Dubai Day 2: City Tour and Safari

15 May 2013

City Tour
I still haven't fully adjusted to the new timezone so I was up at 6 local time but I avoided the crowd for brekky so that's a bonus. I thought I had the morning free but after reading the info pack from the tour agency, it turns out I had a city tour booked; SCORE! The tour went to:
-The fort museum (a museum built on the oldest building site in Dubai, the original defence fort)
-A boat ride across the Dubai creek
-A spice market in the bazaar
-The gold souk (a bazaar full of jewellery shops)
-The Saga Mall (a super ritzy mall full of finery)
-The Burj Al Arab (sail shaped hotel)

Time for a swim
When I got back from the tour it was mid-afternoon and the heat was cranking: 38 degrees and humidity off the clock (as always) so I decided to jump in the pool. The temperature was perfect and the hotel shades you from the sun.

Safari
The evening activity was a desert safari. We drove out into the desert in a GLX-R 4.5L Landcruiser in super pimp spec (wood grain everywhere) and even a half roll cage. The driver was pretty sketchy on the road but did really well offroad, it was strange. We bashed through the sand hills in a convoy of 10 cars until we arrived at a Bedouin camp. At the camp we had a short camel ride, tried on some traditional robes but it was too hot with it over the top of other clothes so that didn't last long, watched a belly dance and enjoyed fantastic Arabian food.

First beer
Last thing for the night was a beer at the hotel bar with some English chicks I met on the tours.

Fun facts that I learnt today
1. Dubai has no taxes because the government gets it's funding from traffic violations and oil.
2. Dubai has enough oil to last the next 7 or so years but Abu Dhabi has enough oil to last the next 250-300 years
3. Dubai has hardly any crime because the government looks after the nationals very well:
If two nationals marry, they are given 70000 dirhams from the government on their wedding day.
When they have their first child they are given a free house (8 bedrooms) and the government pays for all the costs of raising the child (all children, not just the first) including sending them overseas for university in England, Australia, USA, etc.
When the child returns, they get a job really easily because all companies must have 20% of their employees as nationals.
This all sounds really great but before you rush over here and turn into a baby factory you should know that to be a national, you must be at least 4th generation born in Dubai.
Basically the government is trying to boost the population of nationals because only 20% of the people in Dubai are nationals.
4. Dubai is extremely clean because there's a 500 dirham on the spot fine for littering and a night in jail if your can't pay it

The type of boat we took across the creek. They have inboard diesels for those who are interested.

Me looking bad-ass during the water/cool down break

Destroying some sand dunes

The world's largest ring as certified by the Guinness Book

A bronze cannon, i.e. awesome!

Trying on the traditional robes. I couldn't really figure out how to make the hat thing work so it looks more like an oversized bandana

Me riding a camel

The Bedouin camp. It was pretty comfortable actually

The Burj Al Arab

Spices at the spice market

The entrance to the fort museum

The Start: Adelaide to Dubai

13 - 14 May 2013

So the time has finally come to do this trip. I'm going to backpack around Europe for about 6 months with a stop over in Dubai and Abu Dhabi on the way. Time has flown this year, I remember NYE and thinking "Jeez, May is ages away" but here I am :D I haven't blogged much so hopefully I can make it an interesting read.

Crappy Locks
The first hiccup happened during bag check in. I bought a Black Wolf Cedar Breaks 75 bag and it came with two combination locks. I've used one a few times and it worked fine but I only used the second one for the first time when I packed for this trip. It turns out that the second one doesn't open with the new combination and that made it difficult when they asked me to get my shaver out. Luckily the locks are fairly crappy because I could easily bend the lock enough to get it off, open the bag and then bend it back on so of course I went and bought some new locks.

Being Searched
I managed to get selected for a "random" bomb test at the first checkpoint and a "random" body scan at the second checkpoint so that's a 2/2 with getting searched. I wonder how long I can keep the streak going?

The Flight
I flew out of Adelaide airport direct to Dubai with Emirates on a 777-300ER in peasant class. My family (and friend) came down to see me off and there were surprisingly few tears shed. The flight was about 13.5 hours, which is the longest I've done by far. The plane, food, entertainment, etc were all really good but the problem was I left at 10pm after being up for a full day and I can't sleep on planes so I was pretty wrecked by the time I got there. I did watch a few Dexter episodes and a few movies: Guilt Trip, Jack Reacher, Hansel and Gretel - Witch Hunters, Broken City and Parker. You can watch a lot of stuff in 13.5 hrs eh?

Dubai Airport
The customs counter in Dubai was surprisingly quiet. There were lots of desks and people sitting at roughly half of them but there didn't seem to be any rush to process people so it was slow going. There weren't any armed guards or any kind of locking doors, you just sort of wander through the whole thing. Getting my bag and finding my lift was really easy too. I had a private car (Cadillac) take me to the Arabian Park Hotel.

Sleep.....
I arrived at the hotel at about 6:30 and tried to check in but check in isn't until 2pm, no idea why that didn't click before now. I was way too tired to stay out all day so I bought an extra day, enjoyed the free brekky, then had a snooze for a few hours so I could function.

Burj Khalifa
Feeling much better after some sleep, I caught the free shuttle over to the Dubai Mall for my "At The Top" experience in the Burj Khalifa. The view from the top is pretty great and it feels really weird looking (significantly) down on other buildings that would be considered tall anywhere else. Afterwards I cruised around the massive Dubai Mall (1200 shops) and looked at the ice rink and aquarium, both INSIDE the mall. I also tried looking for a prepaid sim but that proved harder than I thought so I'll just survive with the free wifi in my room.

First Impressions
-everything is extremely clean
-there is a constant haze in the air that isn't pollution; it's off the charts humidity mixed with super fine sand
-most of the cars are almost brand new upper class cars. They're also left hand drive which is a bit weird at first
-there's a lot of different cultures here and they all get along fairly well
-the whole place is like a blank canvas of sand, if something isn't planted or built then it's just sand. My hotel is just kind of standing in the middle of a big sand paddock
-the roads are good quality, huge (up to 6 lanes in each direction) and there's not many traffic lights so it's quite fast to get anywhere
Now I'm here, sitting on my bed watching TV and looking out the window at my first night in Dubai.

some goober taking a selfy

a binocular computer thing at the top of the Burj Khalifa that you can point around to see various views of that spot (most of it used to be sand)

the Burj Khalifa in the distance

view from the top of the Burj Khalifa

the view from my hotel room