Dubai!

So....Dubai. Du-bai. The Arab world....in the United Arab Emirates (of which there are seven and I am proud to say I have officially visited TWO of these!) Ah, what a strange and yet enchanting experience, probably one of the neatest experiences of my life. So, John and I set out Wednesday after school to board Emirates airlines to Dubai. Our Emirates flight there, flight EK 517, was excellent. It was a big plane, a 777 I think, and it was maybe a third full. John thinks they are running these big flights between Bangalore (among other Indian places) and Dubai twice daily to create the illusion in the market that this route is in high demand, because Dubai is so cool. Which, well, it is! So, we had room to spread out and over 100 channels on our personal seat tv, including TONS of music (I listened to a little Simon and Garfunkel and some Gwen Stefani!) and tv shows/movies. I watched Grey’s Anatomy and Little Miss Sunshine, which is quite dark and funny if you haven’t seen it! Anyway, we arrived on time (even a bit early as we were light.) Sue Thompson, my former Charles H. Hulse practicum associate teacher, was there to meet us. Before we left the airport and found Sue, John bought a phone card for his mobile...on a plan that we didn’t realize till later only offered us ONE overseas call...which John used to call his Mom’s answering machine!! Ah well. Sue is in Dubai working at the Sharjah American International School, in Sharjah. Sharjah is the Emirate right beside Dubai...kinda like Mississauga to Toronto. She is head of English there for the secondary school and teaches all highschool boys, which is a far cry from Grade Ones! Anyway, in the UAE, kids are separated by gender starting in Grade 4. Crazy. I guess all the Emirati girls bring loads of makeup to school and put it on in the bathrooms...unbeknownst to their parents :) Women seem to wear A LOT of dramatic makeup there if they show their face. So, Sue was great- we chatted the whole way home in a traffic jam (Dubai is notorious for bad traffic jams...but at least there is a rhyme or reason to the traffic there, not like India’s traffic chaos!) We arrived at her place at 11pm-ish I think and we chatted some more. She was the most gracious host, inviting us to help ourselves to anything in her cute little apartment. Her is about ½ the size of ours in India....maybe even less that that- but what more does one person need really? A place to sleep, a place to cook (she has an oven which we don’t) and a bathroom (!) (she has a bathtub which we don’t!) I promptly had a ‘tubbie’ the next morning. Sorry to those of you for whom that is too much information!! Sue had to work the next day (Thurs), so John and I followed our plan we mapped out from the trusty Lonely Planet Dubai, and had fun in Sharjah. Now, Sharjah is more conservative an Emirate than uber-hip Dubai, so I had to cover my shoulders. I brought one of my Indian Salwar Kameez sets, thinking that would be super appropriate....but I forgot it was sleeveless. So, I had to wear a shawl over my shoulders all day. Ah well, at least I didn’t have to cover my head!! It turned out not to be super hot that day, so wearing a shawl was okay. We began by taking a quick walk around Ramaquia, Sue’s neighbourhood in Sharjah. The neighbourhoods are named, like SahakarNagar in India, or say Whitehills, in London. Sue’s neighbourhood is basically the equivalent of SahakarNagar here. Kind of far from even the Sharjah city centre, (it’s basically in the desert!) and under a lot of construction. Of course, all the constructions workers are....you got it....from India. Mostly Keralites. And I guess they get treated literally like shit there. The Emiratis think of them basically as their slaves. However, most of them make better money there than they would doing the same job in India, so they work and send money home to their families in India. But, the UAE gov’t is cheeky, and does things like makes them surrender their passports so they can’t leave until their contract is over, and sometimes not even then. Dads may be away from their families for 6 years! So sad. They also do things like ‘forget’ to tell the Indian workers that their housing comes out of their salary, so they end up making less than they originally anticipated. Ugh. Disgusts me. Sue is absolutely disgusted with Emiratis, especially the men. I guess the are lazy and eat junk and are therefore obese, but they don’t care