New Deli to Abu Dhabi and onto Dubai

January 24th
New Deli to Abu Dhabi and on to Dubai
Our phone rings at 12:30 A.M. It is our wakeup call and our car and driver are due to arrive at 1:20 A.M. to transfer us to the Deli International airport. We managed a solid 3 ½ hours of sleep and shower and pack quickly. We work our way through various airport checkpoints, and by 3:00 A.M. have cleared security and wait for our flight to board. The flight time between Deli and Abu Dhabi is 3 ½ hours and John and I fall asleep before the plane even takes off. We ignore the stewardess whispered offer of dinner and I sleep until the pilot loudly announces that we are 30 kilometers away from Abu Dhabi, waiting for clearance to land. The view below is breathtaking in the early morning light and I wake John. He is in a deep sleep and snarls at me but when he looks out the window and sees shrouds of fog wisping over golden ripples of shimmering sand, he too is awed by the unusual beauty of it.

Shrouds of fog over the UAE

We circle for over an hour, waiting to land, and when we finally deplane we are an hour and a half behind schedule. Both John and I feel surprisingly rested and anticipate the day. Immigration is quick and easy and the agent, dressed in a white throbe and keffiyeh (Arabian headdress) is warm and friendly. Our luggage appears quickly and we choose the custom lane with “noting to declare,” smile at another white throbed official and exit into the terminal. No one is waiting with a sign to pick us up but ticket holders on Etihad Airlines can take advantage of a free express bus to Dubai.

Starbucks in the Abu Dhabi Airport

John gleefully spots a Starbucks and tells me he is “down for one!” Having ordered dirhams before our trip, I pass him a 100 dirham bill and head off to investigate the express bus. When I return to Starbucks, John hands me a cappuccino and tells me that he thinks these may be the most expensive cappuccino and latte that we have ever had. We do the math and figure that two “grandes,” (not “ventes”) cost $17.00.  Mine is delicious and when the caffeine takes effect, I have no regrets. The express bus is waiting just outside the terminal door; John loads our luggage into the belly of the bus and we climb onboard.  Within minutes we are driving along an ultra modern 5 lane freeway bordered by date palms and desert. John points out that the cars traveling this highway are all expensive and new and we laugh and observe that there are no tut-tuts, motorcycles or livestock traveling this ultra modern expressway. We are alert and watch out the window but there is little except desert and the occasional silhouette of a mosque until we near Dubai. The industrial and commercial outskirts boast all of the familiar U.S. companies. We pass large block buildings wearing the logos of IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Citi-bank, Ford, Ferrari and Toyota; presumably their corporate or manufacturing headquarters.

Riding the bus into Dubai

The bus ride into Dubai

As we enter the city, skyscrapers loom upward beyond the vision of the busses window. The reflective glass on these soaring buildings shimmer the colors of steel, blue, green and occasionally fiery gold in the morning sunlight.

It is nearly 11:00 A.M. when the bus deposits us in the outskirts of Dubai. John offloads our luggage and we head for the nearest taxi. I hand the driver the printed conformation of our XVA Art Hotel with the address clearly printed. He is confused and in broken English, asks me to speak the address.  I phonetically pronounce the address, Bas-ta-ki-ya, and he beams in recognition and tells me that it is “no problem.”  We quickly grasp that he cannot read, but being the cautious traveler, ask the approximate price of the fare?  He repeats his “no problem” mantra and points to the meter on his taxi.  We settle into the back seat and trust to fate. 20 minutes later and after a few wrong turns, he drops us off in front of the Bastakiya, a meticulously restored section of the old city. The meter reads just 30 dirham, less than $10.

The historical Bastakiya district

The historical Bastakiya district

 The small compound is a maze of narrow lanes, snaking between two-story, beige stucco buildings, all of them with wind towers. The district was built in the 1900’s by Iranian merchants and the rectangular wind towers, with four triangular flues that channel the breeze downward is a means of ventilation and cooling before air conditioning. It takes us a few minutes to locate our guest house, hidden on the back side of one of the lanes and discretely identified by a small sign; XVA Guesthouse.

John in front of the door to our room. XVA Guesthouse

The heavy, double wooden door is open slightly revealing a pretty, canvas shaded courtyard café. A half dozen marble topped tables with rattan chairs askew are in the patio and a covered arched arcade lines the perimeter. There are only 9 rooms in the hotel and all open up onto one of two patios.  Our room is off the back patio and the receptionist unlocks the padlock on the double wooden door of our room, revealing a small sitting room with a couch, a second room with a double bed and a private bathroom.  I tell her that we need two beds and she indicates that the couch makes into a bed, points out white cotton bathrobes and slippers in the curtained closet and makes her exit. The rooms are cool white stucco with cubbyhole shelves built into the thick paster walls. I booked this guesthouse online and although it was quite expensive, $260, I am pleased with the location and the ambience of the small hotel.

