Jewels in the Desert

Part A: Dubai

Travelogue 27

 

Traveling to Dubai is like taking a journey into the future.

 

Clinging on to clean up the world’s tallest building

 

Background

Few patches of land on earth have undergone such mindboggling transformation, so incredibly, dramatically, quickly and peacefully, as a tiny stretch of coastal eastern end of the largely desert Arabian Peninsula, into what is now the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Few places too have undergone such radical change in the life styles and living standards of its people, once dependent on fishing, pearl diving, and seafaring for their living,  in such a short time as the UAE. It is one of the most prosperous regions on the planet, of which both Dubai and Abu Dabhi, the jewels in its crown, are an integral part.

A map of the UAE, bordered on land by Saudi Arabia and Oman, and on sea to the north by the Persian Gulf, is reproduced below. Here, Dubai is the most populous of the seven (united) emirates, though Abu Dabhi takes pride of place since it is the capital.  The other five (united) emirates are: Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah and Umm Al Quwain, all on a narrow strip of the coast. As an elective monarchy from a united federation of these emirates, with the ruler of Abu Dabhi serving as the president and that of Dubai as both vice president and prime minister, UAE has enjoyed great political stability and exceptional economic prosperity in a free market economy. It is no longer dependent on ‘petrodollars’ for the sustenance of its economy, which it did in the early phase of its independence.

The current population of UAE is around 10.2 million, the majority of them residing in Dubai and Abu Dabhi. Only about 11.5% of them are UAE citizens, the rest are expatriates, accounting mostly for the workforce, of whom 60% are South Asian, including 38% Indian, the largest segment of the country’s population.  The Indian representation is perhaps the main reason for India’s excellent relationship with the UAE on many counts. Excepting citizenship, expatriates and foreigners are entitled to all facilities and amenities in the country and nobody has to pay any income tax either.

The emergence of UAE as an international hub for commerce, business, industry, housing, innovation, banking, aviation, etc., propelled by the travel, tourism and hospitality sectors on a massive scale, has acted as a magnet for tourists from all over the world. My fascination for large and tall buildings with distinctive architecture, be they ancient or modern, was a major factor in my interest as a potential tourist.  The fact that Dubai boasted of the tallest building in the world, taller than its nearest competitor anywhere else by a whopping margin, was a clincher.  

It is against this background that I planned a week-long visit to Dubai and Abu Dabhi in November 2015.  After I had made my travel arrangements, I mentioned this casually to my good friend and colleague Dr C Seshadri (whom I shall refer to simply as CS in the rest of this long article as well as the next one) when I visited him.  He got interested and wondered if he could also join me in the trip.  I welcomed the idea wholeheartedly and took it upon myself to rework everything to include him for the tour, which included, among other things, applying for and obtaining an e-visa, making airline and hotel bookings, and equally importantly, an advance booking for the privilege of going up to the top of Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world.  Since practically every visitor to Dubai eyes this experience, this expensive exercise was absolutely necessary, much the same way I had to do for the Eiffel Tower in Paris two years later.

To avoid an inconveniently long account of our experiences, I have split the travelogue on UAE into two parts, this being the first part, on Dubai.  The second (future) one will cover Abu Dabhi. The narration of our experiences, some rather adventurous for two very senior citizens, is largely chronological and illustrated with so many of my photographs as to look like a photo album at times.  The reader will have to separate the grain from the chaff. 

First glimpses

Early morning on Monday 23rd November 2015, it was a comfortable four-hour flight from Bangalore to Dubai, but there was a long wait at the overcrowded immigration counters before we came out of the airport.  After checking into our hotel, we began our exploration of the metropolis right away, hoping it would be a lot more than just another concrete jungle that many modern cities tend to be.

