Day 29-Day 36 Dubai, United Arab Emirates

It took a LONG time to get here (twenty hours to be exact) but Wow-was it worth it!

Day # 29 started with a three o’clock a.m. wakeup in Bucharest, Romania to catch a seven o’clock a.m. KLM flight to Amsterdam. Once there, we had a five-hour layover for the seven-hour flight to Dubai. Fortunately, using Delta SkyMiles on their partner airline KLM we were business class which always makes travel a whole lot easier...particularly when long layovers can be spent in the airline lounge. Such was the case and since Amsterdam is KLM’s home, their lounge is simply amazing. We were there a few trips ago and remembered the place. 

In our cubbies and ready to go! 

Shrimp and caviar appetizer. Yum!

Including the time zone difference our flight touched down in Dubai at eleven thirty p.m. and fortunately we had pre-arranged limo transportation to the hotel considering that we saw several hundred people standing in the taxi\Uber line. The thirty-minute ride was like a Disneyworld ride...neon lights burning and buildings lit up as far up as you could see ... monorails and fast-trains zipping by ... wow, this was going to be something!! Our room was at the Avanti+Palm View Suites and Hotel and it was a spectacular two-level corner suite with two entire sides walled glass and overlooking the skyline as far as you could see.

Views from our room.

⇣ points to the Burj Khalifa, tallest building in the world. 

The next day - Day #30 was spent just getting organized and a laundry day since our condo included a washer and dryer. Provisions acquired, transits learned and tested and travel passes purchased, and our seven days planned and several tours lined up. The booze stores are few and far between and are almost like speakeasys in that alcohol consumption is somewhat frowned upon in the country so the few stores that sell it are not very advertised and are hard to find.  But, once inside is the full array of beer, wine and liquor. Mass transit is amazing and comes in several forms including trams, buses, boats, metros and monorails. All are easy to decipher, in Arabic and English and very cheap. We purchased two seven-day unlimted passes just to avoid the hassel of buying a ticket each time. Cost: $27 per traveler.

Laundry day!

All the liquor stores are behind blacked out windows or in this
case red-out windows as an attempt to not lure the locals. 

Dubai Marina

Pool day after running errands 

City at night

On Day #31, Friday June 13 we started our exploration of this incredible place. First up was a trip to “The Palm”. This is literally a man-made series of islands in the shape of a palm tree off the Dubai coast in the Persian Gulf. It is connected to the mainland by a monorail or if you are driving your Maserati ... by a five-lane expressway. There are hundreds of luxury condo high-rise buildings and probably another hundred BEAUTIFUL and luxurious hotels - all overlooking the Persian Gulf. If you’re shopping, there’s an enormous mall and also, every hotel has its own abundance of shops and restaurants. The flagship hotel at the top of the palm is “The Atlantis” ... a sister property to the other famous one in the Bahama Islands. This one features the largest indoor aquarium in the world – one you can actually SCUBA dive with the fish and sharks if you like (we did not). Simply amazing! There are security men everywhere all dressed in smart, black suits and guarding access to the areas that hotel guests paid for and use such as pools, some restaurants and the check-in lobby (spectacular). We tried an end-around run from the front driveway to get into the check-in lobby but were stopped by a young Arab in, guess what?: a smart, black suit. However, when we told him we were shopping for a place to stay (really a ridiculous thing to say for two obvious sweating tourists in shorts and T-shirts) he immediately welcomed us inside! 

Riding the monorail-Atlantis in the distance

Sting ray photo bomb! 

Jaws

Do we try to go in or not?? Yep, made it past security! 

Lobby

View from the top of the stairway of the aquarium, a view we were
previously denied because we were not guests of the hotel. 

We later found a Mexican restaurant located on one of the branches of the Palm and enjoyed a change in ethnic food but were a bit shocked by the $18 Corona beer prices (and after we each guzzled two rounds!).

Sunset view from our Mexican restaurant. 

