Stop #10: Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Switching from the great plains and wilderness of Kenya to the concrete jungle of Dubai was quite a shock, especially when done within the same day.  Although I’ve always wanted to visit Dubai, it actually was not one of the places I had on my original itinerary. The agent who helped me book all 22 flights suggested that, since we had a connection in Dubai on the way to Bangkok, we should just check it out for a day or two.  I thought that was an excellent idea, since I probably would never plan to make a solo trip to Dubai in the future.  I always thought Dubai was a mysterious place that I’d love to see, but I heard that you don’t need much time there.  So, a one day stop over was the perfect way to see it 😊

When I booked the hotel for Dubai, I picked a place in the location I wanted to see the most – The Palm Jumeirah!  This is the manmade palm-looking island that was just built within the last 10 years.  It has one “stem”, and a crest around the top half of the stem.  Then, from the stem to the crest are rows of sandbars, lined with beautiful beach-front homes.  Its hard to describe, so here’s a photo of the area:

Anyhow, the hotel I booked was drop dead gorgeous!  For just $124 for the night, we got a perfectly located, 5-star resort that had a private beach, a large infinity pool, a rooftop pool, several restaurants and bars with views, and outstanding guestrooms.  Again, going from our permanent tent in the Masai Mara, to this extremely modern and fancy hotel in a big city was quite a shock.  In a way, it was a good shock.  Although we dearly missed all the nature and wild animals of Kenya, we were looking forward to staying in a clean place (where my allergies could finally settle down).  The only thing is that we arrived in Dubai at 4:50am and check-in wasn’t til 3:00pm!  But very, very luckily, the host knew it was our honeymoon, and she let us check-in to a guest room shortly after we arrived… AND she included a free box of chocolates and bottle of red wine.  Loving Dubai already!

We were quite exhausted from the red eye flight from Kenya, but we were too excited to see this new and interesting city.  So we showered, ate (an extremely over-priced) breakfast, and walked straight to the monorail which took us down the stem of Palm Jumeriah which gave us a great bird’s eye view of the area. It was really cool to see how the Palm was laid out, as I’ve been curious about it for so many years!  I could see that all the homes were perfect mini-mansions, all with private beach access.  Even though it looked very clean cut, it looked a bit “fake”.  In fact, the whole city looked “fake” to us.  I’m not trying to talk down on to Dubai in anyway, but it’s truly a city built on a desert and extends into the ocean on manmade islands.  If you look past all the structures and super tall skyscrapers, you’ll see sand and desert for eternity.  The city has this haze that surrounds it, which I believe is from all the dust kicked up from the construction.  There is SO much construction going on!  I later learned from a taxi driver that just 10 years ago, none of this existed.  There were no tall buildings, and definitely no Palm Jumeriah.  The developers are trying to complete all the construction by 2020 because there is a massive technology conference that will be held nearby.  Dubai has to prepare to host the world.  Interesting!

A city built on a desert

The ride down the stem of the Palm brought us to Atlantis – a resort that hosts over 1,000 guests rooms and a gigantic waterpark.  This waterpark was quite enticing because while we were in Dubai, it was 100 degrees!  100 degrees of heat and humidity.  Unfortunately, the waterpark was slammed with families and kids, so we didn’t go.  However, we did check out the resort (and enjoyed the AC).  It was very similar to the Atlantis I’ve seen in the Caribbean Islands.  But the main difference between the Caribbean one and this one is that the Caribbean one has gambling (I vaguely believe).

After our visit to Atlantis, we hired a taxi to take us down the curve of the crest of the Palm to a super fancy resort.  We didn’t care that much to see the resort, but we wanted to enjoy the ride there and view the rest of the Palm.  It turned out that resort was extremely impressive, definitely a place for the rich.  They had huge hotel rooms / houses that had private access to the swimming pool – something I’ve never seen before.  It would have been cool to stay there, but at the end of the day, you’re staying in a fancy resort, on a mandmade island, with not much to do besides see more manmade stuff.  Anyhow, after the resort, we headed back to our hotel via the monorail.  And on the way from the monorail to the hotel, we walked through some of Dubai’s many, many huge shopping malls which were lined with so many stores and restaurants.  It was kinda eerie because the malls were so huge, but there were hardly any people in them.  It was as if the city had far more malls (and hotels, resorts, etc) than the population needed.  I always heard that Dubai may have overestimated its influx of tourists, but this was more than I expected.  Even our own hotel seemed a bit deserted.  I guess when the area is done being built in 2020 (and all the dust settles down), more people will visit.  I sure hope so cuz it looks like they spent a whole lot of money here!

