Monkeyhouse goes to Dubai
It all started back in September when, for Damon’s birthday,
we decided that getting to 1K status (the highest possible achievable status) on
United was within my reach, but it required one long haul trip to rack up at
least 15,000 miles. At the time, our
choices (thanks to incredibly low pricing) were Hong Kong and Dubai. Given the civil unrest in Hong Kong, we opted
for Dubai and on a completely spontaneous whim, booked the trip as a fly out
and back with a total of 24 hours in Dubai.
As I am a person who requires a significant amount of preparation and planning for any spontaneous
activity, I had buyer’s remorse the next morning after realizing that there was
more to attaining 1K status than just the miles, and we (I) chose to cancel the trip within
the allowable 24-hour time frame.
Fast forward two months, and with a lot of planning and
spreadsheets, I figured out how to get to 1K status AND we could take our completely spontaneous trip to Dubai
for 3 full days, which we had decided was enough to see everything we wanted to
see. Let the spontaneous boondoggle commence.
The biggest downside to this trip, other than the fact that
it was halfway around the world and we had less than 2 weeks to plan
everything, was that we agreed to fly coach.
Somewhere in Damon’s mind, a spontaneous boondoggle must include some
level of suffering, which in this case means 15-19 hours of flight time in
Economy. I am a firm believer in not suffering, but I lost this battle. Also, given the last-minute
nature of our booking, upgrading to business class wasn’t a viable option. So, we planned our trip out with an 8 ½ hour
flight to Frankfort, a 3 ½ hour layover, and a 6 ½ hour flight to Dubai –
totally manageable since at least we had the bulkhead for the first leg, meaning no
one was reclining in our laps. The return
would be one 14.5 hour leg (kill me now) from Dubai to Toronto with a 2-3 hour
layover followed by and a little 1 hour puddle jumper from Toronto to Chicago.
The flight out was completely and thankfully
uneventful. We had a slight delay due to
a malfunctioning ground indicator light that indicates (per the pilot) when we
might be on the verge of hitting, say, a mountain. So, I was fine with the delay – methinks not
hitting a mountain is probably a good thing.
We both slept a few hours on the flight – Damon can sleep anywhere. I popped a sleeping pill and downed a few mini bottles
of wine to ensure maximum effectiveness, which gave me a solid 3-4 hours of on and off sleep in 10-minute
increments. I'm not a very good plane sleeper, drugged or not.
Our layover was uneventful –
we were able to hang out in a nice lounge in the airport and at least had wifi,
comfy chairs, and unlimited coffee. We
boarded the second leg which was technically during all daytime hours, so while
Damon watched YouTube videos to stay awake, I watched more downloaded Christmas
movies (I have a serious and very unhealthy Hallmark addiction), read and napped. Surprisingly not a bad trip at all.
We landed in Dubai around 11:15pm travel weary, but still functioning, and nothing left to do but get to our hotel and go to sleep.
Since we only had carry on bags, the airport was a breeze and we were in
a taxi and at our hotel by midnight. A
few observations – I wasn’t sure what to expect when we got to Dubai, having
never been in a Muslim country. I read
up on expectations and customs specific to women and decided I would have to
defer to Damon to take control rather than charging forward as I typically
do. I’m not sure if I am
hyper-sensitive, but when we went to get a taxi, I swear the men would not look
me in the eye and only looked to Damon for instructions. So it definitely came as a surprise that our
taxi driver was female. She was wearing
a bright pink hijab, and she hoisted our luggage into the back with no help
whatsoever. In hindsight, maybe I
imagined the look me in the eye slight?
Only time will tell.
I am a devoted United flyer and Hyatt patron; ergo, we
stayed at the Hyatt Regency in Dubai.
There are about 8 Hyatts in Dubai – they obviously have good taste - and
we picked this one because it looked to be one of the nicest – at a mere $123
per night. As a Hyatt loyalist, I was
able to get us a complimentary suite upgrade, so despite our tired bedraggled
appearance upon arriving after about 20 hours of travel, once they looked up
our reservation, the awesome service started.
