Dubai, Day Six

What a difference moving up my departure by a day has had on my mood. I still woke up ridiculously early (though today I made it to 5:00 AM) but I really didn't mind since at the end of the day I'll be getting on a plane to go home!

I worked the early shift at the expo today so I got out of there at 2:00 PM. Just enough time to hit the gold and spice souks before it got dark, except when I got in a cab the driver told me it was lunchtime, and the souks wouldn't re-open until 4:30 or 5:00. So I headed back to the hotel room to try to sleep a bit (since after three nights of trying to get to sleep, I now have to stay up until 3:00 AM to catch my flight), and when I looked outside at 5:00, the traffic was backed up the entire length of Sheikh Zayed Road. I'd probably be looking at an hour or more in the cab just to get there. Not gonna happen.

So now I have a few more hours to kill, as I try to figure out how to watch 'Heroes.' NBC.com has the full episodes available online, but not for people outside the U.S. What's up with that?

No more posts for me until at least Thursday, once I'm home, safe and sound, and hopefully back onto some semblance of a normal sleep schedule. I've never had my sleep this screwed up on a trip before -- getting old sucks.

Dubai, Days Four And Five

Sunday was the first day of the reason I'm here, and it was the most boring day I've ever spent at a show (and I have been doing this for five years). I think I talked to a total of five people in the eight hours I spent in the booth. Just mind-numbing, but it wasn't like you could just go off somewhere and read (or nap, which is what I really wanted to do). I couldn't even figure out how to get online, so I lugged my computer around all day for no reason. Since the powers that be at the exposition company cancelled all the outdoors demos about a month ago (after our tickets were already bought) I don't even have the physical exertion of cutting things up to act as a diversion.

I did take some pictures of Sheikh Zayed road at dusk on the way home, but of course you can't see them because the nice people at Etisalat, who have seen fit to add flickr.com to the list of blocked websites. At this point, I'm even afraid to write anything bad about them, since I figure they're monitoring everything I do on the computer. I'm sure they're all smart guys who love their wives and dress well -- I just wish they'd let the Internets enter the country without plugging up half of the tubes.

Today my dad and I are splitting the day up -- Tom is at the booth now and I'm going to head over on a couple of hours. Ordinarily I would have taken this opportunity to spend the morning doing something interesting, but I woke up at 4:00 AM and was unable to get back to sleep, so I've pretty much spent the morning zombie-like, shuffling between the bed (where I'm unable to sleep) and the computer (where I'm trying to download the just-aired episode of Battlestar Galactica but am, I believe, being thwarted by those same fine gentlemen I talked about a second ago).

We also found out that our plan to rent a car on Wednesday is out, because the law recently changed and you are now required to have an international driver's license to rent a car here. That leaves us with pretty much nothing to do on Wednesday, though I did do some more research and found out there may be an "old" part of town on the other side of the creek that contains the gold souk, spice souk, and fabric souk. We'll check that out.

So yeah, my mood has been better. I really just want to get home to my pregnant wife and two-year-old daughter, but alas I have 50 hours to go before my flight!

Dubai, Day Three

I thought this jetlag would be gone by now.

Didn't do a whole lot today -- just a trip over to the Exhibition Hall to set up our products, and thence to the Mall Of The Emirates, because any time you have an opportunity to see an indoor ski slope, you should see it.

We walked around for a long time as my dad looked for a power adapter for his computer. I think it took us about 40 minutes to walk from one end of the mall to the other, and in that whole time I saw almost nothing that I couldn't have seen an an upscale mall in the States. Lots of high-end fashion labels, and the same book, toy, shoe, and electronics stores you see everywhere else. I did have fun pretending I was interested in buying a $9,000 diamond bracelet (and the clerk came down to $3,900 pretty fast), and I looked for some clothes for my daughter, but even the "authentic" local outfits were made in Bahrain.

One of the guys we're sharing a booth with said he felt like being in Dubai could be like being in any major American city, and I know what he means. The other day when we visited Dubai Creek I was hoping to find some sort of "real" Dubai. I try to break away from the touristy parts of whatever city I visit -- I enjoy being a tourist but try to get at least a small sense of what a place is like outside the normal tourist paradigm. A lot of times for me that simply means walking without purpose around a residential district, or spending as much time as possible in the city center and/or the oldest part of town. It's a quest to find the essence of a place, if I may be so pretentious.