I had drawn up an advance plan for our visits each day. The first day called for a cursory look at the city sights with a long journey on the metro line, absorbing the sights on either side of the track as the driverless train performed its starts and stops with metronomic precision at each station on a long coastal line, all the way up to the Marina station.  We alighted at one place on the way, right next to the city’s major artery, the Sheikh Zayed Road, which runs all the way from one end of UAE to the other.  Here is one of numerous pictures I took there, with part of the iconic Burj Khalifa visible far behind among the skyscrapers.

Here is a picture of a typical metro station, shot the following day, as it appeared on the outside, with a futuristic look.  The greenery seen in the foreground was not unusual.

Here is a typical metro station on the inside, with a train on the platform, spic and span, much like any modern mega city in the world:

Here is one of numerous impressive views I captured further on the way, the building at the center being part of the World Trade Centre of Dubai. 

A little later, we had our first view of the towering Burj Khalifa, one particularly pleasing, and distant, view of which is seen below: 

Marina

Our last stop on our exploratory outbound metro journey for the day was at the Dubai Marina, an artificial canal city, built along a 3-kilometre stretch of Persian Gulf shoreline. Offering urban waterfront living, it boasts of (hugely expensive) luxury skyscrapers, and a variety of high life appendages. We didn’t go far along the shoreline on what was an oppressively hot afternoon, but sampled a good bit of the environment for about an hour, without running into many residents.

Below is a picture of part of the sky-scraping residential buildings lining a short stretch of the waterfront.  The tall, crooked, twisting tower at the centre, originally called the Infinity Tower is the tallest building of its kind in the world, with a 90-degree spiral encompassing 75 floors and has 495 luxury apartments, surely an iconic architectural marvel in the UAE. There seem to be different reasons for the unconventional design, but I would like to think it was done mainly as a visual extravaganza.

When CS took a picture of me (see below) against the background of the Marina skyline, I was disappointed later to find the twister missing. 

But I made no mistake when it was my turn to take his picture! (See below):

 

Later that evening, after some time spent in leisurely travelling, we arrived at a place where there was supposed to be an attractive show featuring aquatic animals.  But, its crudely unprofessional human ‘handlers’ monopolized the show with a display of their own vociferation skills, accompanied by raucous movie music, so loud and for so long by way of a painful build up, we lost all interest in sitting through it. We returned to our hotel after the long day spent in travel.

Dubai Mall

The Dubai Mall is said to be the largest mall in the world by total area (about half a million square meters), and one of the largest in the world by any other criteria. It is located right next to Burj Khalifa and the two are actually interconnected. Also, an enclosed walkway runs from it all the way to the metro station of the same name about half a km away. With about 1200 shops and establishments of all types inside, including an underwater zoo, an aquarium and an ice rink, it is also one of the most visited buildings in the world.

Here is an aerial view of the massive Dubai Mall taken looking straight down from the observation deck of the adjacent Burj Khalifa the same evening:

When I had mentioned my UAE tour plans to someone in my family circle, he had warned me that I wouldn’t be able to see even a fraction of the mall in a whole day. Well, we had no intention of spending a whole day there, and certainly seeing no more than a smaller fraction of it, without missing the underwater attractions. In any case, we had no shopping list, either at the mall or anywhere else in UAE.

The shops in Dubai Mall were essentially similar to what one finds in most major airports today, and our interest was, at best, in some window shopping.  Here are two representative glittering pictures of the mall, just to say we were there! 

Before visiting the Aquarium and the Under Water Zoo, we spent sometime in one of the large food courts in the mall, looking at the offerings, and then deciding to order just pizzas for lunch.  I ate an unusually large piece, and developed an upset stomach that lasted till the following morning.  Here is a picture of the food court we had entered:

 

Aquarium and Underwater Zoo

Though we had spent a good bit of time in the mall, our interest in it was only cursory.  However, we were more seriously interested in seeing the aquarium and the underwater zoo, both superb achievements for a place which was once just a desert.

