April 21, Sunday. Our first day in the United Arab Emirates was surprisingly foggy/smoggy. They have over 350 days per year of sunshine here so we were not at all expecting the kind of poor visibility we encountered. Apparently a combination of dust and emissions from the very large number of vehicles per capita combine to make air quality throughout the region very poor, although no one ever mentioned anything at all to us about the very obvious smog we encountered. The upside was that it was certainly cooler than a bright day would have been.
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| Clean, new, smoggy city with LOTS of cars! |
We docked in the port of Dubai at noon and disembarked after lunch for a four hour tour of the city. Our tour guide was a half English, half Austrian woman who rapidly earned a nickname as The Nazi for her controlling ways and very obvious displeasure over interruptions, tardiness, driving glitches and anything else she couldn't control. Our Indian bus driver at one point said she was making him "stressed", and it is no wonder because she was constantly after him for not divining her wishes. John irritated her almost immediately for some minor infraction, but redeemed himself with stellar behavior from then on. She was well informed and interesting, however, so we had no real complaints. In fact, we all began to enjoy watching her quirky performance every bit as much as we benefited from her knowledge and enthusiasm.
Over 80% of the city are immigrants, including all tour guides, drivers, and workers of all sorts. Over half the population is from India. Emirate citizens enjoy an extremely generous social welfare program, thanks to oil money beginning in the 1960s and continuing with tourism and commercial income today. Surprisingly, less than 5% of Dubai's income is based on oil. Dubai is blessed with an enlightened sheik who early on realized that their oil supply would not last long and diversified into expansion of commercial and tourism interests. Dubai has almost no taxes except those levied on oil companies and big business, exactly the opposite of the norm in the West. Meanwhile, local people receive generous stipends when they marry, when each child is born and through the next 18 years, free education including fully paid university education in other countries, free medical care, free land and subsidized housing and utilities, and many other benefits. The country boasts a very modern infrastructure and a somewhat relaxed attitude toward the kinds of demands countries such as Saudi Arabia make regarding Islamic restrictions. Here, the beaches are open to all, even bikinis can be worn and within reason, whatever makes the individual comfortable is permitted. Here, your conduct, even your decisions regarding prayer, are between you and your conscience, not between you and the moral police as they are in Saudi Arabia, for example. There is a women's beach for those who prefer not to mingle with men, but in general, women have all the same rights and opportunities as men, including being encouraged to pursue education and careers. This is sharply different from Saudi where women are not even allowed to drive, including foreign women. The sheik of Dubai has a stated belief that an educated woman will have educated, productive children. What a concept! Additionally, there is almost no crime or poverty here, and no graffiti or litter. Our guide repeatedly stated that Dubai is an extremely safe place where she never has to worry about crime of any kind. They have almost zero unemployment because all foreigners are either tourists or live in the country with work required permits.
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A mannequin wearing a burka face mask.
We saw these very rarely, although
we were told they were more common
in the conservative interior of all these
countries than they are in the cities that
cater to Westerners. |
Clothing is also less restricted here, too. Our guide showed us a burka, which turns out to be nothing more than a small, stiff cover for the nose and mouth, not the full black garment most of us think of. Its purpose was originally protection from blowing sand. Sometimes fabric is used to protect the eyes from sand as well. Turns out that the Koran states only that women's garments should conceal the shape of the body, but makes no rules about color or design. The shapeless black garb worn by strict Islamic women is based on interpretations by men. Here you see women dressed in everything from shorts and tank tops to the full black abaya we thought was mandatory. I had been concerned that the "covered arms" suggestion for suitable clothing for tours meant the entire arm, but really, unless we had gone inside a mosque, which was not even an option today, just about anything seemed acceptable. Our guide actually made Dubai seem to be a place any western woman might want to live, as she has since 2000.
So, what did we see on our tour? First, the famous and ever changing skyline filled with tall buildings of all kinds, including the needle-like tallest building in the world--the Burj Kalifa (which you can see on the far right side of the smoggy photo above), and the world's tallest hotel--the Burj al Arab that is famously shaped like the sail of a dhow, as well as many other spectacular modern buildings, such as these.
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| Burj al Arab |
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| We stopped at a beach to photograph the hotel and see the bikini-clad bathers |
We stopped at a mosque that we could photograph from the outside but not enter. As we circled the building, we came first to the women's entrance, later to the men's. Both are required to wash hands, feet, faces and necks before they may enter to pray.
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| The Jumeirah Mosque |
We went on to the heritage museum that showed us what life was like here before oil was discovered not all that long ago. It was remarkably primitive compared to the luxury of today's high priced Dubai. The sheik's house in the museum was hardly more than a grass hut for summer, with an adobe brick section in the back that was used in winter. The museum was very nicely done and quite informative.
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| The entrance to the museum |
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| Just outside is a dhow. |
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| Two smaller boats |
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| Where to sleep in the summer |
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| Inside living area |
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| Where to sleep |
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| This is the outdoor dining and gathering area |
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| This shows the construction of the walls of the Al Fahidi fort. |
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| The walls and tower of the fort |
From there we went to the spice souk which I loved for its fragrant offerings, and then walked to the gold souk, where millions of dollars worth of gold and silver jewelry is on offer with only the smallest police presence, proof of the claims of safety here.
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| The Spice Souk |
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Every kind of spice imaginable.
Just the scents were worth the trip. |
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| Nuts and seeds |
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| Beans and lentils |
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| Very fancy and fun shoes |
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| Wonderful fabrics |
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| The Gold Souk |
By this time I was fading fast due to whatever bug I am fighting, so I did no shopping, but the souk is a fabulous place to people watch. You see the widest possible variety of people and dress in the souk, all mingling happily as they shop. We saw some amazingly tall Africans wearing beautifully colorful clothes, all manner of Islamic dress, sari clad Indians, as well as Asians and westerners. We saw Islamic women with bright head scarves as our only clue to who they were, others covered head to toe in shapeless black. We saw Islamic men wearing the single neck to ankle garment that is typical here, usually but not always in spotless white, often but not always with either a full corded headscarf or an embroidered cap. We saw an equal number of men wearing a similar two piece garment consisting of a longish light cotton tunic over loose trousers in the same color. Our guide told us that under the single long coat men wear only a long piece of fabric that is wound around their hips but is open to the air like a Scottish kilt. She also said that under the black robes strict women wear, they often wear very colorful silk dresses that frequently are covered with beautiful embroidered designs, beads, and even jewels.
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| Fairly conservative Muslim dress with the two piece garment for the man |
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| Lots of Indians live here. I love these shalwar khameez. |
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| His sandals say he is from the Emirates, not Saudi where men where closed shoes. |
We got back to the boat at about 6:30, just in time to head up to the pool deck for a lavish barbecue “Under the Arabian stars”. Or clouds in reality, because the skies never did clear and in fact dropped a couple of minutes of light rain on us as we ate. The chef had prepared a special vegan meal for us as there was nothing on the menu we could eat. Eating on the ship is like eating in any restaurant--chancy at best, but we are encouraged to preorder, and they are very accommodating as long as we make our needs known. That said, lunch was a bit of an adventure. We decided to try eating in the main dining room and from the vegetarian menu ordered a white bean and basil leaf soup and a vegetarian chef’s salad, specifying no cheese. The soup was delicious but contained only a single bean in each bowl, and the salad came topped with a poached egg and sliced deli turkey. Seriously? What about vegetarian would include meat? So after we ate what we could, we went up to the pool grill and ate some more. LOL.