Now I haven't been here for very long, but I feel like there really is no essential Dubai. Or, rather, the essential Dubai is found in its various malls and 70-story glass high rises. I guess its not surprising that, in a country where only 15% of its residents are natives, there isn't going to be a thriving "old town," but I am a bit disappointed. One of the reasons I love to travel is the opportunity to see something different, something unlike my own world, and this isn't it. This is just my world -- the American world of capitalist consumption -- transported to the desert and writ large. And that's fine, for what it is, but it isn't all that interesting to me

Which brings me back to The Mall Of The Emirates, which feels like the apotheosis of Dubainess. As such, it's worthy of appreciation, but I'm sure I could appreciate it more if it were in my nature to enjoy shopping for pants, scarves, cell phones and jewelry.

That said, I did get a really good shwarma in the food court.

After we came back from the Mall I struggled to stay awake. I thought about taking a walk around the immediate environs of the hotel but was feeling disillusioned (and lazy). When I met up with my dad for dinner -- we just went to the bar in the hotel, where I had some very nice lamb chops and a Guinness -- he told me he had done exactly that and found it to be an actual neighborhood, with houses, small shops, etc. So I guess if I hadn't been so cranky I might have discovered a little bit of what I claimed I was looking for. Oh well, maybe tomorrow. After talking a bit, we did decide that on our last day here we would rent a car, leave the city proper and explore the environs (read: desert) a bit. So I do have that to look forward to.

Dubai, Day Two (Part Two)

(Note: it looks like there won't be any more photos posted until I get home, because apparently between last night and this morning the government here decided that www.flickr.com is "inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates" and has blocked the site. Since I don't have an account on Etisalat, I can't log in to register a complaint.)

So after buying the bad batteries, we decided to hop on an abra and head back across, then catch a cab back to the hotel as both of us were starting to feel the effects of jetlag. We filed on, but just as the boat was leaving the dock all of the Arab and Indian guys hopped off, leaving us and a group of about 8 other tourists.

As we motored away the operator asked us to pay. Instead of the usual 1/2 dihram, he asked for $30 (US). "What? Why?" we asked. "For the tour," he said, pointing at the other occupants of the boat. Apparently we had unknowingly jumped on a boat that was doing a tour of the creek instead of just going from point A to point B. Nice of him to let us know after we had pushed away.

We told him we didn't want to go on the tour, so if he could just drop us off at the next abra loading spot, that would be great. He apparently decided not to do that, and continued to motor up the creek, giving the worst "tour" I've ever been on. As we passed by the Sheraton (with the giant sign saying Sheraton) he'd say, "there's the Sheraton." Let's just say I didn't get much of an appreciation for Dubai from our tour guide.

So the tour finally ends (we went up one side of the creek and back down the other) and the guy asks for our money. He's already willing to come down in cost and asks for "20." I give him 20 dirhams and he says "no, 20 dollars." I tell him he's crazy, I'm not going to pay $20 for a lousy tour that I didn't know I was going to be forced to go on. I give him the 20 dirhams and he asks for more. I dig around in my pocket, avoiding the 100 dirham note I have, find a 5 dirham and give it to him, telling him "that's all I have" as we exit the boat.

And that's how we got a $30 tour for 25 dirhams ($6.81) for the two of us. And I have to tell you, I still feel like we got ripped off.

After a quick nap at the hotel to ward off jetlag we set out for dinner. Under instructions to find someplace not too far away I settled for Spectrum On One at the Fairmont Hotel. I figured we'd go with a hotel restaurant since they are pretty much the only places allowed to serve alcohol and I was looking forward to a glass of wine with dinner. It's got a pretty cool gimmick -- six separate kitchens: Indian, Chinese/Thai, Arabian, Japanese, European, and a raw bar. It has a full menu from each to choose from.

My dad and I, perhaps overwhelmed by our choices, went the easy route. I chose the Arabian mixed grill, which offered six different kinds of meat, and he chose the special Turkish mixed grill, which offered six other kinds of meat (though unfortunately one was kidney). So, a dozen different preparations of beef, lamb, and chicken!

