Chapter 1 - Dubai

Day 1 – Wednesday 4 May and a few hours of Tuesday 3 May

Melbourne to Dubai

Our daughter Jodi picked us up about 8pm and ferried us to Tullamarine airport.  There was minimal fuss apart from spare batteries being in the “checked” luggage (should be in “carry on”), and the new fancy electronic human-less passport check.

Ninety minutes later we sat in our Premium Economy seat and were given a choice of soda water, orange juice or bubby.  Things improved later when dinner was accompanied by a magnificent Aussie shiraz.

I was not that impressed when I produced my new “noise reduction” headphones (which supported both one-pin and two-pin plugs) and found out that the Airbus A380 has three-pin plugs.  Still the Qantas headphones were excellent.

For the first time in my life I watched two films on one leg of a plane trip – The Revenant & American Sniper.  It was a 14-hour flight to Dubai and 12 hours of it was in darkness.  Shirley slept and I had multiple nano naps.

I am typing these words just before we are due to arrive at Dubai as the in-flight system states that wireless internet was available, and I needed to find out.  Alas, this was not the case.

Amid all the tight security at the airport, the passport-check guy picked up my passport, looked at Shirley, checked the computer, then stamped my passport. Then he picked up Shirley’s passport, looked at me, checked the computer, then stamped Shirley’s passport.  Sounds high tech.

Dubai was shrouded in a haze that comes from the heat & sand.  Most buildings are sand coloured so that sand storms do not stain the buildings.

We arrived at our hotel about 8:30 and were able to get into our room before 10 am.  That gave us time to buy a coffee and have the concierge convince us to do a four-hour personal tour of Dubai, rather than buy Hop-On – Hop-Off bus tickets. 

     One of the Dubai Souks (Markets)

 

It proved to be excellent advice as we motored passed most of the souks in town (souk is Arabic for market).  So we saw the Gold souk, the spice souk, the perfume souk, the women’s souk and the “Old” souk – maybe a couple of others. 

River Craft

We saw the wide range of water craft on the Dubai creek, then visited the Dubai museum – a small but excellent collection of artefacts that show the history and development of Dubai.  The museum is a restored fort that was built for protection many eons ago.  Many of the walls were a type of porous concrete – something I need to research, just for interest.

Former fort, now Dubai Museum

               Former fort, now Dubai Museum

Not to be outdone by other competitive nations we saw the tallest building in the world, the tallest hotel in the world, the tallest commercial building in the world and the longest mono rail in the world. 

Next on our route was Palm Island and the amazing Atlantis Hotel.  It really has to be seen to be believed.

World’s Tallest Building

     World’s Largest Hotel

We finished our trip at the largest shopping mall in the world, which contains the largest “internal” waterfall in the world.  I was rather glad that we did not drive there as I may never have seen the car again.  The mall has the largest indoor aquarium in the world. Nasir, our driver, was a wealth of information and was happy to answer all sorts of questions.  He is allowed to have four wives, but reckons one is sufficient – a very wise man.

The map below gives an idea of the areas of Dubai that we saw today.  Nasir had assured us that Dubai is relatively free of crime and probably the safest city in the world.  We do not remember seeing any dogs, birds (apart from pigeons), graffiti or rubbish, so it is also a fairly clean city.

The number and variety of tall buildings was amazing – even more so from the air.

We dined in our hotel and enjoyed some wonderful tastes and odours very typical of Dubai.  Of course, being in Dubai, we did as the locals do, and bypassed alcohol.

We were in (a very comfortable) bed quite early at 8:30 pm, after an enjoyable day in Dubai.  Sleep was easy to come by.

Post updated 5pm Friday 6 May 2016
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