Day #32, Saturday June 14^th, we are going to experience a full day in downtown Dubai. Things are completely flat so we could see the city about 10 miles away from our hotel windows. The above-ground subway is called the Metro. It will get us there in about one hour. But first, we need to take a tram from our hotel to the nearest Metro station which will take an additional fifteen minutes or so.

Yikes! We woke up pretty early to see thick, black smoke billowing from somewhere outside our window. We had just finished reading the morning news that the missiles had commenced flying between Iran and Israel so seeing that black smoke was a bit alarming. As it turned out there was a fire in a high-rise apartment building a few blocks away and it had shut down the tram system. Fortunately the Dubai transportation gurus  had it covered with nice, air conditioned buses that were provided to the nearest Metro station. There’s probably over one-hundred of these station scattered around greater Dubai to serve two main metro lines. Each station is beautiful. Plenty of  security, restrooms, not a speck of trash or graffiti and help counters staffed with English speaking, knowledgeable, polite people. Same for the train cars, air-conditioned and 100% on time. One thing we noticed immediately is that if all the seats were taken, a young person would immediately jump up and offer their seat to the white-haired old person … Bill. Occasionally a seat would be offered to Andrea but not always and only after the white-haired old man was seated!

If you zoom in you can see flames. 

World largest selfie frame along the route

On the train, finally. 

Our destination was to the “Souks”. There are three that we wanted to see: The gold souk, the spice souk, and the grand souk. This was quite the experience. These souks are hundreds and hundreds of stalls selling everything imaginable … none of which has a price tag. What it cost is dependent on how well your negotiating skills might be. It’s mostly all fun and Andrea did a great job in negotiating the purchase of a silver chain that she had been needing. The 104 degree heat however was oppressive and almost unbearable and also directions from souk to souk were a bit difficult, even with Google maps. We quickly learned that even if you can see a destination, Goggle maps will not take you thru a private parking lot or thru a store to get there ... even if it means a one-half mile additional routing to get there.

First stop the Gold Souk where Andrea negotiated a deal with her 

new buddy Favas. We were all were happy with the deal! 

On to the the spice souk.  Bill's negotiating skills were top notch and the spice guy wasn't as happy as Andrea's gold guy. 

We took the traditional Abra boat across the creek to the Grand Souk. 

Total cost 50 cents a person for the ride. What a bargain. 

Last time negotiating, this time for 4 bracelets. 

Next stop was the Hard Rock Café which was literally at the end of the metro line and then across Dubai Creek in a boat. It took awhile but we finally found it and enjoyed a couple of ICE COLD brew-skis, an appetizer and the purchase of pin #72 for Andrea. Heading back, the ride was during rush-hour so the Metros were packed and it took nearly an hour and a half to make it back to our original stop. Problem was ...  the trams were still down due to the fire and we had to take a bus back to our hotel not really knowing which bus stop to get off. All in all it took nearly three hours door-to-door to make it back to our hotel and we were tired, thirsty, and ready for bed.

Getting to the Hard Rock, located in Festival City required a tram ride,
a train ride,  a boat ride and then a ½ mile walk. 

Andrea was worn out! 

Pin #72

Sunday, Day #33 is Father’s Day. We scheduled a Facetime call with Bill’s Dad for 9 p.m. (1 p.m. Atlanta time) but the connection was too unstable so we opted for an old-timey telephone call. We were advised at hotel  check-in that our friends at the U.A.E. Ministry of Communications does not care too much for social media so we anticipated that FaceTime would not work. Bill's girls wished him a happy father's day long distance via text\email. The plan today is a tour trip to the desert for “dune-bashing”.  This involves wildly riding in a four-wheel drive SUV driven by a maniac Arab through the sand dunes. The real highlight was the 45 minute drive on the expressways going abut 90 miles an hour. Abdul was quite aggressive in his driving but we got there safely.  Click on the video to experience dune bashing! 