Unfortunately, since today is the Muslim New Year, all restaurants were dry last night so we didn't get any wine to go with our meat bonanza. On the plus side, we unknowingly lucked into some sort of early bird special, which offered a 41% discount off the bill if we left the table by 8:30. Our server notified us of that about 8:20 when we were deciding not to have any dessert, so we waddled out of the restaurant at 8:28 more than happy with our cheap meat feast.

Dubai, Day Two (Part One)

Didn't do a whole lot today...my dad's luggage didn't make it to Dubai last night (it got waylaid at Heathrow) so he didn't want to leave the hotel until his bags showed up. That happened about 1 PM, so once he was able to put on clothes he hadn't flown in, we set out.

My only pre-set tourist goal was to take a ride on an abra, or water taxi, across Dubai Creek. Since my grasp on Dubaian geography is still tenuous, I thought what we could do was take a cab to the Al Karama Market, walk around there for a bit, and then walk to the creek. It turns out Al Karama isn't near the creek, or at least not near enough for my dad, who just had two knee surgeries, to walk. So, as our cab pulled up to Al Karama and our cabbie pointed out that since it was Friday (the first day of the weekend) most of the stores would be closed, we asked him to drop us of creekside instead.

The area along the creek was hopping. Since it was a day off, the plazas and streets were filled with what seemed like every Indian construction worker in Dubai. I knew that something like 70% of the population of Dubai was foreign, mostly Indian, but it wasn't until I read an article in the most recent National Geographic that I realized most of them are, essentially, indentured servants, living in squalor while they attempt to pay back the cost of their airfare, fronted by unscrupulous Indian business interests.

Anyway, many of them were spending their day off hanging out by the creek, and doing some shopping. We walked around the shopping area a bit, but I'm not much of a shopper, and most of the stores in this area sold day-to-day items rather than things I'd be looking to bring home (I'll need to go to the malls for that). So we decided to hop in an abra for the ride across the creek.

"Creek" is a misnomer, since it was long ago widened and deepened. I mean, it's not the Mississippi River, but it's too wide to throw something across, which is sort of my internal definition for what a creek is. Since there are only a few bridges, and none for pedestrians, people use the abras to cross. It only costs 1/2 a dirham, or about $0.14.

The abras are simple, open wooden boats with a large bench seat and a canopy. I didn't get any good pictures of them (more on that later) but here they are:



There is no way something like this would be allowed in the States -- you sit mere inches from the water with no railing, seat belts, or even handholds, and at the end of the trip you hop out of the rocking (and often still moving) boat onto the dock. Good times.

We spent a bit more time walking around, mostly to find a store where I could buy some AA batteries for my camera. We eventually found a store selling a pack of 24 for 4 dirhams ($1.09). "Such a deal," I thought, and it would have been if Any of them worked. Most of them were so dead that they didn't even give my camera enough power for it to tell me it was out of battery. The final pair that I put in the camera gave me three photos, which was enough to take a picture of the boats laden with goods and waiting to unload:



Next up: an unwanted tour & lots of meat for dinner...

Dubai, Day One

My plane landed about 10 PM last night, as I basically spent all of Thursday traveling. I left Harrisburg at 8 PM on Wednesday, got to Frankfurt around noon, and now here I am. It was a remarkably uneventful series of flights -- the IAD-FRA plane was full, but a seat in United Economy Plus and a Lunesta made that bearable, and the FRA-DXB flight was empty enough that I was able to commandeer an entire five-seat row and stretch out a bit.

As a result I landed feeling better than I was expecting to. Plus, it was a breeze navigating the airport, I found a place to change money and a taxi with no problem, and within an hour of landing I was settled into my hotel room on the 19th floor of a hotel on Sheikh Zayed Road, waiting for room service so I could have a bite to eat and then go to bed:



This was a much better room service option than the typical burger and a salad that I get in American hotels.

I haven't been outside to explore yet, but we have no business stuff to do today so I hope to get over to the "old" part of town and take a ride in an abra on Dubai Creek. i figure I have 5 or 6 hours before the jetlag hits so I better make the most of it.