Travel Story «Dubai»

United Arab Emirates | 0 Comments 13 January 2007 - Last Update 13 January 2007

We'd liked to have written a bit sooner about Dubai, but the place we were staying had all these controls on the internet, and our host was never there for us to get him to relax some of them.  So here we are, now in the UK, writing about what we got up to in Dubai.

Despite all the internet controls, we stayed with a great host, Michael, in an awesome apartment by Dubai marina.  We were on the 38th floor with awesome views along the beach, about halfway between the Jumeira Palm and Jebel Ali Palm developments.  Luxury I'm sure we could become accustomed to!

We managed to see and do quite a bit in Dubai, thanks to having a hire car.  I guess if we'd had to pay for accomodation, the budget might not have stretched that far.  Hostels / hotels are not cheap there.  We saw a fair bit of the heritage areas, although the history isnt much more than 150 years old.  Modern Dubai has only sprung up in the past 50 years.  And is definately still springing up at a really fast rate.  The heritage areas include restored buildings (homes, forts, watchtowers etc.), mosques (we could only go inside one of them, the rest are closed to non-Muslims), souks and archaeological sites.  All were cheap or free to go in, and had static displays and tacky dioramas showing what life was like not so long ago.

The souks were not as we'd expected.  We thought they'd be more like the ones we saw in the Middle East (Jordan, Syria etc.), but these were like small shopping centres, covered areas with lots of little shops and stalls selling everything from perfumes, spices, and gold to traditional and "western" clothes.  The guide book said if we entered the gold souk, we would leave poorer.  Hmmm, not much chance at those prices.  Everything was encrusted with diamonds and other precious/semi precious stones, and so were expensive.  We couldnt find much that was just gold on its own.  Loads of lovely bling though!

The souks were for the "ordinary" people, and for tourists to wander round, the shopping malls were for the wealthy.  Some of these shopping malls were amazing.  The Mall of the Emirates with its indoor ski run was pretty impressive.  The shops were about the same as anywhere, many were popular UK brands, and all had sales on as we'd managed to arrive during the Dubai Shopping Festival.  The Ibn Battuta Mall though beat the lot though with its architecture.  Each section had a different theme, Andalucia, Tunisia, Egypt, Persia, India, China, with the building design inside and out representing that country.  Inside each area were displays on the history and achievements made in each place, mainly Muslim of course.  It was like walking round a museum.

We also had a trip out to Hatta, a town near the Oman border.  Driving out we went from the hassle of Dubai city through flat sand, sand dunes and finally hills/mountains.  At Hatta is an almost restored (rebuilt in many cases) traditional village.  The area has been inhabited for 2000-3000 years, but this village represents more modern habitation (about 100 or so years ago).  Again full of displays and tacky dioramas, but interesting all the same.  We found a really lovely cafe for lunch, well the cafe was alright, clean and everything but not exciting, but run by a really nice Syrian guy who spoke no English, and our Arabic doesnt get much beyond hello, please and thankyou.  With a  lot of gestures and town/place names we found out where he was from and "talked about" places we had visited.

Thanks to having a car, we also managed a trip to Al Sharjar, a neighbouring Emirate.  Sharjar is definately the poorer cousin to Dubai.  You can see it in the roads, the cars and buildings, and in the museum and fort we went round.  The entrance fees were higher, and the displays poorer.  The souks, although still loads of little shops and stalls in a style different to the Middle East, we less touristic.  All we bought though were some fresh dates.  Yum.

That about covers most of what we saw, briefly.  We managed to pack quite a bit in the four days we had there.  The weather was cooler and drier, although still great at about 25C.  Dubai is a city we would go back to in a few years, if only to see how much building has gone on, and how tall the Burj Dubai ends up.  Our apartment block was surrounded by construction sites.

 

 

 

 

Photo albums from United Arab Emirates

Dubai (7)

15 January 2007 | United Arab Emirates | Last Update 15 January 2007

  • Jumeirah Mosque
  • L-R The Palm Jumeirah - Burj Al Arab - Dubai Marin
  • Burj Al Arab from the Madinet Jumeirah
  • Duabi creek towards Deira

 

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