Dubai

Day 4: 

Destination: Dubai

We needed to leave the apartment at 07.30 in order to catch the Emirates Express to Dubai at 08.00. Blair woke up first and was taking photos of the sunrise from our bedroom window when I awoke. He had managed to do so without an alarm; this is something I am incapable of doing and heavily rely upon my alarm.  We had both set our alarms for 06.30,  however they had been set for the wrong days! We quietly got ready and had breakfast. Just as we left the apartment we caught Dave for a quick chat,  he was up early to do some research for a meeting he had. He wished us luck and expressed his envy of our day ahead. We hopped into a taxi and drove south of the Island towards Abu Dhabi's Central bus station. After walking across the bus stands a few times,  working which was the Dubai bus,  it pulled up. We queued to board. All other passengers were clutching onto tickets; we walked back into the main building,  purchased 2 singles for Dubai at dr 25 each and returned outside. We walked as quickly as we could, joking about how the doors would imminently slide shut and the coach would leave without us. Nothing like an early morning rush to get the heart going though! Buses leave every 20 minutes or so,  so to miss this ride wouldn't have been a disaster. Nevertheless we made it. We walked to the back of the cool, air conditioned bus. We reclined our comfortable seats and relaxed.  It was 08.08 and the bus's thermometer read 20 degrees. Hyfryd! It felt like a short flight; there was an attendant who handed out menus and subsequently took down any orders, and served tea,  coffee and snacks. This bus journey was better than my regular easyjet flight from Liverpool to Belfast International! 

Blair was listening to my ipod and scrolling through the apparent interminable dross I had on there.  He made the schoolboy error of pointing out Ferrari World with the ear phones still in,  quite funny when you're sitting on a bus full of sleeping locals! 

We drove into a city of towering gleaming skyscrapers. 

The bus stop was in the oldest part of the city. Not knowing exactly where the nearest pick up point for the Big Bus Tour was, we walked towards the local Souk. We walked through cobbled alleyways where small stalls sold beautifully embroidered silks, scarfs, traditional dress and other touristic paraphernalia. Souk owners sat on their stools placed under fans. They honed in two western tourists wondering towards then. The competition began and each used all powers of persuasion to bag a buyer.

I was shown the vibrant jewelled materials and dresses. After they realised they were only getting polite smiles and a shake of the head from me, they tried their tactics on the big bear! I was instrumental to their efforts with Blair, telling him that he should treat me with gifts from their stalls. This didn't work. A man half of Blair's height and width, in what must have been desperation, stood in front of him and stopped Blair in his tracks. Blair smiled, sidestepped and walked on. There was one last tactic from the final salesman at the end on the way, who seen all his competitors fail. He brought out a traditional Arabic headdress and went to place it on Blair's head, insisting that he would look handsome wearing it! I started laughing, as did the salesman at Blair's reaction, he looked like he was going to run a mile, even in the heat. With all efforts exhausted, we walked on passed the rest of the Souks, including the Gold Souk where you could by a gold ingot or have jewellery made for you as you designed it. The spice Souk was also near where you could buy bags of inexpensive saffron.

We passed the small waterway, where dhows carried locals and tourists from one side of the city to the other.

We came to an old Fort surrounded modern governmental buildings, shops and apartments. A museum displayed the history of the Fort. We reached the entrance but turned on our heels when we saw bus loads of happy snappy orientals had beaten us to it. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise; as we left, the familiar red Big Bus came around the corner and pulled up to collect new riders.

We climbed to the top deck and sat in the back of the bus, away from the other tourists who were huddled under the canape roof. We plugged in our earphones, selected the English channel, slathered ourselves in suncream and soaked up both the tour guides information and the hot Arabian sun.

Dubai appeared far busier than Abu Dhabi. It had many more hotels, shopping malls and lavish apartments too. 

We drove parallel with the coast and the Iranian Gulf. We passed the World Islands which were put on the market for a cool $10-100,000,000. We were later told by Dave that these Islands were a huge financial disappointment. After paying an exorbitant amount for the land (rock and sand really) not only would the bidders have to built their houses/villas/mansions, but they would also have to supply their supposed 'country' or 'continent' with water and electricity: none of the World Islands had any infrastructure.

Next on the agenda was one of a few hotels in the world to achieve the god-like status of 7*: the Burj Al Arab. To bolster the hotels greatness, the tour provided us with its endless amenities. There was no shying away from name dropping either. Robert De Niro and Lindsay Lohan were only two of many A-star celebs who attended the opening party. Tiger Woods drove a ball from the rooftop. Federer and Agassi had a game of virtual tennis on the roof. It was built 250m from the shore on another manmade island.