because they never have to do anything except father one child a year and have affairs with the Vietnamese and Thai girls who go there to work as waitresses. Their staff take care of their businesses, so Sue just says they ‘float’ through the malls (it seems like they are floating because of their long, white dishdashas) and drink Arabic coffee (like extremely weak, bitter coffee with no milk or sugar aka: yucky to me.) Anyway, enough of the rant. Sue’s regular driver Saifullah drove us to Sharjah town. First, we tried to find this Fort Al Hisn....a fort that has been there since the beginning of Sharjah....but none of the cabbies seemed to know what that was or where that was (we eventually find it but that is later.) So, we stopped by a perfumery and I got Ashi the perfume she wanted (perfume is a bit of a ‘thing’ in Dubai...lots of perfume shops.) Then, we started out in town at the ‘Blue Souq’ or ‘Central Souq.’ Now, a souq can mean anything from an open street market, to something basically resembling a shopping mall. The Blue Souq is Sharjah’s main souq and it is very pretty. The outside is decorated all, well, blue. But not just blue, those gorgeous Mediterranean aqua and cobalt that I love from Greece. Inside, it was gold shop after gold shop after gold shop. The Emiratis are rich and don’t mind showing it off! Some of the gold necklaces were so unbelievably big I had to take photo evidence so you’d believe me! Gold is a big purchase item for tourists here....but John and I are merely lowly teachers, so we didn’t indulge! We did, however, buy some trinkets from the curios type stores upstairs. I got a carved rosewood camel and some ‘Aladdin’ shoes. At this time it was around 1:30 and the shops started closing. We didn’t know until then that shops are closed from 1:30-4pm. Kind of a siesta type of deal I think. So, we decided to go and find some lunch. As it turned out, we ended up at the restaurant we had planned to go to for dinner. The cabbie took us there, so I guess it is good! It was called Sanobar and served Lebanese food. It’s funny, as 3 DHS (Durhams) = CDN $1 it seems like everything in the UAE is very expensive...but really, divide by 3 and it’s not at all! For example, my new favourite juice, a Dubai speciality of lemon with pureed mint leaves, cost DHS 10 at the restaurant but that’s really only $3.50. Sure, it’s not as cheap as India, but what else is?! So, we had the most delicious Lebanese meal of Greek and Fattoush salads, grilled prawns and yummy kebabs...and then a homemade dessert that comes free and is made by the wife of the guy who runs the place, this delicious custard-y thing with pistachios sprinkled on top. Needless to say, we were FULL! We also noted that there are no stray dogs here...a few cats but no dogs. The only thing that bothered us at lunch were the flies. After that we once again set out to find Al Hisn Fort (at that point we were pronouncing it Al Hine Fort, unknowingly...) And again the cabbie took us to the wrong place. So, we just had him drop us in the Heritage Area. Here, we stumbled upon a large wall made of massive pieces of coral (yep, coral!) in concrete. We followed this wall until we could get inside and found a jackpot. We found the Islamic Museum first and bought a ticket for DHS 20 that would get us into all 15 of the attractions in the Heritage Area.....including Al Hisn Fort (it must exists then!) So, we saw the Islamic Museum, The Sharjah Heritage Museum (the former home of the Al Naboodah family- the ruling family at one time in Sharjah), The Maritime Museum (a lot of pearling history here,) the ‘Old’ Souq or The Souk Al Arsah (more like an old market than the Blue Souk....and where we sat in a traditional coffee house and tried Arabic coffee...yick!) and then stumbled, literally, upon Al Hisn Fort. And, well, it is pronounced Al Hissen Fort or Sharjah Fort...but we still don’t see how just that could have stopped people from understanding where we wanted to go. Al well. We found it and saw it (it’s small!) and the neatest things were photos that showed the same area merely 50 years ago. And seriously, 50 years ago, Sharjah was what you stereotypically might think an Arabic country was, say 100 years ago. Sand, camels, the fort entrance, the Bedouin nomads...it was a different world. All of Dubai and Sharjah’s ‘boom’ has happened in MY lifetime. It’s pretty crazy that they have the infrastructure and livability that they