Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Dubai is a place I'd wanted to visit ever since I heard phrases like 'Middle East Disneyland', and 'Arabic Las Vegas' bandied about. For one, I think the Middle East is absolutely fascinating as a tourist destination. It's breathtaking. I am in love with all things exotic. For another, the idea that builders there apparently believe the sky is not the limit -- them trying to punch their way through it with the Burj Dubai is evidence of that -- promised amazing things. If there was no one to tell you No, and That's Too Expensive, what could you build? The possibilities seemed endless and I wanted to see those results for myself.

Now that I've been to and seen different sides of Dubai, I no longer consider it an architectural or entertainment marvel. An excellent article here, explains most of why I strongly dislike Dubai. It's a pretty awful place, and a lot of peoples' lives have been destroyed to create the illusion that I had initially been enthralled with. I guess everything really does have its price, and a large, silenced majority in Dubai is paying it in spades.

While I am no longer a fan of Dubai and feel a measure of guilt for enjoying my time there, I take some consolation in the fact that I did not know the truth before I went there. I note this particularly in the case of my host there in the city. Had I known that he is contributing in a huge, unforgivable way to what has happened and continues to happen there, I would not have accepted his hospitality. But having been ignorant at the time, it was a lucky break, and I am glad that I know what the place is like.

I met my host, whom I will refer to as Dubai Guy (DG), in Kathmandu, Nepal. I was having breakfast with a friend at the Hyatt Regency, when a older man seated by himself beside us struck up a light conversation. We spoke only briefly, a couple of minutes. My friend later met him for drinks in the lobby but I did not see DG again until we met again at the Kathmandu airport. He was flying to China, I believe, to recruit more workers for Dubai (more on this topic later). My friend and I teased him about flying first class while we were stuck with coach. He mentioned that he lives in Dubai and I told him that I hoped to join my brother's cruise ship in Dubai the following May (this converstation occurred in September). Again, conversation was limited to about five minutes before his flight left.

When I returned to the States, I sent an email to DG, reminding him that I would be in Dubai next May, and suggesting that when I was there we should get together for drinks since I would be on my own the night before my brother's ship arrived into port. DG, to my shock, wrote back with, "Why wait that long?" He offered to fly me out to Dubai immediately. We went back and forth with emails, me mostly trying to gauge his seriousness, until in mid-October he sent me the notification that he'd purchased my ticket for the first week of November.

Now, haha, I have to mention (because I know you're thinking it), what did I promise in return for this $1500 ticket? Nothing. Conscious that he might be trying to buy me, I was very careful in my language and never (in my opinion) gave him the idea that I intended anything more than to get to know him on a friendship level. Apparently I wasn't clear enough (or he chose to rewrite the rules) but that comes later.

I felt safe enough with the situation to agree to fly out. I knew his full name, his phone number and address, and I knew his employer, which at the time was the city of Dubai itself since he was in charge of a major construction project. I went to the airport with promises to keep in contact with my brother once I arrived safely. I would have been surprised not to find a ticket waiting for me and sure enough I was in the system. So I flew to Houston to connect with Emirates, which was my first introduction to the odd combination of wealth and security I would soon be exposed to.

Emirates has its own intimate, enclosed terminal. It looks vastly different from the terminals of Delta, American, etc. in that it resembles a hotel lobby. It's also different because about 90% of the waiting passengers were men, and two armed guards stood beside the gate. I'm not talking elderly rent a cops, either. These guys had assault rifles and looked like they'd used them once or twice before.

The planes of Emirates are pretty amazing, too. For one, they're wide-bodied non-stop flights to the UAE. The planes are massive. I'd say coach seats are comparable to some domestic first class seats in terms of room and comfort. The ceiling of the plane is dotted with tiny lights, so that when the cabin is dimmed the effect is similar to a planetarium. The lighting which shafts up the walls of the plane shift through the colors of the rainbow, giving the impression that you're sitting in a comfortable, swanky nightclub. It's wonderful. The food, however, was not impressive, which surprised me greatly.

