Traveling in Dubai UAE, part 5

As Westerners who traveled in Dubai in May of 2005, my husband and I found out a few details of travel there which I'll share here in part 5:

It's hot! True, it's dry heat, but it blows over you like air from a furnace. You will enjoy the cool malls, buses, and restaurants. Take your swimsuit for the hotel pool. Swimming in the gulf is allowed, but restricted. Tourists can use only small parts of the public beaches. If you really want to swim in the gulf, stay in a hotel on the gulf that will have a private beach access. Otherwise, use the pool. Most hotel pools have a bar. It's a good way to spend a hot afternoon. It's just as hot at midnight though.

How you dress is really up to you. I chose to wear pants and shirts, not shorts or sleeveless or halters or very fitted tops. I saw a few foreign women dressed in fitted tops, but none of the local women dress in that way. Take a cover-up to wear over your swimsuit when walking through the hotel to the pool. If you leave Dubai for another emirate, you may find much stricter clothing requirements.

A typical souvenir is the shisha. These water pipes or hookahs (or bongs) are used to smoke fragrant steam. There are shisha bars everywhere. People lie about on sofas with the shisha on a low table between them. Each person has his/her own mouthpiece, but they share the shisha-produced steam. It's a social occasion

Textiles in Dubai were marvelous. The street markets were arrayed with lovely textiles hanging overhead across the alleyways. These colorful markets are a bargain.

If you can afford it, the best souvenir is a rug or carpet. They are amazingly beautiful. If you think you may fall in love with the carpets while you're in Dubai, take the measurements for the area from home with you. The rug merchants will ship to you anywhere in the world. We found carpet stores in every mall. Perhaps there were carpets in the street markets, but we didn't notice them there.

Other souvenirs include coffee urns, dates, nuts, models of Bur el Arab.

This post is linked to this previous post on Dubai.

Traveling in Dubai UAE, part 4

As Westerners who traveled in Dubai in May of 2005, my husband and I found out a few details of travel there that I'll share here in part 4:

Take a tour on a bus. It's informative, air-conditioned, and reasonably-priced. It's the best way to see the city. The tours start at Wafi City early in the morning and run all day. We took two tours. One went out-of-town to the area which is in development because we wanted to see Bur al-Arab. We did stop in front of the hotel long enough to take a photo. The tours of the hotel were $65 per person to enter the lobby when we were there. We passed, but it probably would have been a very interesting experience. That tour also took us past the indoor ski area and the underwater hotel, both of which are finished now, I believe. We got off that tour bus at the Mercato shopping mall at Jumeirah Beach area where we ate lunch and took a taxi back to our hotel from there.

The other tour we took was in town. It stopped at the museum and also at the gold and spice souks, all of which are must-see experiences. Do not leave Dubai without visiting those three locations. The bus tour for this is hop-on, hop-off so you can spend as much time as you like. About the gold: it is all 18c or purer. It appears orangey because of the high gold content. Take your camera with you and take lots of photos. The gold is near market-value/ounce which means the craftsmanship is free. From the gold souk we walked through a series of alleys to the spice souk. In the gold souk there is no hard sell. You may browse as long as you want without anyone saying anything to do. However, in the spice souk, it's a different story. Everyone will try to sell you something and the spices, dates and nuts are all so beautiful! If you don't want to buy anything, tell them you are going back to Australia. They know the importation laws of every country and understand that it's very difficult to enter Australia with their goods. We bought pastacios and dates, also saffron.

In the alleys between those two souks are the vendors. Here are the real bargains in Dubai. The street market is the place to look for souvenirs and bargain to your heart's content. The vendors will practically give their wares away to you. The men in the market love to bargain with the women. A handy hint is to have a little cheat sheet with currency conversions on it. With this we could quickly convert the Dubai dirham to US currency. Once a vendor sees this little tool, he'll start converting for you. They are very wily with currency exchange. No one will try to cheat you. In fact, they'll help you figure it all out.

None of the people working anywhere are Emiratees. Some are from the Middle East, most are Asian.