Our suite was huge with a living room, bedroom and 1 ½ bathrooms. The toilet situation is… interesting. I have yet to figure out what all of parts
do. There are more bowls and hoses than
in a standard American bathroom. Will definitely
experiment with everything before the weekend is up. The hotel left us a huge bowl of fruit and a
plate of chocolate covered dates, so we had a little snack – it was lunchtime
somewhere - and finally turned in by 12:30am.
My only picture thus far - the toilet, the booty hose, and I think the standing pee sink. And note the tv screen in the vanity mirror so you can watch tv while doing your business.
Official Start of Day 1:
After a wonderful night of sleep, we embarked on our very well-planned
non-spontaneous day. With only three
days in Dubai, I researched everything we could do with a few back-ups
in case we got ahead of schedule – we were going to see and do it all in 72 hours! We started with much needed showers and
breakfast. I had done a lot of reading
on what females are allowed to wear and was still a little unclear on what was
acceptable as many photos contradicted what I read. So, I opted to play it mildly safe with
cropped pants and a modest sleeveless top since it was expected to be about 80
degrees. I was a little worried about bare
shoulders, so I packed a light scarf to cover up just in case.
Stop number one was the old/original part of Dubai that was
known for its Souks – a Souk is an Arab market.
We took a taxi – side note – taxis are surprisingly inexpensive, and
when we were dropped off, the driver told us where we could get a return taxi
and commented that we should be very careful about taking real taxis versus
luxury taxis, because the luxury taxis are significantly more expensive. The luxury taxis are basically BMW’s and
other nice cars and are less obvious as official taxis.
Another side note – everyone speaks English, and most speak
it quite well. Another good surprise
since my Arabic is a little rusty. No, I
don’t speak Arabic. Although I did immediately
learn the word for “thank you” and threw it out where ever I could. My pronunciation must have been stellar as I
got some surprised looks whenever I used it. Or maybe I was saying potato or
something by accident. My pneumonic for
thank you “shukraan” was “shoe” and “Koran”, which helped a lot.
The Souk area was not too crowded (yet). It was right on Dubai Creek, which is really
more of a river, so there were boats of all shapes and sizes just stacked
against the shore. The old city consisted
of a lot of narrow streets with tiny shops lining the streets. The actual “Souk” was more like an indoor
organized flea market.
We started with
the famous spice souk. Not sure what to
expect, we wandered into the very narrow passageway that was lined on both
sides with spice vendors.
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| Dozens of stores filled with mostly the same spice displays |
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| Huge bags of spices lined the outside areas |
We were not
two steps into the Souk area when the aggressive in-your-face selling began. We couldn’t take a step without someone
shoving spices in our face and guiding us into their shop or asking us if we
know what any/every smell was. Honestly,
it was a little overwhelming, but also pretty cool. We went into one shop early on to get the lay
of the land and received the full court press.
We smelled a bunch of different spices and marveled at the massive bags,
bins and piles of everything you can imagine.
We finally begged off and said we would come back.
We wandered into a larger “store” and spent a lot of time
there – we got sucked into the pashmina area and I was shown about 50 different
colors and fabrics of scarfs from camel hair to llama hair to goat hair, with
all of the animal hair combos. Ultimately,
I was able to sneak away without buying anything – I had just bought my $20
pashmina on Amazon and probably didn’t need a $100 camel/goat/llama hair scarf
that really looked exactly the same.
Then we went to the spice section of the store and were guilted into
buying a lifetime supply of white pepper, cinnamon and cumin. Luckily all spices we use. One trick they like to play on unsuspecting
tourists is the “smell this” game. They
show you a bunch of stuff and you smell it and guess what it is. Then they tell you to close your eyes and you
are still sniffing, and then the blow smoke from a burning menthol rock right
up your nose. To say that it clears your
sinuses is an understatement. I think my
sinuses are cleared for the rest of my life.
We wandered around the enormous Souk area and in addition to
the spice section, there were tons of other products from clothes to mattresses
to household goods – each in a tiny little shop. The other big Souk is the gold Souk, which we
had to visit. Luckily, having no desire
whatsoever to purchase gold, I knew we would be safe. The gold area was insane – you could
literally buy anything made of gold from necklaces to clothes. The windows were filled with gold dresses and
massive jewelry pieces. We never went
into any stores, but just visually enjoyed.