Here is a picture at the entrance to the zoo within the mall complex:

The Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo houses more than 33,000 aquatic animals, comprising of over 140 species. The aquarium has more than 400 shark and rays in its 10-million-liter tank. It is one of the largest indoor aquariums in the world and holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest acrylic pane which surrounds visitors and allows them to see aquatic animals like sea horses, piranhas, crabs, etc., as the visitors pass through a tunnel. Apart from the marine life, the underwater zoo houses crocodiles, UAE’s night creatures, penguins, otters and a host of different animals.

Here is a picture I took of a small group of tourists as they passed through the acrylic tunnel: 

The next picture captures a segment of the zoo devoted to extensive ‘rainforest facts’, with CS, the only non-aquatic life seen in the picture, on the left.

Here is another eye-catching view of the zoo: 

The picture below shows how penguins, generally seen only in the arctic regions, also find a place in the aquatic zoo of the Dubai Mall.

Burj Khalifa

At 830 m tall, Burj Khalifa (initially called Burj Dubai) is quite simply the tallest building in the world, dwarfing its nearest competitor, the Shanghai Tower that came up later, by nearly 200 m. When coupled with the adjacent Dubai Mall, one of the largest in the world, this is strong enough reason in itself for many people (including me) to visit Dubai.

Here is a keepsake picture of me against the dense cloudy background that day:

I would have preferred the picture against the vastly better background seen in the picture I had taken from a distance on the previous day (see below): 

The Burj Khalifa has two observation decks – on the 124th and 125th floors and at the ‘Top SKY’ on the 148th floor, the latter at a height of 555 m above ground level. Overall, it has 163 floors! I had made an advance booking for the Top SKY at a hefty price online, far in advance, for the two of us, at the 4 pm slot that day. Unfortunately, dark clouds had gathered even while we were visiting the mall, and when it was time to go up the building in its superfast elevators, it actually started raining! Since we didn’t have an unlimited time at the top, we had to make the best of a bad job.  The views from the top were great even in the densely clouded skies.  Below are two pictures taken from the top:

 

After we came down from the rather disappointing experience at the top, we waited in the drizzle for the 6 pm musical fountain show, for which we didn’t get good vantage points because of the drizzle as well as a sizable crowd, even under such conditions. The world-famous musical fountain is 275 m long and rises to a maximum height of 152 m, the show duration being 30 min. Any other day it might have been a memorable experience.

Ibn Battuta Mall

Next day, we visited a modern mall with a distinct ancient flavor.  It was the Ibn Battuta Mall, named after a great ancient Islamic scholar-writer-explorer who studied ancient Egyptian civilization too, since this is the underlying theme of this superb mall, located close to a metro station, well away from the city center. The following picture of one of its huge entrance walls spells out what I mean:

The next two pictures are of displays inside the hall, distinctly ancient-Egyptian in character and appearance, the first one of great astronomical significance: 

For us, it was more like a museum than a mall! It was a thoroughly edifying experience.  Incidentally, we went on a trip to ancient Egyptian sights along the Nile in Egypt a little over six months after the present visit (see here).

Palm Jumeirah & Atlantis

Built from reclaimed land in a series of artificial archipelagos, Palm Jumeirah is shaped like a palm tree when viewed from above (see aerial view below), and designed to add substantially to Dubai’s shoreline. 

Apart from the huge number of individual properties (houses with a wide range of amenities) dotting the ‘branches’, this unique palm shaped island is home to a number of luxury resorts, the best known of which is Atlantis (see aerial view below). 

A monorail service is available to reach Atlantis at one end of Palm Jumeirah from the mainland.  Since we didn’t intend to spend too much time there, we hired a taxi for the return trip. 

Here is a close-up view of the resort complex:

Here is a picture of me in front of our taxi, against the background of the rich greenery in the resort, appropriately with a palm tree right behind the taxi to remind me where we were:

Burj Al Arab

Like Burj Khalifa, Burj Al Arab is another iconic landmark that defines Dubai.  A super luxury hotel, and one of the tallest in the world at 210 m, the building is designed to look like the sail of a ship, something to remind the natives of their original connection to the sea. It is built on an artificial island 280 m off the coast of the sea at Jumeirah and connected to the mainland by a private curving bridge.  It has its own helipad at the top. 