Tourist shop in the arcade

Covered shopping arcade near the Dubai Creek

We regroup quickly, leave our secluded guest house and head out to explore the old section of Dubai.  We are just a few blocks from the Dubai Creek and walk through soaring, arched wooden arcades lined with tourist shops selling pashmina scarves, embroidered dresses, curved toed Arabian sandals, spices and tourist nick-nacks. The merchants pounce on us and once again, their aggressiveness makes it unpleasant to stop and look. We power on in search of lunch, leaving the tourist area and choosing a hole in the wall Shawarma café. I worry slightly about the sanitation as we sit at one of two tiny formica tables and order Shawarma platters and a fresh squeezed mint and lime juice.  I recollect the wonderful Shawarma meal we enjoyed off a side street in Quito Ecuador with no ill effects. By my standards the meal is disappointing but John is ecstatic about the food, happy to be eating anything other than stewed Indian curries. I pay our $15 bill and we head off to the Dubai museum.

The museum is excellent and John takes his time to read the signs beside each exhibit.  We get lost in an underground labyrinth of life sized montages depicting life and the history of Dubai and watch a 15 minute film about the warp speed transformation of Dubai from the 1920’s to the present. 1 ½ hours later, we have a much better grasp of the remarkable transformation of a small desert town to a futuristic city of power.

Dhows on Dubai Creek

Dhows on Dubai Creek

 We exit into the sunlight and walk towards the “Creek,” the life blood of earlier Dubai. The creek is a river running through the city center and beautiful, antique wooden dhows are moored on the far bank. A dhow is a wooden cargo ship and many of these colorful vessels are close to 100 years old. They are moored at the Deira warfage, are weighted down with tons of cargo, owned by Arabs and manned by foreign crews. Smaller dhows ferry locals and tourists from one side to another for the price of 1 dirham; about 35 cents. We climb onboard and in 5 minutes are deposited at Diera. With map and guide book in hand we navigate to the covered gold souk, disappointedly un-exotic, but staggering with the excessive amounts of gold jewelry draping the window displays and lining the shelves.  We enter a few shops and I surmise that the casual ambiance within is backed up by plenty of security cameras and weapons as well.

Marty in the gold souk - Dubai

Gold necklace on display

We wander the narrow streets of old Dubai and are repeatedly approached by Pakistani and Indian men wanting to show us designer hand bags and beconning to us to follow them. My ear cuff designs are copied and counterfeit in China and I am strongly against buying counterfeit goods. John however is intrigued and lustful and he follows one man down twisted alleys and up several flights of dirty stairs to a fourth floor clandestine “showroom,” filled with copies of Louis Vutton, Channel, Gucci etc. I have no choice but to follow John and I sit stone faced on a plastic stool while John inspects counterfeit sunglasses, belts and t-shirts.  As I sit watching the sales man “work” John, other tourists arrive gleeful to purchase “best quality copies of designer goods.”  It is difficult to make our escape but when we are again at street level, I lecture John on ethics. This is the first and only time on our trip that we have had any conflict and John does not understand my point of view.  He wants to buy a pair of sunglasses, a wallet and a belt and I decide that this does not warrant a fight and quietly follow John, who follows a second and then a third man to tiny upstairs rooms packed full of counterfeit goods. I am curt with the sales men who try to interest me in a designer bag and tell them I would be embarrassed to own one. They don’t know how to handle me and at one point, I am moved to a stool on the upstairs landing and a young Indian man sits beside me and we talk about his family back in Kerala, India.  I am sure he has been instructed to get rid of the “old bag” so that they may make a sale to John but it is interesting to talk with him and he is happy and proud to be living and “working” in Dubai and able to send money back home to his family. I am almost relieved when John eventually makes a purchase so that we can move on with our day.

Spices and Shishas

John in the souk

It is late afternoon and the light is perfect and I take many photographs from the dhow as we motor back across the creek and to the Abra, ferry station in Bur Dubai.

View of Dubai from the dhow

We decide to go to the Dubai Mall for the evening and the receptionist at our guest house recommends that we take the metro instead of a taxi.  This turns out to be bad advice because we are repeatedly misdirected but we eventually find the station, descend, purchase tickets and after two transfers and seemingly miles of underground passages followed by more miles of lighted glass “habitrails” that funnel us up and over brightly illuminated boulevards, we arrive at the mall.  The mall is immense, stunning and overwhelming.  John and I are giddy with delight and culture shock. We eventually find a map of the mall and after some quick math we conclude that there are between 900 – 1000 shops and eateries.

