Travel report: United Arab Emirates

Country ranking by area: #115
Country ranking by population: #94

Date of Visit: April 2017

While the United Arab Emirates have become one of the trendiest destinations in recent years, especially Dubai, it took me a while until I travelled to this country. Why? Because the country has never appealed to me to be honest. However, Dubai is one of the major transport hubs in the world, which connects many European and Asian cities. That’s why it was inevitable to set foot into the country rather sooner than later.

Easter in Dubai

When I was planning my trip to Iran and Iraq, I chose Dubai as a base for both countries. I wanted to avoid the terrible flight schedule you have when you book a flight from Switzerland to Iran via Istanbul, as you arrive in the middle of the night in Tehran. Second, I was thinking that combining the United Arab Emirates with Iran and Iraq is actually not the worst idea. Not only because the flight schedule was much better, but also because this combination would provide a good mixture of the highly modern and the ancient world.

I planned to spend four nights in Dubai in the beginning of the trip and one more night in between, as travelling from Iran to Iraq was much more convenient by going back to Dubai and then to Iraq instead of travelling directly between the two countries. In the end, I’ve spent seven nights in total in the United Arab Emirates due to an itinerary change in Iran, which made me come back sooner than planned.

One of the reasons why so many European people travel to Dubai is that it’s only a six hours flight and it’s hot all year-round. I arrived in the evening of Good Friday. It was in the middle of April, actually the last month of the year, in which the weather in Dubai is more or less bearable. Travelling to the United Arab Emirates in European summer is nonsense because of the heat.

A Pakistani Uber driver took me from the amazing International Airport to the Radisson Blu Hotel in Media City. Finding a hotel that has less than 4 stars is not easy in Dubai, but when I’m in a luxurious city such as Dubai I always opt for a 5 star hotel. It was already after midnight and I went to bed after having a drink in the hotel bar.

First impressions of Dubai

I had three full days in the United Arab Emirates. However, one day was already reserved for a day trip to Oman, so only two full days remained. I didn’t have a plan though and ordered an Uber. Again, a driver from Pakistan was taking me from my hotel, which was near the artificial Palm Island, to downtown Dubai. You can find Dubai Mall and Burj Khalifa in downtown.

I went to Dubai Mall, one of the largest if not THE largest mall in the world. I usually hate shopping when I’m abroad, as I don’t want to waste time in shopping malls. However, Dubai Mall is an attraction itself, it’s like e small city with hundreds of shops selling each and every international luxury brand. I bought a few things that I don’t need and suddenly realised that I already spent more than four hours in the mall.

You are standing almost immediately in front of Burj Khalifa when you leave Dubai Mall. Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world standing 828 metres tall. I initially wanted to go up, but you have to buy the ticket in advance and the ticket is reserved for a certain time slot. Moreover, the price is almost 100 Dollars. At least, that was the information my hotel gave me. I gave it a pass. You also have one of the largest water shows outside of Dubai Mall in the evenings. Dubai is a city of the superlatives in terms of “largest whatever in the world” etc. Everything is over the top. Impressive yes, but sometimes not necessary.

There were three things I didn’t like in Dubai right from the beginning. First, the city is somehow dusty. Some buildings are not visible, although they are not far away. First I thought it was smog, but it wasn’t. I was told that it was because of the sand particles in the air. I have never heard about that, but other people confirmed it soon.

Second, distances are huge in the city. Dubai is like a very long but narrow strip, and I believe it would take more than an hour by car from one end to the other. I remember a situation when I asked the concierge of my hotel if he could recommend a Lebanese restaurant. “Sure, there is a good one not far from here.” When I entered the Uber and checked out the location of the restaurant, I found out that the ride would be longer than 15 minutes. For the people, who live in Dubai, distances like that are called nearby. For a Swiss citizen, it’s like going to another town.

The third thing I didn’t like was that Dubai is not a pedestrian-friendly city. Obviously, you are lost without a car when distances are that big. But anyway, I like to stroll a bit and explore a city by walking. The problem is that even short distances are not possible to walk sometimes, as the only way to reach the destination is the highway. The Emirati might have thought: who wants to walk anyway when temperatures are above 40 degrees most of the year. Still, it annoyed me.