Our first (panoramic) view of the Burj Al Arab and another nearby building, the Jumeirah Beach Hotel, was on the very first day of our visit as we were speeding to Marina by metro.  I reserved it for display below: 

After our brief visit to Atlantis on the island of Palm Jumeirah, we took the return taxi all the way to nearby Burj Al Arab and alighted there.  We knew beforehand that we couldn’t go inside it without an advance reservation of some kind, so we went right up to the entrance and took a close look. Below is what I saw in very cloudy conditions. The helipad can be seen clearly at the top.

We also went close to the smaller Jumeirah Beach Hotel, but not inside.  Here is a beautiful picture of it with lots of greenery: 

Butterfly Garden

From Jumeirah beach we took a long taxi ride to Dubai Miracle Garden about which I had heard a great deal, but it had been closed that day for some technical reason, something I could have checked beforehand.  Instead of the famous Miracle Garden, we ended up, unintentionally, visiting the nearby not so famous butterfly garden, part of the Miracle Garden complex.  Here is a picture of it at the entry point:

As expected, there wasn’t much variety in the butterflies found inside and the greenery was definitely more appealing than its inhabitants.  Here is a shot showing a small group of butterflies, one of my best pictures there:

The Long Wait

While looking for a taxi to return, and not finding any, we met a family of visitors from Lahore, Pakistan, found them waiting for a return bus and decided to team up with them.  We stuck up a long non-controversial conversation, sharing a lot of experiences in UAE and elsewhere, with the head of the family, who said he was a professor in some academic institution.  I observed that we too were both in similar positions back home, and the conversation turned partly academic. When I mentioned that we were due to visit Abu Dabhi the next day, he remarked that we would like it even better than Dubai. 

The bus did turn up in due course and we rode it back to the nearest metro station, and then back to our hotel.

We made the trip to Abu Dabhi the next day as planned.  An account of it will be presented in the next part of this travelogue since there is a good deal to write about.  Here, I will continue with the highlights of our visits in Dubai over the last two days of our stay there.

Friday experience

On Friday 27th Nov 15, our last full day in UAE, we wanted to make an early start to make up for the lost time two days before, and left for the metro station after a hurried breakfast, only to find it closed to our utter surprise.  Without reflecting on the possible reason, I summoned a passing taxi and asked to be taken to nearby Union Metro station which I thought would have no reason to close. On the way, overhearing our conversation, the taxi driver, inevitably an expatriate from south Asia, told us helpfully that all government work starts only at 10 am on Fridays.  By then we were close to the Union station and opted to get dropped there and wait it out in the sunny pleasant early morning conditions prevailing in the neighbourhood.

Here is a picture of the metro station, with a few others much like us, also caught unawares: 

Here is a large beautiful garden nearby, its rich greenery capturing our attention and making the two-hour wait worthwhile, partly at least: 

The weather was bright and clear enough for me to capture the following superb picture of the nearby traffic against the distant, though hazy, background of the Dubai skyline, including the iconic Burj Khalifa: 

Miracle Garden

I had heard so much about the Dubai Miracle Garden, that we decided to give it a try again and proceeded there right away.

It occupies over 72,000 square metres of area, making it the world's largest natural flower garden, featuring over 50 million flowers and 250 million plants. The flowers are maintained by re-use of treated wastewater through a drip irrigation method. The Dubai municipality retreats the grey water of the city and sends it directly to the garden. The garden again re-filters the water and converts it to high-quality water for its usage within, after it closes at night.

Here is a picture at the entrance to the garden, with me in the foreground, not spoiling the beauty too much! 

There were flower beds, flowers and ponds of all sorts, arranged in an incredible variety of ways everywhere in the garden, a feast for the eyes! I had never seen so many flowers in such a riot of colors anywhere before, in such different arrangements, not even in the annual event at Lal Bagh in Bangalore.

