Dubai

Monday 19th October

Dubai

Woke up with no bells ringing, but just in time to meet with our Arabian Adventures German tour guide and the disorganised chaos of Barcelona and Italy was but a dream. So far everything about Dubai is sparkling and new. The seven states of the United emirates became a federation in 1971( 70 years later than Australia and 100 years later than Italy) – Dubai’s existence began in about 1833 when 200 bedoiun tribesman took control of this area/oasis/trade route and their offspring/progeny continue to rule. But rule what? In the 1950s they ruled 4,000 square kilometres of desert. Then in 1969 oil was discovered. Nuff said – as our tour meandered past the clumsy misshapen building which was the sheik’s meeting place in the 50’s and towards the skyscrapers of every shape and size (making St Peter’s Basilica seem a bit small and lacking in imagination) surrounding the world’s tallest building.

This stop over is a gem – we disembarked about 11.30pm Sunday to be greeted by our transport/transfer man. And on arrival at our 4 star hotel we were provided with instructions for today’s and tomorrow’s tours. All we have to remember is to tip the staff who do everything for us – just the exact opposite to Italy and Barcelona. So far all the meals have been delicious and service immediate and spot-on. However, one observation about the road transport system – it seems that most roads are very busy, multi-lane, one way highways with very few get-off and get-on points. With the consequence that in order to get to a point just 100metres away often requires a complicated set of spirals and circuits of some kilometres in distance – along with the very big four wheel drives, hummers and V8s but what would you expect from an nation whose oil production accounts for 40% of GDP.

Today’s tour took us through the old city (post 1969 to 1993) and the new city( post 1993) past the current sheik’s house – at one end of a 5 kilometre driveway and at the other end of the driveway the house of his brother(also minister of finance) _” No Photos allowed” – as ordered by our German tour guide. Yep and there was a lot of land yet to be developed around these palaces/forts. We visited our first 7 star hotel – the “sail” built on reclaimed land bout 200m out to sea and watched a helicopter land on a helipad some 250metres up to drop off guests. The hotel is some 330 metres tall and has 160 two storey apartments/rooms. It is built a short way from the Wave hotel (by the same company) so that when the sun is setting in the west the two hotels’ shadows combine to become a boat out at sea(money is not an issue). And it is very interesting to compare what this nation is doing with its wealth and power with what we have seen in England, France and Italy – i.e., their remains of their days as world powers. The tour included a visit of a musem which demonstrated how things were not so long ago(60 years ago), a dhow/boat ride across an ancient so-called “creek” which was about 200 metres wide and 14kilometres long to an old spice market of 60 shops and the gold market – 600 shops. Unbelievable amounts of gold and diamonds filled every window and all the shop walls – surely this amount of gold and precious stones also acts as protection (as well as the oil) of this place’s economy (gold price in 2000 was about USD250, USD464 in 2005 and just broke through the $1,000 mark). But also it appears that whatever the sheik has done seems to have worked in this state’s/sheikdom’s favour – 20% of Dubai’s population is of united emirate descent the rest are immigrants (the immigrants – Indians and Pakistanis, Iranians etc do all the work) – however in the 1970s the sheik built beach frontage houses and gave them away free to united emirate descendents. Earlier on the sheik made importing and exporting a tax free activity – yep and look at the place now from a 4,000 square kilometre desert to 60 kilometre beach frontage city and they cannot get enough of it – so more beach is being reclaimed.

Tomorrow is the desert safari tour which includes a four wheel drive over sand dunes, a camel ride, a Bedouin barbeque, falconry and belly dancing all before our transport/transfer man takes us to the airport for our trip home.