Nightlife, Burj al Arab and the beach

I was a bit lost on the second day and didn’t exactly knew what to do. The night before, I went out a bit just by myself. I didn’t go to nightclubs but to a few bars. The highlight was without a doubt Asia Asia Lounge at Pier 7. The view over the harbour is just amazing and I regret that I took the pictures with 9 Megapixel only instead of 12.

What a noticed was the crazy amount of prostitutes. They are sitting at the bar of almost all renowned hotel bars. They don’t bother you, but it irritated me a bit, as I was in the United Arab Emirates, a Muslim country with strict law. I later found out that Dubai is the city with the most prostitutes in Asia after Bangkok, which was quite shocking to me. Apparently, the authorities turn a blind eye on that in order to keep the tourists happy. Money talks.

Without having a plan I strolled through Dubai Marina, actually the place I liked the most in the city (probably because it’s a pedestrian area). You can also go to the beach from there, which I did. However, I wasn’t impressed with what I saw. Perhaps, it was just the wrong beach, but it was overcrowded and looked a bit dirty. I didn’t want to stay.

I headed towards Burj al Arab and went to Souk Madinat Jumeirah, which someone recommended to me. This was one of the best places I visited in Dubai. You can take some epic pictures there, and the food in one of the restaurants I had was amazing.

My sightseeing was already finished. Two days weren’t enough for a big city like Dubai. However, I also needed a plan for the night…

Dubai: a huge amusement park

Although I had some negative things to say about Dubai, I certainly won’t say that Dubai is boring. Actually, it is like a huge amusement park. You can do plenty of things, some of them are really cool, some of them are very stupid. One of the stupid activities is Ski Dubai for example, an indoor ski resort in the Mall of Emirates (another gigantic mall in Dubai). I really don’t see the point in building such a thing in the desert. However, I have also read about the idea of bringing a huge iceberg from Antarctica to Dubai. Even polar bears should live on that iceberg, which would be located in front of the coast. Decadence doesn’t know limits.

I opted for the things that sounded more fun and joined the super touristy Dubai Desert Safari in the evening. I haven’t been in the desert before, which made it kind of a special trip to me. The tour starts in 4WDs. In the beginning, you drive over the sand dunes of Dubai desert, which is like a bad roller coaster ride but lasts much longer. We were about 10 people in the car: the driver, me and 8 middle-aged Indian women hysterically screaming every time the car drove fast over a dune. I almost had to vomit. Not because of the hysterical ladies obviously, but my stomach didn’t like the ride.

It was worth it though. The feeling, when you’re in the desert, is hard to describe. You just see this massive and never ending amount of sand, while you’re standing in the middle of nowhere. It was already in the evening and not that hot anymore, a little breeze made it even more pleasant. The tour ended with a fire show, while 100-200 tourists were sitting around a stage and having dinner. Again, the whole tour was super touristy but fun.

Another tour I booked was a day trip to Oman on my third day in Dubai. It was my last day in Dubai and I thought I wouldn’t be back soon, at least not for just a night at the airport hotel, which was the original plan. The travel god had other plans for me though.

Return to the United Arab Emirates

A sudden change of my itinerary in Iran got me back to Dubai sooner than planned. I had three more nights and two full days in the United Arab Emirates. I spent almost the entire first day in the hotel, as I was exhausted from the previous day. On the second day, I wanted to see more of the UAE. The United Arab Emirates are not just Dubai but seven Emirates in total. Abu Dhabi is the second most visited city and also the capital of the country. So, I booked a day trip to the second Emirate.

The most important sight in Abu Dhabi is Sheikh Zayed Mosque, one of the most glamorous religious buildings in the world. The good thing is that the place looks more or less empty on pictures, as you cannot walk through the middle of the mosque. It was a really impressive sight and in my opinion the best attraction the United Arab Emirates have to offer. The only bad thing is that you have to dress very modestly. That can be a bit challenging when temperatures are almost 40 degrees.