Here are just three of the dozens of pictures I captured at the garden:

The rest of our time in Dubai was spent in exploring what can be justifiably termed ‘old Dubai’, in sharp and comforting contrast to the ultra-modern one we had been visiting till then.

Wahidi Fort & Museum

Dubai Museum is the main museum in Dubai, located in the Al Fahidi Fort, built in 1787 and is the oldest existing building in Dubai. The museum was opened by the Ruler of Dubai in 1971, with the aim of presenting the traditional way of life in the Emirate of Dubai.

From the fort, there is a path to the galleries, which display the general culture of the land, especially in the 1800s. It includes local antiques as well as artifacts from African and Asian countries that traded with Dubai. It also includes several dioramas showing life in the emirate before the advent of oil.

Here is a primitive sail boat, the lifeline of ancient Dubai, displayed at the entrance to the museum:

On display here is a cut-out piece of the fort wall that protected old Dubai, not too dissimilar to present-day concrete walls: 

In the picture below, CS is all set to enter the fort museum, armed but not dangerous! 

Below is one of numerous spectacular dioramas in the museum, depicting one of the major occupations of the past, all in the language of the present!

Al Bastakiya

What is now left of the old Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood, Al Bastakiya was primarily built by the affluent Persian merchants drawn to Dubai by the rich trade opportunities and incentives offered by the Emirati government. Calm, quiet, serene and peaceful, this was a sight to behold! For me, this was the best of old Dubai, and the best place in Dubai as well.

Here is a piece of Al Bastakiya, of old Dubai, as unbelievable and precious as any we saw:

Al Bastakiya is also a place for anyone who loves and relishes solitude, far from the madding crowd… far from the concrete-and-glass jungle that Dubai mostly is.  CS, lost in thought as he gingerly surveys the place, couldn’t have asked for more! 

Here is a part of Al Bastakiya, appropriately in the neighbourhood of “Architectural Heritage Society”, showcasing the architecture of the place. 

Somewhat tired from our exertions on another hot day, we were lucky to find a beautiful and totally deserted part of Al Bastakiya, close to Dubai Creek, where we found the ideal place to sit, relax, reflect and converse for a long time, perhaps the most memorable activity of our visit to UAE. Sadly, I don’t have a picture of the place. It was as ironic as it was unexpected that such a place could be found in busy Dubai… and I missed capturing it with my camera!

Dubai Creek

Dubai Creek is a natural saltwater creek, tidal inlet, and waterway in Dubai.  It extends about 14 km inwards and forms a natural port that has traditionally been used for trade and transport. In the 1950s, extensive development of the creek began, including dredging and construction of breakwaters. A number of bridges allow movement of vehicles across the creek while abras (water taxis) are used to ferry people and goods. The banks and route alongside the creek house notable government, business and residential areas. A number of hotels are also situated along the creek.

The picture below shows the creek with two abras (water taxis) in readiness to cross over to the other side (Deira).  We spent some more time at the water front and eventually got into one of the waiting abras, which charged just one dirham per person for each trip.

On the way to the Deira side of the creek, we noticed a number of beautiful buildings, both old style and new, one of which is featured below: 

The creek also supported fairly large sized vessels like the one seen below: 

At the Deira side of the creek, we had a hard time looking for and finding a normal road taxi to take us to hotel. 

The Return

After breakfast the next morning, we checked out of our hotel and proceeded to the Dubai International Airport Terminal 1 for an uneventful return flight to Bangalore.  The airport terminal was much like a part of the Dubai Mall as the two pictures below indicate:

In conclusion, our enduring memory of Dubai is not so much the tallest building in the world or other symbols of a booming modern civilization, as the long quiet period we spent together, talking, relaxing, reflecting, ruminating and meditating at an idyllic corner of Al Bastakiya, the precursor to that civilization.