You know those annoying delays that leave you sitting bored in an airport for hours and hours, especially when those delays lead you to missing your connection. We landed in Dubai just about the time my flight to Copenhagen was leaving. Sigh. There is only one flight from Dubai to Copenhagen a day and thus is was that I got a bonus 24hours in Dubai, at the airlines expense. It means I miss a day in Copenhagen, but hey, Dubai. I've always wanted to go, but there has always been other places I've wanted to go to more. So yay. It's a minor annoyance, but not overly significant so I decided to make the most of it.
The only problem with this being that I know next to nothing about the country. That awkward moment when you need to ask the travelex girl what the local currency is before changing some money. Lol.
I was also concerned about my clothing, only having a short sleeved tee shirt on. But apparently the visible skin issue is not such a big deal here. So long as shoulders and knees are covered your are good to go. The only problem with my clothing was actually the climate appropriateness, being all black and big chunky boots. I also learnt upon arrival that it is Ramadan at the moment so the Muslim population is fasting during daylight hours. What this means is that there is no where to get food outside of the airport or hotels. It would also be highly rude (and teasing) to eat or drink in public.
I was aware it would be stinking hot, but that didn't prepare me for walking out of the airport doors and away from the air conditioning.
The hotel they put me up in was a perfectly nice and completely typical airport hotel. But it being an airport hotel means it is still a little bit more situated within that bizarre international, global village type vibe so the food issue was a little more relaxed. They ran a buffet for three meals a day, but it was hidden behind a curtain. I do feel sorry for whoever cooks it though if they were Muslim. Cooking while fasting would be awful.
Apparently though in other hotels the only food available was room service or to go to a special hidden away room. It's all very interesting.
With no research done, very little knowledge about the place and no idea what to do, I decided to get a cabby to drive me around and show me the sights. I poorly here, not making what I wanted clear and ended up getting a tour guide rather than a cabby which cost me a little bit more than it could have. But it still wasn't too expensive. My bigger mistake was not making it clear what I wanted to see. For some reason (and I have found this in a number of countries) tour guides seem to think, and some tourists must back up this assumption, mad as it is, that we tourists want to see hotels. I can't speak for all, but I do not give a toss about the Marriott, or the four seasons or whatever. Even if it has been built to look like an Egyptian temple. I just don't get it. I also let myself feel rude if I didn't want to see something, so I was ushered inside the lobbies of some of the gaudier hotels. But hey, it wasn't bad. Earlier on the driver has mentioned the textile and gold trade areal, in my head i painted a picture of industrial like shop fronts for the rich to buy jewellery and American tourists to say, "oh my lord, what a saving, gosh!". But on the way back to the hotel the driver mentioned the souk. What! There are souks and bazaars and amazing amazing markets. I LOVE that stuff. And spice markets. And fabric stalls, and market jewellery and and and I missed it. :( I was running out of time and of money.
Oh well. next time. Maybe I'll miss my connection home.
But I saw a bunch of amazing buildings, drove out on the man mad palm shaped island, looked upon the Arabian Sea, stood at the foot of and broke my neck to look up at the worlds tallest building - holy crap it is big, like your mind can't even comprehend it kind of big, saw fresh dates on trees, sweated, melted, burnt and froze in the air conditioned car, at one point when getting out of the car the temperature change was so great and so sudden that my sunnies fogged up completely. Don't ask me to explain the science of that, but hey, it happened.
Oh one other cool thing was that somewhere along the way we had to stop and I had to wait in the car for 10-15 min while the driver went to pray.
Back to the hotel for some lunch (amaze balls baklava) and then off for a "desert safari" tour. This was what's thought was going to be a camel safari, like a long ride on a camel. The advertising was a bit misleading, but though the tour wasn't what I was expecting, it was still awesome.
I and six completely non English speaking Japanese people's were loaded up into the giant land cruiser and off we set.
We stopped briefly at a place where we could rent a quad bike. The great part about this was that all we need do was sign a waiver "if you flip the vehicle will be charged UAD50 to change the oil" oh yeah, excuse me while I flip the bike and worry about the $16. But after that it was some very basic instructions, no rules and "go-nuts", we all just had free rein to do just that, go-nuts on the sand dunes. It was awesome.
Well and truly sand blasted, it was at this point, after my ride that I caved on the whole no eating or drinking in public bit. I decided my health and hydration was more important than me (an obvious tourist and non Muslim) adhering to that custom out of politeness. I still snuck around the corner with the bottle of water I bought and kept out of sight while drinking.
It was just after this that our driver went and bought us all bottles. Damn. Wasted UAD5. Drats.
Back on the road we made a (to me) unexpected turn off the road and into the... Well the desert. The sand dunes. It was at them moment I realised why all the land cruisers were necessary. We did some pretty hairy four wheel driving then. There were numerous times I was certain we were going to roll. The driver was so casual about it too, one handed, no biggie. So much fun, I was giggling like a maniac and the Japanese lady in the back was a little closed to the verge of squealing.
This thought kept occurring to me as we were driving through this bleak, sandy desert. I could suddenly see exactly how terrible being lost in the desert would be. The sky is thick and hazy with sand, dust and heat so you can't see anything, not the location of the sun, not the stars at night and well, nothing. The sand is impossible to walk in, well, possible, but "first world impossible". It is indescribably hot, and bright and baking and getting sand blasted all the time. I mean, I loved it. It was so much fun to stand out there and just feel it, the heat, the vastness, amazing. But being stuck out there on foot? There would not be so many things worse. I instantly understood this new dimension to the countless movie scenes I have seen of people tramping through the desert crying for water and slowly going insane. I can also understand how Alexander the greats army lost so many crossing this sort of desert.
After a lot of fun with this we stopped at a base camp. This is where the camels were, as I said earlier I thought I was going on a long camel ride. It was actually a 50m lame arse circle, but I didn't mind because the quad bikes and 4WDing was so much fun. There was also a guy with a falcon, a hena station, a cheshire room, and a seating area on Turkish rugs for meals. We (a bunch of small tours like mine met up here) waited till dark and then ate. I was a little sick of sitting there twiddling my thumbs or having staking conversations with the guide who I had been quizzing about all sorts of things all day (and who clearly wanted to be talking to his guide friends) or smiling awkwardly at the non English Japanese speaking people. So I decided to go and talk to this family from Melbourne. The food that was served was quite good, mostly the hummus, best hummus I've ever had.
As we ate a dancer came out and gave a show, due to Ramadan the performance was limited, it is a time of modesty, normally there would have been belly dancing and all sorts of things.. This guy dancer walked out on stage wearing this amazing dress costume, thick, decorated fabric, gold stitching, the kind of thing you can see the weight of. Any way I was gearing up for a typical lame cultural show, he was a little late for the music and just didn't have that polished showmanship down. Then he started to dance. Well, not really dance, spin. He spun and spun and spun, his costume flaring out. And he just kept going. And he had these patterned, fabric covered discs, at first it seemed he had three spat first, then suddenly he had four, then five then six. I have no idea where they all came from, I guess they were staked inside each other. In any case it was actually kind of amazing. He was spinning for what must have been six or seven minutes non stop and somehow managed to walk in a straight line of the stage. That was the most baffling thing.
After this we all went to our respective land cruisers and head out for the drive home. I was definitely feeling my 40plus hours without more than 40 minuets sleep (I got three lots of 15, 30 and 40 minuets respectively on the plane). I snoozed a little on the drive home and then crashed out very hard back in my room. Slept like a log.
What a great bonus c. :)
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