Around The World for the 3rd time (Abu Dhabi and Dubai)

A note of intro to my readers:

(The magnificent Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque)

It has been awhile since I wrote my last blog. But since September 4 we have been on the road from one country to the next and I simply cannot conceive blogs while traveling, as during those trips a whirlwind of encounters and sights besiege me.

(A globe on wheels in a car museum somewhere in the desert)

(Oversized cars that the museum owner Sheikh has built by himself)

(Our guide Karim has a love affair with camels)

You may find this strange perhaps, but the following blogs will arrive out of order, as I recreate in my mind, sights and smells that come to me out of order. This blog happens to be about the last country we visited before reaching Amsterdam for the December family festivities.

(Abu Dhabi city scape)

Abu Dhabi

It is after midnight when we lug our carry-on suitcases into a cab, driven by seemingly the only Muslim woman in a sea of waiting taxi drivers, speeding towards a trusted Marriott hotel nearest to the airport in Dubai, where we are guaranteed a late checkout.

(Across the water the royal palace complex. This is as close as we can get to it. Picture taken into the sun - sorry)

We are just coming of 2 grueling 12 hour days of travel from Melbourne to here, which we wisely cut into 2 legs, because we chose staying over in an Intercontinental hotel in Guangzhou where we had a checkout till 4pm after the first 12 hour day flying. Nevertheless this midnight arrival creates the involuntary feeling that one is worn out from traveling time zones.

(Abu Dhabi fishing harbor just outside city center)

(Examples of Emirati  homes. Here families  spanning several generations live together )

I am heading this first chapter “Abu Dhabi” as that is where we head the next afternoon, after a very lazy morning, with another taxi for 93 miles/150 km. During the 2 hour ride, we are getting our first glitzy highrise glimps of Dubai with prominently displayed banners, stating that this the Year of Zayed accompanied with the number 47, then follow industrial parks surrounded by desert, till we reach the almost modest looking city of Abu Dhabi, reaching our hotel on the other side of town, where it sits on a little hill, that offers us the expansive views of the Persian Sea.

(Signs celebrating the founding and the founding father of the UAE)

A little history is maybe needed here:

47 years ago seven emirates (a nice word for Arab tribes) forged a union, creating the United Arab Emirates with the Abu Dhabi Emir, Zayed bin Sultan Al Nayan as the founding father of this oil rich country; a country where only white clad “born within the tribe” Emiratis and their fully clothed in black women are citizens. These Emiratis basically live a charmed life, receiving their apportioned monthly cut of the oil revenues, surrounded by, as a resident Egyptian German explained, 3 categories of “slaves” to support their lifestyle. 

(The second jewel of Abu Dhabi the Emirates Palace Hotel - cost 4 billion dollars not listing “rooms” but 394 residences)

( gold and marble wherever your eyes wander)

(The great  hall shows for this special year a replica of a traditional dhow)

(Another peek at opulence)

Non Emirati need work permits to reside in the UAE, and must leave when their work ends or they retire. 

Category 1:

The menial jobs from laborer to service people (working in restaurants, hotels, housemaids etc) are predominantly of Asian heritage and live most of the time in communal low rent residences.

Categories 

2 and 3: 

Range from technical or supervisory white collar jobs to the highly educated, running businesses or teaching at universities.

(The grand mosque changes color during the sunset hours from white to blue and gold)

(Sandee ready to visit the mosque)

(Every  hall in the mosque is different)

(The big courtyard flooring is magnificently decorated)

(The outer hall leading to the grand prayer hall) 

(The main prayer hall can host 7000 worshippers on its carpeted floors 

lit up by 7 Swarovski  chandeliers dotted with 40 million crystals)

( above and below a few more pictures)

We never spoke with an Emirati although we sighted them in upscale hotels and restaurants or being driven around in cars that are unaffordable for anybody but the one tenth of one hundredth of the world population.

Fun fact: when you arrive with your work permit in hand to live here and have another “slave” called realtor find you a home, you will find at closing that you are handed 2 sets of keys: one for the home you bought and one for the free car that comes with the home ranging in value depending on how much you paid for your home, like from a Mini Cooper to a Mercedes or a Bentley.

