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| Travels of the great 14th Century Muslim explorer Ibn Battuta |
What a great feeling for Dwight and me to be off again,
bound for faraway places with strange sounding names. It feels like old times. Dubai is indeed far away! It took over 24 hours of cars and planes and
waits in airport, the worst part of which was the 6+ hour layover at Washington
Dulles.
Dubai is everything you’ve read about, a modern city built between
sand and sea in the last few years. It
represents the best and worst of modern homogenized culture: the traffic is horrendous; the buildings are
spectacular; the crowds are made up of a polyglot of cultures. It’s all a little overwhelming, but the universality
of English makes it feel like you’ve arrived in a Disneyworld mash-up of New
York, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Most of
the workers are Indian or Pakistani, but there are enough burka-clad women to
lend an air of the exotic.
We had booked a half-day city tour for our first day, so after
a good night’s sleep, we headed out to see all the sights. First stop was Dubai museum which is located in
the old Al Fahidi Fort, first established around 1787 on Dubai Creek, an inlet
of the Arabian Sea. Trading dhows used
to call here as part of the spice trade.
The Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and Red Sea were all dotted with Muslim
trading posts which managed the lucrative trade between India, the Spice
Islands, and Europe. Trade is probably
still the top “industry” in this area of the world. Now they trade in oil and real estate. It’s a developer’s dream and a shopper’s
paradise. At the end of our tour we were
dropped off at Mall of the Emirates. If
you’ve seen one mall, you’ve seen ‘em all.
After a banana split at the hotel’s rooftop terrace, we’re planning on
an early bedtime. Tomorrow, a trip to
the UAE capital of Abu Dhabi.
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