Aquarium at Dubai Mall

The "Underwater Zoo" Dubai Mall

The mall is 4 levels with an aquarium and underwater zoo that boasts the largest sheet of glass of any aquarium in the world. There is an Olympic sized ice rink, a Souk, a Fashion Avenue, a Village, an indoor waterfall and an expansive outdoor area with Venetian style bridges spanning moats of water and dancing fountains that surpass the Bellagio’s dancing fountains in Las Vegas.

Cafe at Dubai Mall

Car Expo at Dubai Mall

Arab men, wearing white throbes and keffiyehs literally float across the marble floors of the mall. Amusingly, some push baby strollers and all wear designer watches and have a Mont Blanc pen tucked in the pocket of their white throbe. They are elegant, extremely handsome and presumably very wealthy.

10:00 P.M. Thursday night - Dubai Mall

10:30 P.M. Thursday night - Dubai Mall

The women glide along in their black abayas clutching designer hand bags and wearing expensive watches  and shoes that are barely visible below the drapings of their abayas. There are plenty of Western clad visitors as well and the mall is packed on this Thursday night.  The promenade between the store fronts is unusually wide and there are groupings of leather couches every few hundred feet.  Arab women lounge in these rest areas, gossiping and watching their children to play.  Men sit with other men at the sidewalk cafes, sipping coffee. Although we see Arab couples and families walking together, it is uncommon to see mixed gender groups gathered together.

Women shopping in Dubai Mall 

John and I are fascinated by it all and wander the mall for several hours until hunger motivates us to look for a restaurant.  We see the glittering of lights and illuminated fountains outside and exit the mall onto a lakeside promenade.

Dubai Mall, lakeside at night

John outside the Dubai Mall

 A Venetian style bridge arches over an artificial lake and fountains sparkle. Hundreds of people mill along the promenade and patio and others work their way slowly up and over the crowded bridge. Security guards keep the masses on the bridge moving and when I slow to take a photo at the top of the bridge, a guard chides me and motions me to keep going.  Once over the bridge, I am able to find a place to pause and gaze at the illuminated night time skyline of futuristic Dubai.

Burj Khalifa - The worlds tallest building

Skyline at night - Dubai

Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building looms above, a glittering silhouette. Outdoor cafes and restaurants line this side of the promenade, every table seemingly occupied. I am intimidated by such opulence but leave John at the railing and head through the far arcade to find a restaurant. Luck prevails and a table has just cleared at the restaurant closest to the bridge. I follow the hostess to a small table, in from the railing, but with an unobstructed view of the lake.  John is watching for me and I catch his eye and motion for him to go around and enter the patio from the inside of the restaurant.  Minutes later, he is seated beside me and another extravagant fountain show begins.  Alcohol is only available at tourist hotels or licensed night clubs so we order a tall bottle of sparking water. Just as in the U.S.A. there are expensive entrees on the menu but John orders chicken penne pasta and I order a large goat cheese salad and our bill is a very reasonable $55 including a tip.

Flaming fountains by night

Dancing fountains by night

 Every 30 minutes, a different “water” show begins. John is mesmerized by the illuminated dancing fountains, arching and spiraling, Las Vegas style in the center of the lake. The fountains subside and a series of holographic images float eerily above the water on an invisible screen, all choreographed with music.  The holographic images fade and fountains of flaming fireballs burst out of the water. It is a joy to watch John’s amazement and admittedly, it is a stunning water show, but if it were not for the towering skyscrapers looming above, I might just as well be in Las Vegas.

11:30 P.M. on Thursday at the Dubai Mall

11:30 P.M. on Thursday at the Dubai Mall

It is close to midnight when we try to find our way back to the metro and we take what we think is a shortcut but walk the wrong way around the perimeter of the mall. We have walked miles today and my feet hurt and my body aches and I want desperately to be back at our hotel. We back track, retracing our path through the mall, and are amazed to see all of the shops are still open and the mall still bustling. We pass back through the glass habitrail tubes spanning the boulevards below, along endless moving walk ways and finally down into the belly of the metro. At 12:00 P.M. there is standing room only on the train, we successfully transfer from the red line to the green line and have only 6 or 8 blocks to walk to our hotel. Many blocks later we discover we have walked the wrong direction, turn disheartenedly around and plod mechanically back in to our guest house hotel. I am utterly exhausted, set John’s phone alarm for 10:00 A.M. and slide gratefully between the sheets.