Dubai. United Arab Emirates

We were able to catch a bus to Dubai from Muscat. It was quite comfortable and had two drivers as they do a circuit from Muscat to Dubai and then down to Salalah and back to Muscat again.


At last there were a few more women travelling with us but the majority of the passengers were Indians, with a few Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, and a couple from Iraq and a mother and her daughter from the Sudan.





The bus station was a short sweaty walk, in the 44 degree Celcius temperature, to our hotel. We had got Kerri to book our hotel so it was a much better price than we could get researching online even though we hear that hotel occupancy rates are down 16% here.





Well, what a contrast to the rest of the Middle East we have visited! There are few veiled women and lots of Philippinos. Shops advertise Philippino food and posters advertise accommodation and work for Philippinos. Many of the stores advertise in Russian for the package touriss that arrive here. This would not be a good place to learn Arabic as so many people speak English. It is so common to see people with two cellphones out yabbering in English or a mix of English and their mother tongue. There are 4.3 million people in in UAE and only 20% are nationals.



In this city you can snow ski indoors, visit (you have to book) Dubai's iconic 'seven star' hotel built like a sail from a traditional boat (dhow), do a mosque tour and learn all about the prayer rituals, kite surf, watch camel racing, and visit a Bedouin desert camp.





We headed for the tourist information office but arrived to find that it had been demolished to make way for a new metro station that is under construction at present. Lots of footpaths have been ripped up and this may also be related to the metro system. The urban bus stations have nice air conditioned waiting rooms but no information on what buses of all the buses they show on their maps actually stop at the stop.





This is all reminds us of Bangkok, without the horn tooting and tuk tuks, in many ways. It is a shoppers' paradise but even the Pierre Cardin stores are advertising 75% off.

We did a red bus tour which took us 7 hours in total. The commentary on the goings on here and the development projects reminded us of the developments on the Gold Coast when we lived there. There are dozens of shopping malls and entertainment centres like Disneyland and here they boast they will have some even larger than any thing in the US. At the same time there is still lots of construction. We could see the piles of sand 4 kilometres out in the Arabian Sea for The World development but it can only be accessed by boat or helicopter and then the islands are privately owned.

We have been able to get around on the free shopping buses. We are going to do a dhow cruise on the Dubai Creek before we pack up our gear and catch a flight to Melbourne. We will be there for 2 weeks and then head back to NZ.
Will put photos on here in Melbourne.