Dubai, 7 days
Trip Start
Sep 13, 2006
1
2
31
Trip End
Ongoing
Dubai,
United Arab Emirates
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
I managed to see my sister a bit before she flew off to work, and got a tour of the apartment while meeting her flat mates. I was starting to get use to spending a week in a building full of Air Hostesses. The rest of the evening was taken up with drinking cocktails to celebrate some of them being promoted from business to first class. A very nice introduction to the expat community in Dubai
4wd in the Dunes
. The next day I slept late and had organized a tour of Dubai with my sister's good friend with the excellent name of Vicky Virtue. Not only did she know the city well, but she had a very active interest in trying to understand all the cultural components that make up Dubai.
After driving through the Manhattan of Dubai and checking out various big building projects, we settled down to a quite lunch. Interestingly she has already travel some of the West African route that I wish to take, she was a great source of information and also reassured me as to the feasibility of traveling Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal and Mali.
Later that night we met up with some of her friends at the Buddha Bar and had a few drinks.
Sister turned up exhausted from a trip to Nigeria, yet later that day we decided to check out the local fort Al Fahidi which stood above an underground museum. Both were remarkable and attempted with considerable success to portray how the country had change from a small trading village to a serious economical heavy weight that is has become in the region.
Do I make a good Arab?
Later that day we sat drinking mint tea in a café around the Creek and for dinner had a most exquisite 4 course Moroccan meal. Which included camel's cheese, various dishes of hummus, pastries and skews of meat?For my fifth day in Dubai my sister had organized a trip out into the desert. Early afternoon we were picked up by an Arabian dude in a 4x4 and heading south we left the sky scrapers and artificially grown grass behind. An ice cream break later we joined other 4x4s and went rally driving over a huge mountain of sand dunes. The drive purposely screamed along the crests of dunes and plunged down some impressively steep slopes. Out of the blue, the driver pointed and said 'Look Camels' and sure enough there were some camels which looked a bit suspect but which completed the picture beautifully.
Later that night we found ourselves in the desert as night was falling for a BBQ. I managed to get my first camel ride. Although rather brief I have to admit they are fascinating creatures. I also manage to try on the local attire, found the robes pretty cool but the black rope that keeps the head gear on, kept falling off. I couldn't find one large enough and concluded that I had a fat head and couldn't pull a Mohammed. Cendrine managed to pull off the Fatima image with ease and finesse.
Dubai by night
After smoking a Shisha, getting my shoulder burned with henna and eating a plate load of food a belly dance got up and strutted her stuff. She proceeded to get people watching to dance with her, because I was filming her I managed to escape the humiliation, of proving to everyone the rigidness of my hips. Once the dancing was over we headed back towards the lights of Dubai for a glass of champagne.I was only own for the last day at Dubai and took the opportunity to just walking around the city, musing over the sights and acquire a vicious sunburn. Being my first Islamic country that I have visited Dubai was a gentle introduction to the Muslim way of life. Although considerably less conservative then a country like Saudi Arabia I started getting use to not always seeing alcohol or pork on the menu. I can't help getting the impression that the country has grown so quickly that Dubai really lacks a soul and really is just a sparkling glitzy glamorous jumble of things with various immigrant cultures hovering overhead not sure of where to land. Be interesting to see what happens in 30 years once the oil runs dry.
My time in Dubai is at an end, next port of call, Casablanca.