At Dubai International Airport, DG was waiting for me. It was a bit of a relief to see him because admittedly I'd forgotten what he looked like, having accepted his invitation based on his personality. I also worried that I'd painted him to be more jovial in my memory that he actually was. But his wave and smile of greeting set me at ease and I knew it would be a good week.

DG lived in the Flora Creek Apartments, which directly overlooks the Dubai Creek. They're very nice, full-service apartments that can be rented out as hotel rooms. DG made us pasta and toasted my arrival with champagne. As it was already late at night, we called it a day, and he took the sofa in the living room while I took the bedroom.

View from the kitchen of DG's apartment. You can see the skyline through the window. His place had a great balcony, although it was a bit noisy since it overlooked a major road. Still, I didn't mind it at all and would sit out there with my PG Tips and my Kindle and watch the sunset.

 

This was my room during my stay. Again, another fantastic view of the Creek and the skyline. I'd leave the curtains open most of the time.

In the morning, DG had some work to do, so he told me about the nearby Deira City Centre (a big mall a block away) and handed me 1000 dirhams (275 USD) so I'd have some cash even though I tried to refuse them. He also told me to treat myself to a massage and just charge it to the room.

After he left, I went downstairs and walked around for a bit, although it was blazing hot (and this is coming from someone who lives in Las Vegas where 114F is not unheard of). It was HOT. So I ditched the plan to walk to the mall and instead decided to try the massage.

Well, it was certainly an experience! First of all, I am very familiar with massages. I attended massage therapy school for four months, and besides having given a ton of Swedish and deep tissue massages, I've also received a ton because students practiced on each other. And before enrolling in that school I took a week vacation at a spa in Phoenix specifically so I could experience a different massage technique a day to decide whether it all interested me.

This massage was quite unlike any I've had before. It's not as memorable, perhaps, as a Turkish massage, but it was similar in that it was more unnerving than relaxing. First of all, I was instructed to strip completely naked and lay faceup on the table without any covering. Hello, awkward! I can only imagine a massage newbie being traumatized by this, believing all massages require you to be buck naked and exposed. Then the lady proceeded to pour half a gallon of sweet-smelling oil on me and massage it into my body. This sounds sexier than it was, trust me. Imagine a friend grabbing you by the wrist and forcing a cup of oil into your skin by rubbing it vigorously up your arm from wrist to shoulder. Repeat with each limb, being yanked and pulled. See how the edges of the pad on the table below are raised in a rim? I think that's so your greased up body doesn't fly off the table to the floor. Also, this woman seemed to have no concept of personal boundaries. When I was prone and she was working on my legs, she'd jam her fingers halfway up between my buttocks. I felt like telling her that was reserved for boyfriends only, haha.

Needless to say, with all that hard, furious rubbing and yanking (for the second time, I swear it wasn't sexy!) I was unable to relax, and kept tensing up, half afraid she'd pull off a limb or push me off the table. After she was done, thank god, she guided me to sit in a steam sauna and then I rinsed off, vowing not to come back for another round, even if DG offered to pay again.

A few hours later DG came back and we went to lunch at some place called Wafi, which is an Egyptian themed restaurant/mall. Think less impressive version of the Luxor in Vegas. As an aside, I need to say that those comparisons to Vegas that I'd heard earlier are strained at best. I think if I'd lived somewhere other than Vegas, the architecture would have impressed me more than it did. But really, how can anything compete with the spectacle that is Sin City?

After we ate, we walked around the mall briefly before heading to the Mall of the Emirates which, until the Dubai Mall was built, was the shopping destination of the city.

The interior of the Mall of the Emirates is beautiful. It's a huge mall, although it's no longer the largest mall in the city since the opening of the Dubai Mall. The Dubai Mall is the largest mall in the world. It's more than 9 million square feet with 10 - 15 individual smaller malls built inside it. There's supposed to be 1000 stores inside it. Imagine how much your feet will ache after that shopping trip! Or telling your friend, "Meet me at the food court", to which they'd respond, "Which one, at mile ten or mile eighteen?" Dubai Mall had opened up the week that I was there, but I listened to the traffic reports on the radio concerning the mall and I was glad we didn't go near it. Traffic was backed up for hours just to get into the mall's parking lot.

