A Dead Mall and an Empty Palm
Trip Start
May 04, 2007
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11
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Trip End
May 20, 2007
Dubai,
United Arab Emirates
Sunday, May 13, 2007
After Rachel finally woke up we decided to check out the pool for a bit. It wasn't long before I realized that we had company. There was some kid with the soccer team we had noticed around the hostel just staring at us from his window. We kept telling him that he was rude and that he should stop, but I don't think he spoke English. We were able to ignore him until he took out his video recorder. That's when we gave up swimming and went inside to complain. The first reaction we got from the hostel staff was that if we were ugly he wouldn't be looking and that we should be thankful for such problems. That wasn't much of a solution for us. Eventually the coach brought the two boys to our room to apologize. We accepted it, but knew that we would not be swimming again.
To save a little bit of cash we took a bus to the Gold Souk. We weren't looking for any gold, it was just in the area where we wanted to see a few things.
One of the landmarks of Dubai is the Palm, a island living community being built out of the sea. We wanted to check it out. One of the high end hotels was built right in front of it on the land. We took an elevator to their revolving restaurant and the wait staff allowed us to take a walk around. There wasn't much to see of the Palm. In fact, it looked like a lot of nothing.
Our next stop was the nearby Dubai History Museum. This is located in a reconstructed fort. At first it didn't look like there was much there, just a few recreations of Bedouin camps and some boats. Slightly disappointed we headed into the last room. To our surprise there was a staircase leading down, below the fort. This is where the museum actually began.
For centuries Dubai was nothing more than a small port and market town. Bedouins from all over would visit for supplies. Then they found out that there was oil under all those sand dunes and this all changed.
In 1971 the United Arab Emirates was born and modern day Dubai began to grow. The museum walked through souk's of the 1950 that looked the same as if the display was from the 1550's. It was shocking to see how fast life had changed here. The roles of men and women were described as well as their clothing. Every aspect of Bedouin life was described, from how they found water to how they partied when the sun went down. It was really fabulous.
After the museum we decided to hit the Wafi City wall. Rachel had needed something, but I can't remember what it was now. The place was empty. Store clerks were reading books at their tills. Only one store was different than I had ever seen before, it was called Things Remembered. From the outside it looked like the set of Phantom of the Opera, and that was indeed playing in the back ground. The sales clerks were dressed in capes and flowing dresses. I can't really explain it much more. There just aren't words. I guess you will just have to go there to see it for yourself. What I can tell you is that if you need a bookcase to hide a secret room you can find it here for $3000.
Wafi City Mall is known for its large selection of good restaurants. That's part of the reason that we picked it. Rachel and I ended up with a good sushi dinner and a helpful waitress that gave us guides that listed every bar in Dubai.
That's how we found Boston Bar. As you may have guessed, it was it was meant to look like Cheers in Boston. The place was huge and there was a good amount of people there. The best part of Boston Bar was that it was quiz night. We finally got lucky and hit one, even though we had seen them advertise at almost every bar we had walked into. We were hoping that it would help us meet people.
The quiz, which lasted over the next few hours, was very Brit-centric and we didn't do very well over all. However, we had the smallest group and were the smartest per capita of anyone
We also met out one and only Emerati while we were here. He was very very drunk. He bought us a few drinks and then got upset when he asked if I had a boyfriend. When I said yes he said that I shouldn't have let him buy us drinks. How presumptuous.