 After the dune bashing us and about one hundred other SUV’s convened at the “base camp” at sunset for a BBQ buffet and a show by belly dancers and fire breathers. It was mucho touristy but actually a lot of fun! 

Us and our dune bashing mates, the girl to the right of Andrea was terrified and would only go for the preliminary test ride. She was so funny! Andrea asked if they were honeymooners and she said yes, and asked how long we had been married, to which we replied 33 years and she said, "OH, you’re old mooners". 

Bills father's day included a little dancing, smoking a shisha and fire breathing. 

Click on the video for some belly dancing 

 

This guy was incredible. 

Today is Monday, June 16^th and day  # 34. Today’s mission is a trip to Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest manmade structure. It is 160 stories of offices, apartments and hotels and the trip again requires the metro and the tram. Fortunately, the tram is up and running now and it is another one hour trip downtown. The Burj Khalifa is quite frankly a miracle and is the country’s proudest accomplishment and symbol of its status as a powerhouse in the Mideast. There are too many statistics to throw out to adequately describe this thing. 

Click on the link to read all about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa 

 In summary, it is over 1\2 mile high, took five years and 20,000 workers to build, and architects, design engineers, managers and experts from around the world came together to design and construct it. It is about 160 stories and tourist are allowed to go to the 125^th floor observation deck. It was certainly worth the view - although because of the heat and being in the sandy desert, things are not 100% clear at that level. After the trip back, we enjoyed cooling off in the hotel’s beautiful infinity pool overlooking Dubai and towards the magnificent Burj Khalifa that we had just toured.

Ice skating rink inside Dubai mall

Waterfall inside Dubai mall

This mall was huge. 

Views from the 124th  and 125th floors.   

Tonight was a special treat we had planned and it was to cook our own Arabic meal. We used the condo’s well-equipped kitchen. We had purchased all the provisions to have a great meal: chicken seasoned with the secret spices purchased from the spice souk, couscous with chopped peppers, greek salad, corn on the cob and a slice of cheesecake for dessert. Great meal and a big memory made here.

Our last day in Dubai and ALSO the last day of the first half of ATW70 ... day # 35 ...  was spent relaxing by the pool and then going on a two hour sunset cruise around the Persian Gulf shoreline with all the beer, wine and champaign the passengers could drink. This was a GREAT deal and a beautiful way to see the Dubai skyline at dusk. We elected to eat in the Lebanese restaurant at the hotel (it sucked) and to get a good night’s sleep for an early wake up call at 4:30 a.m. to head to the airport.

Dubai Marina, start of our cruise 

The "cars" are actually seadoos dressed up as cars. 

Ready for the cruise

Burj AL Arab. One of the tallest hotels in world, although 39% is non-occupiable space. It stands on an artificial island. It has a heli-pad that has also ben used for race car driving, a boxing ring, tennis matches and the jump off point for the highest kite surfing jump in history.  

Best sunsets! 

Our time here in Dubai has been amazing. A short thirty years ago this place was all desert and camels and it is phenomenal that the creation and growth of this city has exploded in such a way it has. It is also obvious that the planning was thorough and extensive because all the roads and sidewalks and mass transit and buildings are perfectly placed. Things are ultra efficient and the people could not be friendlier or more helpful. We read that the experts are predicting a twenty-five percent population growth for Dubai in the next few years so realistically, we wonder if the infrastructure will be ready to handle that. The metros are already very crowded in peak times and the six-lane roads are packed with traffic most of the day. In any event, hats off to the people of UAE for creating a world class city in record time and a very interesting and cool place for foreigners to visit. That said, in light of the current conflict going on in the Mideast we felt it was time to move on and put a little distance between us and the bombs and missiles. We will be coming back through Doha, Qatar in a few weeks for one night and hopefully … peace will exist in this part of the world. Now ... on to Africa!

Sunrise from our condo the morning we left.

Who knew that there are Buckeye fans in Dubai! 

One big bird! Airbus 380.