As I mentioned in the first post I made after getting to Dubai, we’ve been running around a fair bit. Which is actually a little curious, since my wife told me that holidays were to “eat and sleep and eat and sleep.” Maybe she meant for the “a” in those “ands” to stand for “activity.”
Despite this not being a pedestrian friendly city, we’ve been doing a lot of walking. By which I mean some walking, but since the temperatures are crazy hot, it feels like a lot. We’ve also hit the hotel pool a couple of times. Here, though, is a run-down of our big activities so far.
Most of our first day was just getting familiar with the city and hotel, but my wife wanted to see the Dubai Fountain. She had done her research (and talked with her travel agent friend) and wanted to see the “dancing waters” show of the Fountain. So we walked over to the closest Metro station, and caught a train to Dubai Mall, which is also the location of the Fountain and the Burj Kalifah. It was around dinner time and we hadn’t eaten since the morning buffet, so we snagged a table fountain side at one of the Mall restaurants (a TGI Friday’s of all places).
The fountain is supposed to do these shows every 30 minutes beginning at 6pm, but I think things got a little off when we were there. We definitely had to wait for more than 30 minutes before we saw anything. But we did manage to see a couple of the shows (each show appears to be just one choreographed musical piece). My wife got some video of one, which I’ll post when I can, but here are some links that will give some notion of what it’s like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5S8WcK3VDU and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoxxK-8MeWw. (We didn’t see either of these numbers.)
Something that sounds like more fun than it actually is, is a ride on the Palm Monorail. Dubai has expanded its shorelines by building islands, and one of the biggest of this is the Palm. As the name implies, it’s in the shape of a palm, and much of that engineered space has been taken up with ritzy resorts and homes. I mean, there’s a Trump Tower there, so, you know… Traveling up the “trunk” of the palm tree is a monorail, which will take people from the “mainland” to the Atlantis Hotel and Aquaventure park at the far side of the palm.
I think we got there far too late in the day for it to be interesting. The sun was already going down when we grabbed a taxi to go there, so things were already dark by the time we actually rode it. (That was definitely a steamy evening; because of the temperature and humidity, my glasses and camera both fogged up the minute we stepped outside.) There weren’t a ton of things to do when we got there, not at that hour. My wife has been told there was a big (and free) aquarium in the Atlantis, but I’m quite sure she was misinformed. There is an aquarium, but it cost 100 AED (about $28) to get in. I told my wife we could go, but I think she was disappointed that the free one wasn’t there.
Yesterday we were wandering around the souks of Dubai. The souks are kind of like “wholesale districts,” where you can find a ton of similar shops grouped together. The best known are the Spice and Gold souks, but there seemed to be a bit of everything around. As it turns out, my wife was on a mission in visiting these souks: she was shopping and ended up buying one of the most incongruous things for Dubai — a fur coat. Don’t even get me started. But she wanted it and she actually brought money for it. Apparently, even with airfare, it is cheaper to buy it here than in Ukraine. I really don’t know.
You do have watch out for the “helpful” people in the souks. There are a lot of shills for the different stores, so if you’re looking for something, they are more than happy to be your guide — at least as far as their store. The general souk that we were in does know its audience, because there were Russian signs in many of the windows. And three of the “helpful” people we met were fairly well versed in Russian. (One of them, a Chinese immigrant from what I could tell, was able to take us to the fur shop that had been recommended to my wife, and he spoke Russian the entire time.)
Honestly, the souks aren’t my thing, because price haggling is expected. Even so, I think I helped my wife get a good deal on a watch for her son. The guy wanted 600, and my wife was going to counter-offer 400. I suggested that she offer 200 instead, which the guy thought was far too low (for that particular watch), but brought his price down to 500. That’s when we started to say no and that we were going to leave, and voila, the price came down to (a grudging) 400. I’m pretty sure that, if that had been my wife’s counter offer, she would have paid more.
And finally, we went on safari. At least, that’s what it’s called, but there were no lions or elephants. (I’m sure that safari has some general meaning of wilderness adventure.) This is a very big tourist thing, and as a result the process is very well defined. I thought it sounded interesting on paper, but given the polished process, I really wasn’t expecting it to be as fun as it was. It’s a bit of a trip — about 30 minutes outside Dubai, which is probably quite a good ways out, given the very straight highways — but it goes by pretty quickly.
Once you get out to the target area, the first activity is “dune busting.” It’s just like it sounds — you cruise around the dunes in SUVs (Toyota LandCruisers in our case), going up and down the dunes, and sometimes making hard turns at the crests to really kick up the sand. It is rather exciting, but 20 minutes is almost pushing it. Would you want to be on a roller coaster for 20 minutes? My wife was starting to get queasy by the end.
Then it was off to the “Bedouin” camp for some Arabian snacks and entertainment. You could hold a falcon, get a henna tattoo, try a hookah, get into some traditional attire for photos, ride camels, or if the dune busting only got your juice going, ride around on some quads. After some time for that, there was a belly dancing show, a buffet dinner with a good variety of Middle Eastern foods, and then a final show with a guy that I could only describe as a whirling dervish. It was really all a lot of fun, and we had a great host and driver (an Iranian who has been in Dubai for almost 30 years). It was still a little warm for my tastes, but it was still a great evening. (If I ever come back to Dubai — preferably at a better time of year — I would definitely do this again.)
I think the agenda calls for another beach tomorrow, but maybe that will change since the week is already running short. (Thursday already? Oy!) We’re definitely taking photos, and I’ll get them up as soon as I can.