(Desert Rose, see below explanation)

(desert rose a 250 year old crystallized sand formation, as shallow salt basins dried up and gypsum deposits, sand and salt clumped together and dried into these very fragile rosette like formations)

A few of my thousand empty quarter pictures below 


(Color is the first impression accentuated by the dry heat of the day)

(Camels can be found everywhere where a camel shepherd creates a homestead in the desert)

(Color defined by time of the day)

(Sand patterns as only wind and sand can create together)

(It seems as nobody has been here before)

(A not so great picture of a hill we careened over sliding down creating a subsequent avalanche)

Back to my cluttered memories of Abu Dhabi:

We booked a driver/guide for several hours to see Abu Dhabi. I’ll let the pictures do the talking, but the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque is going to be a lasting memory imprinted on our minds while visiting during sunset hours. We haven’t seen many mosques but I do believe this one must be considered one of the most beautiful.

(Only nature can create this for me to picture)

We also had an expensive lunch at the Emirates Palace, just to be able to wander through its halls and gardens.

(Can not resist to give you a few more)

The most memorable event was our private day trip to the Rub al-Khali or Empty Quarter desert which covers 25 percent of the Arabian peninsula, creating the largest continuous body of sand in the world, or so I am told.

Just let me to say, “being there” is the experience of a lifetime that pictures can not ever convey. Thanks to our guide Karim for an unforgettable day as we slalomed our way through the sand creating avalanches.

(I hope this shot gives you the idea of endlessness - a desert that stretches onwards and onwards)

DUBAI

(Burj Khalifa at night - all 828m/2717ft of it)

Did you know it takes 36 window cleaners 3 months to wash the building with its 160 floors and 46 more levels that cannot be occupied.

(Nr 2  famous building the Burj Al Arab)

(Atlantis the Palm on Crescent road, the top road of the man made island The Palm)

The seven emirates are still being governed individually and generate their own income. Dubai being less oil rich has a major portion of its income from luxury tourism with glitzy hotels and over 70 shopping malls, including the largest in the world which houses the Dubai aquarium, and hopes to host over 65 million tourists next year.

(Sandee riding the Metro in the women’s section)

(The Dubai Mall, 1200 stores on 5.4 million sq ft/ 1/2 million sq m)

(Construction never stops in Dubai personally overseen by 

Sheikh Muhammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum ruler of Dubai and VP of the UAE)

Our taxi ride from Abu Dhabi to Dubai brought the reality of regional governments to light, when just before the almost invisible border our taxi driver got into the last gas station before crossing into Dubai to fill up. He explained that he could not get gas on his company card in Dubai and he could not pick up any customers in Dubai as his license was only valid in Abu Dhabi and that the same applies to the Dubai taxis.

(Beach life in Dubai, if you peer closely you will find bikinis in this very Islamic city; 

A tourist city has to a tolerate certain “unpleasantness”)

(Dubai street view)

(Burj Khalifa by day towering over the Dubai Mall, which houses the aquarium and a little zoo)

A 

(A rare thing I learned there: the Al Farooq Omar Bin Al Khattab mosque above

 wishes to preach the meaning of tolerance)

We took 2 days of hop on hop off to make the most of getting to see Dubai and rode the metro enjoying the fact that the domed walkways are all air-conditioned. The metro has a women only section where Sandee first thought she had to be seated and glared at me as I put my shoe over the line into that area while keeping my body out of it. Later we realized that each train does have cars where men and women can ride together. 

(Below pictures of the aquarium in the Dubai mall and also in the Palm hotel)

(A picture of whole aquarium walls inside buildings)

(Above and below pictures of the aquaria we visited in Dubai)

(This guy likes to get dry sometimes)

(Parrots were loud and combative with each other to have the trainers attention)

I hope the pictures will, as always, do the talking better than my ramblings. 

(Dubai city views are often hazy because of the desert sand in the air)

(Evening sunset view from our Abu Dhabi hotel towards the Persian gulf)

(Another view at Burj Al Arab)