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| One of many many window displays covered in gold-wear |
I had heard that one should stop for ice cream at an Arab
market, so we found an ice cream vendor and I ordered. Damon was aware of the “show” that was
coming, but I was not. The ice cream
vendors play a game with cones and ice cream that is basically a fast hands
thing where you never have any idea where your ice cream or where your cone is
as it all keeps changing hands and locations.
It was fun, but given that there were at least three cones involved in
my show, I wondered how many people had touched my cone prior to me getting
there. I still ate it. Obviously.
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| Only 2 cones in this pic, but there was another one floating around somewhere |
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| Enjoying our cones |
Our ice cream break gave us the chance to plan out our big souvenir
spice purchase. We figured out exactly
how much of everything we wanted, what types of spices, and what I think I
would normally pay for it at home, and decided a total dollar value that we
would spend. We were ready to go
negotiate! We went back to our original
guy and we were ready. He didn’t stand a
chance. We negotiated hard and at the
end we got a great price, plus 2 chocolate covered dates, some dried ginger and
some dried mango just to sweeten the pot.
I’m sure we still paid 10x what they did, but when everyone walks away
happy, I consider it a win.
Some interesting notes about the people watching in the Souk
– while the vast majority of people are dressed in “western” clothes (maybe
slightly more modest), there are definitely a number of men and women (more
women) dressed in more traditional Muslim attire – meaning men are wearing the
long white robes (“thawb”) with the occasional white head scarf (“keffiyeh”)
and women are in the long black robes (“abaya”) and the head coverings (“hijab”). If I got the names wrong, blame Google and
Wikipedia. I asked Damon a simple
question – why do men wear white (cooler in the desert heat) and women wear
black (sweltering in desert heat). His response
– “what do you think”. The answer was
obvious, but not one I wanted to say out loud.
It is clearly a way to force women into a more subservient role.
I may rant about this again later, but while admittedly the
females wearing the Abaya did not generally seem to be completely submissive,
there were some face coverings really disturbed me. Most women wore a simple hijab – usually
black. But their faces were
uncovered. And they often work make-up
and jewelry. There were some women who
completely covered up where only their eyes showed – they might be covering
with a scarf that tied around the back of their heads or the head covering
itself included a face cover. But the
ones that really upset me where the ones where there was some type of face
covering, but the emphasis was on covering the mouth, sometimes with what
appeared to be a metal plate. We saw a
few of these in the Souk. I have no
pictures, but it was very disconcerting to me that women need to be
symbolically silenced in public.
I cannot begin to pretend I know or understand the
Muslim/Islamic culture. And I have no
idea what goes on behind closed doors. I
don’t know if women choose this, prefer it, tolerate it or hate it. But as a completely uninhibited independent
American woman, any culture that so obviously diminishes women and forces them
into a subservient role, makes me very uncomfortable and very thankful to have
won the genetic lottery. I suppose when
we start complaining about what goes on in our own country, we need to take
step back and understand that we have it a helluva a lot better than other
places. Rant over.
Moving on. To get
back across the creek, we opted to take an Abra, which is a water taxi that
costs about 25 cents per person for a 5-7 minute ride in a rickety old wooden
boat from one dock to the other. Totally
worth it as we got to see both sides of the creek from the water.
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| Abras |
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| View up the river |
We took a quick taxi ride back to our hotel
to drop off our goodies and headed back out again immediately to stay on
schedule.
For the next part of our journey, and as one of our must do itinerary
items, we opted to take the Metro to the downtown area. The metro was a few blocks away to a super
clean and modern station (our station had a fresh squeezed orange juice
machine!), two stops on one line, a transfer to a second line, and maybe 7
stops on the second line.
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| Everything is kind of futuristic looking - this is the metro station |
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| Fresh train station OJ! |
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| Fancy train station chandelier |
The train was
pulling into the station when we got there so we immediately hopped into the
closest car. We were sitting in the car
and luckily Damon noticed some signs on the train wall indicating that we were
in a women and children only car and there was a fine for men caught in the
car.
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| We missed the HUGE signs on the floor as you enter the train |
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| About a $25 fine |
The train, while containing
separate cars, is really a long tube so it was very easy to move to another
car. The car we moved into was packed
solid shoulder to shoulder with all men and maybe 4-5 total women in the
car. It felt very weird, but I didn’t
want to separate from Damon, so I sucked it up and stayed. One of those times I’m thankful for my
height.