Most of the day trips – everywhere in the world – are incomplete without the annoying stops in shops, where they try to force the tourists to buy useless stuff. The stop we visited on that tour was super annoying. It was an art shop and the vendor showed us different pieces of Arabian art. “Who wants to buy it?” the vendor asked. Complete silence in the room. “Sir, do you want to buy it?” – “No.” – “What about you, sir?” – “No, thank you.” . “And you?” – “No, thanks.” and so on. The guy asked almost everyone directly in a passive-aggressive way without having success though.

The last stop of the tour was the coolest. We went to a store who sold dates. Not just dates but more than 70 varieties of dates. The cheapest dates cost 3 Dollars per kilo, the most expensive ones 76 Dollars per kilo. We could try some of the varieties (even the most expensive ones) and they tasted indeed very differently. Honestly, I didn’t even know that there was more than one variety of dates. It was one of the rare sale stops, where I actually bought something.

Last day in Dubai

I left the United Arab Emirates after to Abu Dhabi-trip to Iraq, but I came back after two days for one last afternoon. My flight back to Europe was around midnight and I headed back to Dubai Mall to kill time. A was sitting in an Uber – and guess what – the driver was from Pakistan.

Uber driver: “Are you happy with your life?”
Me: “I am. What about you?”
Uber driver: “No.”
Me: “Why?”
Uber driver: “I hate it here in Dubai!”

Only 17% of the people living in the United Arab Emirates are real Emirati Arabs. The other 83% are immigrants and expats. While some of the foreigners are US-American, German or English good earning managers in large companies, a fair amount of the immigrants do the low paid work such as driving taxi or serving food in restaurants. This mix of different cultures and a lot of tourists make the country less Arabic than other countries in the Middle East. If someone would kidnap and drop you in Dubai Mall, I bet you couldn’t say in which country you are (unless you’ve been there), because the people you see there won’t give you a hint.

As most of Dubai was built in the last two decades, the city looks like an artificial one such as Singapore. And although Dubai has some good things to offer, it lacks character and soul. That doesn’t mean that Dubai is a bad city, but it does mean that Dubai could be a city anywhere in the world. Abu Dhabi is not as bad and the other Emirates such as Sharjah are even slightly better than Abu Dhabi.

The funny thing is that I have seen 4 out of my 750 Facebook friends tagging themselves in Dubai while I was there. I didn’t have business with three of them, but my friend Noah was also there. I texted him and met him and his family for dinner in Dubai Mall. It was the last thing I did before I went back to the airport. In the end, I spent seven nights in the United Arab Emirates, which was way more than I’ve planned. But I won’t complain, I had a good time there.

Are the United Arab Emirates a must see country?

The United Arab Emirates exist since 1971 and it’s a federate of seven Emirates. It’s oil reserves are the 7th largest in the world, which makes the UAE one of the richest countries in the world. Nowadays, tourism plays an important role of the countries economy. As the oil reserves decrease and will be gone someday, it is going to be interesting to see what kind of a country the Emirates will be in the future. It’s not that the UAE don’t have problems right now. For example, producing a litre of water is more expensive than producing a litre of oil.

If I had to rank the United Arab Emirates among all the other countries I’ve visited, it would be somewhere in the midfield (maybe even in the lower-midfield). My time in the Emirates was actually not bad, but the UAE aren’t a must see-country in my opinion. Dubai is a gigantic and characterless amusement park that can be fun for a few days. That make Dubai and also the other Emirates rather a holiday than a travel destination.

However, I’m sure that I will be back someday. One reason is that Dubai is the city with numerous flights to African countries, which you cannot reach from Europe (at least not via direct flight). Another reason is that I enjoyed my stay in Dubai, although I criticised many thing about the city. I didn’t go out properly and I want to experience Dubai’s glamorous nightlife someday. Moreover, I might make it up that I missed going up to Burj Khalifa.

 

Find the travel reports of the other countries I’ve visited here!