We were happy to come across a grocery store so we could buy something for lunch, at a reasonable price.  The first thing that Lorenzo did was beeline it to the beer section.  I could see his head turning left and right, reading all the labels, before turning to the staff lady and asking “do you have any beer with alcohol??”.  I started laughing and reminded Lorenzo that we were in a Muslim country.  You won’t find any alcohol in a public grocery store.  The store even had a separate room with a sign on it that said “For Non-Muslims”.  All the pork products were kept in that separate area… they are strict here!  So we just grabbed some food from the deli and ate it back at our hotel.  After lunch, we took an Uber to “Old Town”, since I wanted to see some history and culture.  But when we got there, “Old Town” didn’t look so old!  It was super clean, and all the buildings were perfectly touched up.  I once read a review online that complained about the city cleaning up Old Town, as it took away its cultural feel of the place.  And when I saw it, I was also disappointed.  But I was more disappointed with the fact that every single place in Old Town was completely closed (it was Saturday).  So we decided to keep on walking, aimlessly…

Old Town Dubai doesn't look so old...

Getting lost always seems to get us to the right place, as we ended up in a Souk that I really wanted to see 😊 A souk is like an alley way of shops and more authentic things to buy, alongside of touristy things.  Although we didn’t plan on buying anything, I wanted Lorenzo to experience what it was like to be pulled from left to right, down an alley of local shops.  The shopkeepers were quite persistent, but not nearly persistent as the ones I’ve experienced in Egypt and other parts of the world.  Some souks that I’ve walked through before, the shopkeepers actually grab your arm hard to make you stop and look at their stuff.  Luckily, this souk wasn’t like that and the shopkeepers were just pushy yet harmless.  Regardless, it was a fun experience.  The one thing that we did buy was fresh sugar cane juice… I don’t drink soda or juice at home, but this was fantastic!  It was just what I needed on an extremely hot day in Dubai.

Visiting a Souk is a Must!

We soon made our way back to “New Town” and ended up at Burj Khalifa – the tallest structure in the world with an incredible view at the top.  We would have loved to check out that view, but the ticket to go up HALF of it was $50!  To go all the way to the top was over $100.  Forget it, I’ll just Google it.  So we just stuck around the based of the building, as it was sitting in front of a gigantic shallow pool.  Well, at first I thought it was a pool, but it turned out to be the location of its famous fountain show.  The show started in an hour, so we decided to hangout at the Emirates Mall next door.  This mall was insanely humongous!  I’ve seen some pretty darn big malls around the world, but this one might be the biggest.  I don’t even know how many stories it was, and it seemed to go on forever.  Knowing that Lorenzo isn’t into shopping, we didn’t visit any of the stores.  Rather, we went on an hour-long hunt for a beer!  Every single restaurant did not have any alcohol at all.  This was quite a surprise since the place was filled mostly with tourists.  In the end, we did find one place that served alcohol, but it was in a dark room with no natural light or view.  It looked kinda creepy.  So… we just stayed sober.

The fountain show was definitely cool though!  We found a perfectly located bench in front of the pool and shared a non-alcoholic beer (so odd).  The show reminded me of the Bellagio, but I think it was even better than the Bellagio.  As the sun was soon to set, the lighting was perfect to watch the show.  Then a few minutes later, we headed back to our hotel.  Before washing up for dinner, we took a quick tour of our hotel, taking the elevator to the 16th floor.  We were a bit surprised to see that a rooftop pool party was going on during sunset!  That would have been a cool thing to participate in, but it looked like you had to order bottle service.  Since a glass of wine started at $20 at our hotel, we could only imagine how much bottle service would have costed.  So, we just took a picture and left.

Good night Dubai, it was fun...

Dinner was quite good – Lorenzo had fish and I had duck.  I always order Lamb, Duck and Goat (in that priority), before ordering chicken, beef or fish.  I just like the flavor so much more.  Actually, eating abroad has seriously motivated me to cook more at home.  I do like cooking, but Lorenzo tends to do most of it. One, he probably likes it more than I do, and two, he thinks he owns the kitchen.  When we get home, I’ll find time to sneak into the kitchen.  Anyhow, that was the end of our adventure in Dubai.  Would I go back?  Probably not.  It’s definitely a place you should check out at least once, but I don’t think you’ll need more than a few days there.  Overall, it is THE most impressive manmade place I’ve ever seen – the skyscrapers are the tallest I’ve seen in the world, the architecture is the most futuristic, and the resorts are some of the swankiest. Maybe one day when I’m too old to climb the stairs of Santorini, bike ride the mountains of Croatia, scuba dive the seas of Thailand, or do anything that requires health and fitness, I will go back to Dubai…

PHOTOS OF DUBAI