I had been looking forward to Dubai. This was the last stop on our trip, a place that would be exotic, opulent, sunny and warm. It was exotic, opulent and HOT but I just couldn’t connect with this place.
Dubai is a manufactured city in the sand. Built on the success of the oil trade, it strives to touch the sky defying the shifting sands beneath it. It has a stunning skyline best viewed at night. It’s wealth is on display at every juncture and it made me feel uncomfortable.
I love my labels, but Dubai splashes everything in your face and it really made me rethink my vanity. It seems to me to be a bit of a double standard seeing the glittering shopping malls selling every fashion item imaginable frequented by niqab-clad women and local men in traditional garb. When do they wear all that high fashion stuff or is it all for us greedy infidels?
I am an openminded and well travelled individual but Dubai challenged me. I felt more at home in the back alleys of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul than I did in the shopping palaces of Dubai. When I reflected about why I felt this way I came to the conclusion that there were two reasons for my disconnect. Firstly, I don’t understand Arab culture and due to the way Arabs are portrayed in the media it scares me. Yes I’ve said it. I felt so foreign and so silly there. I am a person that does not want to offend and wants to blend in but I just couldn’t find a way that I could there. The second reason and probably bigger reason is that there is no history there. Perhaps history is the wrong word. There are no monuments, no sense of past – this is what connects me to a place and helps me understand it in space and time. Everything seemed new, vain and glitteringly inauthentic. I felt that if you scratched the surface the illusion would come crashing down.
A prime example of this inauthenticity was our accommodation the (not so) Grand Excelsior Hotel Al Barsha. Looked awesome in the photographs, but once you roll up its a sham. Located in a sandpit in between non descript taller buildings out in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere we knew we were in for a surprise and not a pleasant one! We arrived after midnight and the receptionist could not give a camel dung about us. There was a night club located right in front of the lifts with the bouncer giving us death stares with music thumping….oh great! (Thankfully there was an Islamic Holiday over the next couple of days which meant the club was closed and quiet) Dead tired we get up to our room an our senses are assaulted by a musty smell. This sort of disappeared once we cranked the air-conditioning. The room was massive and had ample furnishing. It is a real pity that the sofas were stained and the gold paint was peeling off the “opulent” decorations. The bathroom was also huge but the shower disappointingly covered in mold. Thankfully the bed was comfy….well except from the dried boogers on the mock leather headboard…EWWWW. I felt the hotel was a metaphor for Dubai…glam on the outside, sham on the in.
We tried to get to know Dubai. We thought a city tour would give us a good overview. WRONG. Our poor driver (wonderful) but had no idea. We had him for 4 hours and we decided on the gold souk and spice market first. I was expecting something along the lines of the grand bazaar but with gold. WRONG. Think air-conditioned strip malls joined together that sell gold. The shops weren’t inviting and the constant assault by people trying to sell me a bloody Rolex or Gucci handbang nearly sent me over the edge. Is that the local people’s impression of us? Do all foreign white tourists crave Rolexes, iPhones and luxe handbags??? We gave the spice souk a miss. Clearly it wouldn’t compare to Istanbul. We spent the rest of the time with the driver, driving around looking at buildings and stopping to take the obligatory happy snaps.
I don’t think we met a single real local while we were there. I think that most Emiratis are filthy rich. All of the people we had contact with were those who worked in the service industry and they were expat Filipinos, Indians and Pakistanis. This added to my feeling of “inauthenticity”.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom….I did have an amazing time at Wild Wadi Water Park. John and I decided to get our inner child out and get some sun by spending a full day there. It was expensive (as is everything in Dubai) but worth it, in my opinion. I felt like a kid again screaming my head off going on the waterslides. It was also cool seeing the Arab women having a great time in their lycra niqabs. I’m glad that they were able to get out and amongst it and still remain modest as per their beliefs. The staff at the watermark was fantastic – they were from all corners of the world they were very welcoming and friendly. Great experience.
The absolute highlight our stay in Dubai was the Desert Safari Adventure. We joined some friends from Tasmania who happened to be in Dubai which made the experience all the better. Granted it was a manufactured “touristy” thing to do but to be perfectly honest I don’t have the stones to go wandering through the desert to make friends with Bedouins and have that “authentic” experience which I craved. This was as good as it was going to get. First up we watched a falcon show. When I heard we were doing this I thought…ok here we go…this is going to be daft. It really wasn’t. I actually learned something of Bedouin custom. The poor falcon was a bit hot and didn’t “perform” for long but boy did she look majestic in flight. These birds are an ancient tradition and source of pride for the Emiratis and the falcon is their national symbol. Falcons were caught by the tribespeople to help them hunt. They only kept them for a season and then returned the birds back into the wild to continue their migrations between Europe and Africa.
Once the falconry display was over it was onto the “Dune Bashing”. We spent about an hour in a 4wd going across sand dunes and watching the colours of the desert. It truly is beautiful. We saw the odd camel but it was mainly sand dunes as far as the eye can see. You wouldn’t want to get lost here! We got bogged on a particularly high dune and had to get rescued. That was the highlight of the dune bashing. Up next was the “bedouin camp” where a sumptuous feast and other culturally themed activities awaited. I rode a camel which ticked an item off the bucket list. Granted it was half a lap of the desert car park and it was a bit like a school fair pony ride but I’ll take it anyway! The camp itself was decorated beautifully and there was plenty to eat and surprisingly drink. Now normally drinks are never included in package tours but this wasn’t the case here…big YAY for thirsty Aussies. There was a “sheesha” corner where you could experience smoking a hookah. I actually really enjoyed it…too much I’d say. There was a henna booth where you could get your hand decorated. Did that too. There were a few other attractions such as the sand in the bottle tent and the camel milk products that we didn’t really get into. You could also get your photo taken with a falcon. We passed.
Our last night on the Arabian Peninsula out in the desert was as good as it gets in Dubai. Great company, good experience and a glimpse of what life was like before the sheiks built their castles in the sky.
Would I come back to Dubai? Well I never say never. I’m sure I’ll be here in transit or stop over again one day but it is not high on my list of favourite places in the world. Dubai is a place to pass through but not to stay despite all of the marketing hype. Maybe if you have the bank balance of an oil baron and live to shop you’d find it more attractive but it’s not for this punk! I think the pre-oil Bedouin nomads had it nailed and passed through on their wanderings.
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