This post links to this previous post.

Traveling in Dubai UAE, part 3

As Westerners who traveled in Dubai in May of 2005, my husband and I found out a few details of travel there that I'll share here in part 3:

Dining in Dubai:

Lunch away from the hotel will probably be at a mall or from a street vendor. There are a few other options: Walk inside a tall office building or apartment building and look around the lobby. Often there will be a little restaurant tucked away. These are very good value for money as they're where the locals eat. In an office building lobby, we found a small Asian restaurant where we ordered "hot rocks chicken" on a chance. We liked the service, the cleanliness, the food, and the pricing so much that we came back twice to eat there. The last time we were there, they treated us like regulars!

In the malls there is the standard food court like you see all over the world. The malls are not non-smoking and the food courts can be very smoky as the young Emiratee men love to sit, talk, smoke, and text message in the food halls. There is always a table of men hanging out in every coffee area or food area. By the way, the coffee is delicious.

If you want to have a meal at an exclusive or expensive restaurant, book ahead. Or try to be there for late lunch instead of dinner. We ate a late lunch at Asha's (pictured) with no booking because we wanted to have the experience and it was completely booked every night we were there. I have read both good and poor reviews of Asha's online, but our experience there was wonderful. The sampler platter at Asha's was recommended by the server and it was extraordinary. There is a full bar and a wine list. Asha's is at The Pyramids in Wafi City which is the same mall where you catch the tour buses.

This post links to this previous post.

Traveling in Dubai UAE, part 2

As Westerners who traveled in Dubai in May of 2005, my husband and I found out a few details of travel there that I'll share here in part 2:

Lodging in Dubai:

If you are staying at the Burj al Arab in Dubai, then none of the following applies to you. However, if your pocketbook will stretch only to a more conventional stay, here's the best advice I have to offer:

Pick your hotel very carefully. Stay in the 5-star hotels only. To read the rating of a Dubai hotel, take off a star from the rating system you are accustomed to in the West. It doesn't really matter where the hotel is located in terms of whether it's in the city or near the airport or which side of the water. What does matter is the amenities at the hotel. You will spend a lot of time there. Choose your hotel for the room size, the restaurants available at the hotel, the club and bar facilities, and swimming pool and other outdoor facilities. Dubai has no "night-life" in the terms that Westerners are accustomed. There are clubs and bars where you can drink and dance and smooze; all of these are located in hotels. The hotels are spread out across the city so a bar crawl is not a real possibility. Therefore, if night-life is your bag, it's going to be happening most likely at the hotel where you are staying. Likewise, most of your breakfasts and dinner meals will be eaten at your hotel. Check-in at the hotel can be hectic with lots of waiting around for a room. Evidently, hotel service help is difficult to keep. The desk will apologize but it won't get any better during your stay than it was at the start.

There is a Western-style grocery store which is a godsend. After checking into your hotel, catch a cab for Carrefour supermarket. Get lots of bottled water and drinks, mixers and snacks, cheese, etc. for the little frig in the hotel room. Be sure to buy some plastic ware. There is a cab queue outside Carrefour so it's easy to get back to your hotel. There is another popular supermarket called Spinney's, but since we only went to Carrefour, I don't know what the Spinney's experience is like. There are more Spinneys around than Carrefours. We saw another Carrefour in a mall, but I don't remember which one. To get to any location in Dubai, jump in the car and give the name like "Carrefours" or "Spinney's" and the cabbie will drive you straight to the nearest one.

The hotels rock until after midnight so if your room is near the bars or clubs, expect to hear the racket or join in the fun!

This post links to this previous post.

Traveling in Dubai UAE, part 1

As Westerners who traveled in Dubai in May of 2005, my husband and I found out a few details of travel there that I'll share here in part 1:

Dubai International Airport

Before you leave the airport, be sure to stop by Duty Free for your alcohol. It's very reasonably priced and the selection is excellent.