do...but I guess that’s what oil money gets you...whatever you want.....fast!! Anyway, the museums were very pretty. Not like you think of museums back home. These were basically like open courtyards with whitewashed walls and nooks and wooden roofs. Then, in the rooms around the courtyard are the artefacts etc. On the ride back to Sharjah that evening, we had a very nice Bangladeshi cabbie, who basically begged us to take him to Canada with us so that he could be our driver. We didn’t have the heart to tell him that we are just teachers and we don’t even make enough to have drivers in India! At any rate, we gave him a big tip. We didn’t really eat dinner, just munched on nuts at Sue’s. She was out late that evening, as she had tickets for the Tennis Open that was in Dubai. All the big names were there, Federer, Martina Hingis, and all them. She showed us photos, it would have been cool to see! Oh, another thing about Sharjah that is different from Dubai is that Sharjah is ‘dry’ (no alcohol) so Sue had some funny stories about getting wine and beer home!! Most cabbies don’t even want to take you home to Sharjah from Dubai if they know what is in you ‘black’ bags!! Fair enough, they could lose their liscence! Anyway, all that to say that we had a nice glass of wine at Sue’s Thursday night. Oh- and we did see a few white tourists wearing sleeveless tops in Sharjah too! Cheeky. Some more general things about Sharjah....there are lots of roundabouts when driving..so just like when we were diving in Australia, you look to the left and yield when you come to a roundabout....and if you miss your cutoff, you just keep going around and around!! We also learned one word in Arabic...’Shakran’ which means ‘thank-you.’ (Roll the ‘r’) We’re awesome! There are lots of mosques about...all different styles but all similar construction with the two tall spiers.
So, the next day we woke up to see the sights in Bur Dubai before our 3pm pickup for our Orient Tours Desert Safari. As like other Muslim countries, the weekend is Friday/Saturday so Sue had Friday off. However, Friday is also the prayer day, so nothing is open. We did get to see the creek port though (Dubai is built on one side of a creek...the other side ‘Deira’ used to be a separate state, but is now part of Dubai.) and we went on an ‘abra’ ride (an abra is a boat taxi.) The boat taxis will take you to the other side of the creek for DHS 1 per ride, but will also take you on creek ‘tours.’ So we took a ½ hour tour. It was cool. We walked along the port and watched all the Indian workers loading and unloading cargo (anything from European used cars to oil to t-shirts....weird.) We then went to the Sheraton (cause it was there) and ate lunch at an English pub. I know, why eat at an English pub when you’re in Dubai...but forgive us, we’ve been in India too long and just wanted fish and chips and a real, live, honest to goodness sandwich! It was great. Then, we cabbed it back to Sue’s and chatted with her and packed for our desert safari.....I was soooo excited. Sue had just been on the same safari (but not overnight) on Jan 7th. She loved it. So, the safari company, Orient Tours, picked us up at Sue’s house (which, I forgot to mention is RIGHT across the street from her school! Convenient!) In our car, with us and our tour guide Jafar, was a really nice 60-something Pakistani man and his younger looking wife (not yucky younger, just 10 or 15 years it looked) and a 50-something couple from somewhere in Europe (Germany? Switzerland? Holland?). And us. They were all very interested in us- what we did etc! After stopping at a gas station to collect all the SUVs together and to take a pee break, we departed on our adventure. First up was some dune bashing. This basically means, they take you into the desert, onto the huge sand dunes and drive around like maniacs, so you are sure the SUV is gonna tip (it has roll bars), making huge sprays of sand in its wake. The Pakistani lady said that if she knew the dune bashing was going to be a part of it, she wouldn’t have come. Poor lady! I was loving it! The Pakistani man could not stop saying ‘shit, shit!’ I think our driver was a bit crazier than all the rest!! Don’t worry Mom and Dad, I am okay! The whole time too, they have a film crew following the caravan of SUVs around and taking footage, cause later you can buy a DVD or CD Rom of your adventure with video and stills! Good thing too, as it was hard to take photos while being whipped this way and that!! So, we dune bashed for close to an hour I think..stopping once to take some photos...and then we arrived at ‘camp.’ ‘Camp’ was in a hollow in the sand (so you can’t tell that the highway is actually a visible distance away!) decorated with tents and resplete with a hookah/hubbly-bubbly tent for sheesha smoking, a station for you to hold a trained falcon, a mehendi lady doing henna tattoos, camels for camel rides, snowboard-type board for sandboarding, and places for you to sit and sip wine or beer (we were back in Dubai land then) and to eat the delicious bbq they prepared (lamb chops, bbq chicken, dal and rice, Greek style potatoes and onions, salad, tabouleh salad, oh man, it was gooood.) We ate until we couldn’t eat anymore! The next event was the belly dancer, who was really good and got the crowd up and dancing and having fun. Then, everyone who wasn’t staying overnight left in their SUVs and we found out that only 7 of us were doing the overnight! A couple, Jill and Eric from the States and their friend, An Aussie dude and a Swiss dude (I think.) So, the Orient Tours people set up our Coleman tents and sleeping bags and mattresses, and we all chatted for a bit and then went to bed. It was funny, at 8:00 when the others left, it felt like it was at least 9:30...so I think we were in bed by 10/10:30. Not much you can do in the dark!! So, we officially spent a night camping in the desert. They woke us at 6:30am (ugh!) and we all ate breakfast and went dune bashing a bit more and went to see ‘camel rock.’ Then, they dropped us off at Sue’s. We showered and chatted with Sue and then headed off to see Jumeirah. Jumeirah is on the other side of the river from Bur Dubai and is totally the other end of Dubai from Sue’s. In Jumeirah we saw the beach, the Burj Al Arab from the beach (the Burj is the world’s only 7 star hotel, and sort of the ‘symbol’ of Dubai....it’s that curved building with a point at the top that you’d often see in ‘typical’ pictures of Dubai.) We also went to the Madeinat Jumeirah (you don’t pronounce the ‘t’ in Madeinat) which is a large castle-looking souq with tons of cool shops, eateries and stuff to look at (people watching prime territory.) So, after, I bought some cool, colourful Dubai prints, we ate a bite at a restaurant there (I had a Strongbow-yay!) and watched the sun set on the beach. Then, we went and had real dinner (late, Dubai style) at a Moroccan restaurant. It was great but the portions were massive and we couldn’t eat it all! We did seem to score a prime seat though, right near the two musicians who were playing and singing Moroccan tunes. After that, we went back to Sue’s. We woke up early in the a.m. on Sunday to say goodbye and to thank Sue for her hospitality. We then slept a tiny bit more and woke up to head to the airport. As usual, the airport was not a cut and dry matter. To start, the airline had overbooked the flight due to them having to put up passengers who got bumped from another flight. So, they were asking people if they would mind taking the later flight in return for a free ticket or something. We should have just said yes to that and have been done with it, but the later flight didn’t leave till 9pm, and our flight left at noon...so we said we wanted to be on our original flight. So, we were all there at the boarding gate and it was 11:45 and our flight was supposed to leave at 12...so people were starting to get a bit restless. Then, they come on the loudspeaker and say that our flight had been delayed until 6pm that evening. Everyone was shocked, especially since they had brought us as far as checking us in to the gate! So, everyone was mad of course, as were we...but we just went back out and hung around Dubai airport for 6 hours! It gave me a chance to get my duty free Bailey’s, and for John to get his Starbucks UAE city mug (he also got one from Singapore and KL). So, our flight ended up leaving around 6:30pm, and we were going ‘into’ time instead of backwards, so we got home and into our little beddies at 2am. We were tired Monday at work, but that’s a small price to pay for such a cool, fantastic experience. With all it’s Arabic Disneyland-ish weirdness, it really is something not to be missed if you are in this part of the world. I recommend it to you all highly. And go on a desert safari if you are into adventurousness!! Some photos will be accompanying this soon!
Jess