New Dubai, it seems, without first entering a major shopping complex). Ski Dubai is at the Mall of the Emirates, the Bhurj Khalifa is entered via the Dubai Mall, even the Palm Island has its own mall. The stores are mostly high end, and many ring familiar, but taking an American dream and turning into a Dubai one on a massive scale seems par for the course around here.
Speaking of massive scale, the scale of Dubai’s offshore developments are astronomical (and I don’t just mean the proposed galaxy islands proposed to be built to link the 4 km offshore world islands to Dubai). Even the Palm Island, the first artificial island and the one that started this offshore reclamation craze, is large enough to support its own metro line with 4 stops. The islands inspire awe to say the least, but one must wonder what the environmental assessment report must have been like. They’ve proposed four of these palm islands alone (most of new ones to be bigger and grander than the previous) with one expected to be larger than the city of Hong Kong.
But that in essence is the new Dubai, making the impossible happen. Tallest building in the world by 300 m? You got it. Indoor ski resort in the middle of a desert? Done. Underwater hotel? Still working on it (that one may have been too much even for Dubai, or perhaps they decided to pool their money and build a bridge to the moon instead).
I did manage to go skiing at the indoor ski hill, mainly for novelty value rather than anything else. The hill is surprisingly long, although realistically there are only 2 runs. There is a four person chair-lift going up and a t-bar on the side for “experts.” The cost is about the same as going skiing in Minnedosa in Manitoba, although you get far less time (but they do provide you with a fetching ski suit that everyone on the hill is inevitably also wearing). In typical Dubai fashion, there is a restaurant, cafe, and shop, halfway down the hill where you can stop and freshen up even if you’ve only been skiing for two hours or less.
The hill is immensely popular, probably due to its rarity in this part of the world (where else are you going to go skiing on the Arabian peninsula?), and its quite amusing to watch kids having perhaps their very first snow fight and families riding the “chairlift ride” up and down, apparently just for the thrill of it. Unlike in China though, there were quite a few people here who knew how to ski and ski well, and raced down the slope without much issue. The snow was surprising easy to ski on, although it did feel a bit like skiing in a giant freezer. Used to I am to uneven surfaces while skiing, I took some getting used to the straight gradients on some parts of the hill.
The Bhurj Khalifa was more of a disappointment. Not only was it difficult to find the entrance, but after waiting for an hour in line, we were told we would have to come back in 3 hours if we wanted to go up the tower (or pay $100 to go up now), so we ended up walking out. It’s an impressive tower, but I’ve been to the top of a few towers already, and that price was as steep as its sides.
We did however see the Dubai fountain, a set of dancing fountains timed to music in the pond just outside the tower (Think of them as an elaborate classier version of the Brandon Shopper’s Mall robots). The fountains were stunning, although watching them dance to “I will always love you” by Whitney Houston with my Dad was a bit weird.
Earlier that day, however, we did manage to get into another famous Dubai tower, the Bhurj Al Arab, the self-described seven-star hotel (often claimed to be the world’s most luxurious). As a hotel with such exclusive guests who can drop a couple thousand dollars a night on a hotel room, you can’t just stroll into the place. The hotel is built on its own island, linked by secure bridge to the mainland and you must pass through a checkpoint before even getting on the bridge (most actual guests arrive by helicopter landing on a James Bond style helipad jutting out from the hotel).
That said, the hotel has a multitude of restaurants, none of which you can afford to eat at but at which you can make a reservation. With a record of our restaurant reservation, passing through security was a breeze, and we simply didn’t show up to the restaurant itself, choosing to explore the hotel’s environs instead (the hotel’s gorgeous and stunning if a bit gaudy).
Naturally, we’re not the only ones who tried this stunt. And there’s an army of smiling security types throughout the hotel, who are more than happy to prevent you from walking into certain areas. That said, with a little persistence and maneuvering we managed to see most parts of the hotel, even taking a ride to the top in the glass elevator that goes up the hotel’s spine overlooking the gulf. This last one was a bit of a thrill ride, as I pushed the top floor button on a lark, not thinking the elevator would go, but sure enough the doors closed and we found ourselves immediately shooting towards the sky, my poor Dad—who has a fear of heights—startled to say the least.
It didn’t help that the next day we went on a desert safari in a land cruiser, in which our driver, akin to a taxi driver, drove as fast and as precipitously as he could up, down, over, around, and through 20 foot high sand dunes. It was quite the thrill ride, and I got more to experience more of the desert than I bargained for. Our driver, said he had been on the job for 20 days, but he was self-taught and therefore experienced. He also came from Pakistan near the border region with Afghanistan, and he and Dad had a good chat about why he came to UAE while I tried to keep in my lunch.
When not on a hair-rising ride, however, the desert can seem quite peaceful, with rolling dunes everywhere. After our ride, we went to a “Bedouin Camp”where we entertained with camel rides (camels incidentally, nearly buck you off them when they sit down, luckily my groin got stopped by the handle or I would have been thrown forward. Good times), a Bedouin feast, henna tattoos, and my Dad finally got a necklace for Mom after some intense haggling with a very persistent salesman.
There was also a belly dancer demonstration for us, and the gal put on quite a show. It’s interesting that belly dancing developed in a part of the world where women are so famously forced to cover up and pretend to be non-sexual. In contrast, belly-dancing is both visibly arousing and visibly visible, but still with a bit of class, and its a shame if its been clamped down on recent years. It might be one of the few areas where women can oppose restrictive clothing without being seen as foreign.
All and all it was a great trip, and great experience to have with my Dad, especially since he doesn’t get to travel as much as I do and has now seen a part of the world that once seemed impossibly far away.