When you walk into the arrivals' hall, you will be shocked. It's bigger than a football field, and it is filled to capacity with people in queues waiting to be processed. Aussie went looking for a shorter line and thankfully found that business class passengers had a special line which was very short and very efficient. Look for that line. Even if you are not a business class passenger, if you line up near that line, you could get called over to it after the business class passengers are cleared.

In October 2005 we went through Dubai Airport a second time. This time we were connecting from London to Cairo through Dubai. We had about 12 hours in Dubai to wait for our connecting flight. We checked in at the airport in-transit hotel which is in the international terminal, had a shower, and a good sleep. We got a wake up call for 2 hours before the flight, ate a good meal at the restaurant, stopped by Duty Free for alcohol, and then went to our gate. If you have a long stopover in Dubai, I highly recommend this. You must take your change of clothes in your carry-on bag because you do not have access to your luggage while in transit.

This post links to this previous post.

Traveling in Dubai UAE

In May 2005, Aussie and I toured Dubai UAE. We had a wonderful experience and learned much about the city, the people, and being a tourist in the Emirates. My intention was to post a mini travel guide for Dubai, but as I was writing it, I realized that it was too long to post as one article. So I'm going to split it among several posts all entitled Traveling in Dubai UAE with part 1 etc affixed to the title. The information comes only from our personal experience, not a guide book or internet listing. There is a lot of advice on-line; I'm adding to that which is already available. Look for part 1 which will be about the airport soon. I also plan to post about our experiences in Cairo and in the English countryside in other sets of posts later in the spring.

New Grand Canyon Attraction

Skywalk, a horseshoe-shaped walkway and glass-bottom observation deck that will jut from the canyon's lip 4,000 feet above the Colorado River, is a project of a struggling Indian tribe. The Hualapai hope to lure Grand Canyon National Park visitors to this section of the park where the tribe resides. The $30 million Skywalk is set to open in March 2007.

My fear of being at the edge of a high place precludes me from enjoying this Wylie Coyote view of the Grand Canyon. Would you do it?

Touring Egypt's Great Sphinx: Be Warned!

The ancient builders of the Great Sphinx trenched out a deep, U-shaped ditch that isolated a huge rectangular bedrock block for carving the Sphinx. This enclosure is deepest immediately around the body, with shelf at the rear of the monument where it was left unfinished and a shallower extension to the north where important archaeological finds have been made.

When Aussie and I were visiting the Great Sphinx last November, we exited the temple ruin (at the red arrow) into the area where many people were crowded in having their photos taken with the sphinx as a background (at the green arrow). With Aussie aiming the camera at me, I backed up, never seeing the sheer drop of 50 feet behind me. I was standing on the very edge of the drop-off; one tiny step back and I would have fallen into that pit! Coming out of the shade into the sun and the optical effect of the sphinx being on the same level as the top of the embankment completely fooled my eye. I didn't see my mistake until I took the camera and Aussie turned to look over his shoulder to make sure he wasn't backing over the edge!

Facelift for Egypt's Sphinx

The Great Sphinx of Giza, one of the most famous monuments of pharaonic Egypt, is to get a facelift, the Egyptian Ministry of Culture says. Restoration work is to focus on the half-man half-lion statue's neck and chest, rendered fragile by the erosion of desert winds. The 73-metre long and 20-metre high Sphinx, believed to have been built 5,000 years ago, is situated close to the Great Pyramids of Giza just outside Cairo. The Sphinx will remain accessible to the public during the restoration work.

Almond Hill in the Barossa, SA

We recently went with kin to the Day on the Green at Peter Lehman winery in the Barossa. We had a terrific time, lots of Aussie wine and music and memories. Then we sneaked off for a day and night on our own in the wine country. We stayed at the coolest B&B in Angaston called Almond Hill. Everything about it was topnotch from the accommodation itself to the friendly hosts to the spectacular outlook. We didn't take advantage of 10% of what was offered, but we still had a special time there. We were even treated to an amazing thunderstorm in the middle of the night, no extra charge. If you find yourself looking for a romantic hideaway or for some quiet time, Almond Hill is a great spot. For the website, click here.