We continued to pass other attractions all of which had earned in one way or another the title of 'greatest, fastest, most expensive in the world'.

The final attraction of the shore was no exception to what we had viewed, Dubai had more jaw dropping and awing to show. Having been nicknamed the 'Eighth Wonder of the World', the Jameirah Palm Island was the largest man made structure to be seen from space. It is one of three palms that had been created by dredging thousands of tonnes of rock and sand from the shallowest parts of the Iranian Gulf. Upon the Jameirah Palm were luxurious apartment blocks, villas, shopping malls and hotels galore. 

The bus dipped down under the trunk of the palm and underground until resurfacing at the crescents of the palm.

Standing proudly on our right and facing the still sea was the Atlantis Hotel. Its pink exterior encased a fantasy world that was dedicated to the great lost city. It had a water park, dolphin show and school, and had shipped in 48,000 different species of fish, mammals and crustaceans ( a number were placed in a huge fish tank and sea pool that surrounded the hotel ).

We made our way back to the stalk, dipping back through the huge tunnel. We were told that many projects were still in the construction process and others had to be abandoned due to the drying up of funds. Dubai had incurred huge debts. This was rectified when neighbouring Abu Dhabi (who own 80% of the UAE's oil, in comparison to Dubai's fractional percentage) opened their cheque book. Due to their low levels of oil, Dubai focused its energy into business;  hence being the commercial hub of the UAE.

We headed inland and turned back to where the Burj Khalifa's needle pointed top reached into the sky. We had two stops before departed for our tour of the World's tallest building at 15:00.

The Emirates mall is worth a mention, with its endless designer shops, eateries and its own ski slope with real snow! It has several slopes progressing in difficulty, and provides all equipment and clothing.

We arrived our destination, yet another mall; the boss of malls, so fabulous Dubai gave its name to it. 

We had five minutes to collect our tickets and run to the back of the Dubai Mall and to the bottom of the Burj Khalifa. We queued for a while and were ushered into a lift. It was dimly lit, and all eyes focused on the blue number on the left side of the lift doors. I never would have known we had began our ascension except for this light blue number increasing steadily until we arrived the 124th floor. Although, our ears popped a few times!

We had of course been told all about the facts of this engineering feat: the materials used to build the Burj Khalifa bear the same weight as 100,000 elephants; it stands at 828m; its point can seen from 95km away; the total length of the rebar used, if laid out, could span a quarter of the worlds surface, or if you'd prefer, it would span from New York City to Sydney!

We were guided to the terrace which wraps around a quarter of the Burj. We looked down over the entire city, where people were undetectable. The desert span out to the right and Arabian sea lay still and turquoise to our left. We were sheltered from the wind by large square panes of glass. So, we did what any other curious and slightly unhinged person would do; we stuck our feet out of the bottom gap, our hands from the middle and finally our heads! Looking up to the needle and the sky above was the scariest thing.

Nothing like a good work out for the heart and a healthy amount of adrenalin coursing through you! We obviously got some great shots! Its still a huge attraction though, so as you can imagine it was pretty busy. Once we felt like we had our monies worth we queued up to descend back to a natural air pressure and height from the ground.

Re-entering the Dubai Mall, we took in the features that made this more than you're ordinary shopping mall experience. Outside were dancing fountains, similar to those in Las Vegas. Inside, an enormous  aquarium that rose three levels of boutiques and  stores was filled with fish, turtles, sharks, stingrays, crabs and the odd diver. A waterfall that began at the very top plunged past all floors into a lit pool, to which silver mannequin men were fixed mid dive.

We had crammed in the sight-seeing of two cities in two days. So we sat overlooking the 'fish tank' at the 'Perfect Cupcake'. I ordered my favourite red velvet with vanilla icing and a fresh orange juice, and Blair opted for chocolate sponge with nutella frosting. This place was aptly named. These cupcakes were amazing! It even gave the famous Hummingbird of Notting Hill a run for its money! The sponge was super soft and the frosting was just sweet enough - yum!

Wed had enough by now. We finally made our way out of a true maze of designer names and perfumed filled walkways. We took the metro. To the bus station that we had arrived at ten hours earlier.

We talked about our day and decided we preferred Abu Dhabi. The multitude of shopping malls and hotels just really wasn't for us. 

wasn't for us. 

Reflecting on everything I had seen and heard about the city, I felt it was a a place in constant pursuit of status: an obsessive urge to be noticed by the world