Eventually we got off at the Dubai Mall stop. The Dubai Mall is notorious for being one of
the largest indoor malls in the world, and we had also heard that it contained
tons of designer stores. We walked about
a mile through air-conditioned walkways to finally get to the mall and it was
huge. I was a bit disappointed as I was
expecting gold vending machines everywhere (rumor has it there is at least one
in the building), but what we found was the Mall of America x10. Up to five levels of stores and pretty much comprised of mostly American mall stores – Gap, Banana Republic, Victoria Secret – all the standard stuff. There was a massive food court that had every
type of fast food imaginable. We had a
quick lunch of Kebabs and Hummus – yes, it was in the food court, but offered
an amazing people watching experience. We didn't take many pictures because I read that you can't take pix of people without their permission. Not wanting to risk it, we opted to just take it all in visually.
My favorite two stories – watching 3 women wearing abayas
and hijabs while texting on their cell phones and ordering food from Johnny
Rockets. Watching a woman in her abaya
and hijab struggling with all of her purchases – from the Gap. Damon’s favorite story – in every mall in
America, there is some car display – the new Mustang or maybe even a Tesla
being showcased in a prime viewing location.
In the Dubai Mall, it was a Maserati.
You can see me in the background – clearly not impressed.
After the mall, we headed to the big event of the day –
going up to the top of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest structure in the
world.
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| Hard to get in the entire structure in one picture. 148th is the very first shadow/bump on the left that you can barely see almost to the top of the building |
The primary viewing platform is
on floors 124 & 125. We opted to pay a little (a lot) extra to get the VIP passes to the 148th floor,
which also included bypassing the line and getting on our own elevator. While the public can technically get to the
155th floor, it is only at set times and for an organized tea. We wanted to see the sunset which did not
match up with 155th floor times.
Also, the 148th floor has the highest outdoor viewing
platform. My only regret about not going
to 155 is that apparently there is the highest sky-toilet in the world and when
you sit on it, your view is floor to ceiling windows. Google it.
I have a fear of almost nothing, but going up to the 148th
floor of this building got my heart racing a bit. Our group was escorted through the building
and to our elevator. One would think
that shooting up an elevator at 33 feet per second would be a jolting
experience – but in reality, the ride was so smooth, you didn’t even know you
were moving. The entire ride only took
about a minute. Think about 33 feet per
second – that is about 3 floors a second.
We were greeted on the 148th with tea and cookies
and had an hour to wander around and take in the views. The floor was relatively small – if you look
at the Burj, the floors get smaller as you get higher. It was really just one room with a few
couches and chairs and a small gift shop, plus a small “outdoor” area dubbed
the highest outdoor viewing platform in the world.
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| Enjoying our tea |
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| We could only score one chair so we had to swap |
While it was technically outside, it was
fully enclosed in glass with a thin strip of open air so you could feel the
breeze. Truth be told, I would not have
wanted to be that high up in open air.
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| Sitting on the floor trying to get an angle that provides some scale. This is "outside" |
We waited until dusk and watched the sunset with great views of the
famous man-made world islands and the palm island, both of which we could see
off in the distance. One thing I was not
expecting about Dubai was how spread out it is.
All the stuff that you see most frequently – the islands, the palm, the
sail building, the Burj – all at least 10-15 miles away from each other. The city itself is pretty narrow and follows
the Persian Gulf and then the landscape changes quickly to desert once you
start heading inland.
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| Hard to make out, but palm island is just under the sun and the world islands are to the right |
After our time at the top, we rode the elevators down and
enjoyed the famous fountain show where Arabic snake charming music was playing, and the water looked like giant gyrating snakes – very cool.
I believe the same people who created the
Bellagio show in Las Vegas did this one.
The Burj is completely and spectacularly lit up at night with twinkling
lights.
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| Hard to see, but all of those lights were twinkling |
We admired for a few minutes and
then took the train back to our hotel where we had dinner at a Mexican
restaurant, and then we went to the rooftop bar for a final drink while we
enjoyed 360-degree views of the entire city.
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| Rooftop view, mostly blocked by the giant phallus. Burj is just behind and to the left. |
Needless to say, we were exhausted.
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