Something I loved about the malls, any malls be it Emirates or the one near DG's apartment, was the selection of stores on offer. I'd say about 80% were stores I'd never heard of before. I'm guessing they are European or Middle Eastern brands, and they were fascinating to visit. I want all my malls to be filled with international brands, makes it that much more interesting. Also, Dubai malls (and perhaps Mid East ones in general) favor perfume stores, which was a bonus for me since I love perfume. Oud, which is wood with a certain scent, and bakhoor, which is a mixture of wood chips, resins, and perfume oils compressed into a coal-like shape, are what the Arabic lands are most famous for. Malls are filled with the distinctive scent of these two perfumes since both are burned lightly in brazier-like devices called medhans or Mabkharas. I saw several perfume stores with long glass canisters filled with wood chips standing proudly in their windows. More on the perfume later.

The Mall of the Emirates is probably most famous for its indoor ski slope, Ski Dubai, which is -- you guessed it -- the largest indoor ski slope in the world.

Here's an aerial shot:

And here's the interior. It's shaped in an L, as you saw above, with two ski lifts that meet at a midway point where there's a small chalet where you can eat some snacks and have hot chocolate. The upper part of the slope is considered the more advanced part, with a small dip at the turn. There's an intermediate slope below it, and below that to the side is a bunny slope. Apparently the apparatus in the ceiling will create snow which will rain down like well, real snow. But it wasn't snowing on the night I was there.

Here is the bottom of the ski lift. To the right, in the areas near the wall where the two trees are, is the bunny slope. The big dark mass in the center of this picture is the midpoint where the chalet is. You get off there if you want to ski the intermediate slope.

Here I am in my only photo with DG. He kinda looks like Simon Cowell here. He also kinda looks old enough to be my dad, lol. Anyway, you can see here our snazzy outfits which are included with your rental of the skiis. You have to supply your own gloves and hat or buy them at the shop or chalet. I'm wearing the hat I bought in Nepal.

We took a break after a few runs and enjoyed hot chocolate in the chalet. But once we sat down and relaxed, I finally started to feel the cold and I realized I was done skiing. So we turned in our gear and walked through the mall.

I couldn't afford anything, but I did head for the perfume shops. Spray perfumes are rare, and are generally an indication of a cheaper, mass-produced perfume. Most perfumes are oil based rather than alcohol based, and are packaged in the most gorgeous bottles imaginable with elegant glass dip sticks. Look at this store!

Something that surprised me in a wonderful way is that nearly every bottle of perfume is packaged in the most extravagant boxes or packaging you could dream of. So not only do you get an ornate bottle you couldn't find in the States or most of western Europe, but you also get a pretty box in which to display it.

My first purchase was this gorgeous crystal bottle of a rose-based oil. The packaging is stupendous. The outer box is a slick white cube. When you open it you find a glass lid with holograms on it. Beneath that is a padded pillow and two pouches as you see here.

Inside the larger pouch is the perfume -- look at the gorgeous etching! -- and inside the smaller pouch is a pearl necklace complete with certification.

I also bought this, mostly for the packaging. Perfume with it's own cabinet!

And this amazing display. This is old Hollywood, right? The doors open on the box and the perfume bottle is sitting inside. So lovely.

The third one I bought, displayed at home with the pink one behind it.

So I was thrilled and smelling like the best parts of the Middle East :)

Here are some shots of Dubai down the main corridor, Sheikh Zayed Road.

This drive reminds me a lot of Vegas and New York. All the largest buildings are clustered along this one strip which makes for an impressive nighttime drive.

Quick glimpse of the Burj Dubai, which is the world's tallest building.

All of these buildings are unfinished. You can see the cranes atop each one. At one time, Dubai possessed the most cranes in the world because of the incredible amount of construction going on at once. Nowadays I doubt there's much of any construction going on at all.

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