The Towers and the Tourist

The doorway leading out of Dubai International Airport presents a post-apocalyptic world of extraterretrial 50 story buildings jutting out of dry and dusty earth.

The metro is like a $million glass bullet that guides passengers seamlessly from North to South; however, straying from this route by public transport is near impossible. Despite the well-known multiculturalism, I could feel many eyes on me - wandering and resting eyes.  The fashion is clean and neat, chanelling millennium meets upmarket Ibiza.

Too awake to sleep but needing to relax, and feel less of a moth in a butterfly sanctuary, I visited the nail bar at the bottom of Nibby's apartment. I had the day to myself until he finished work. As I was waiting, a person on a Segway whizzed part.

Dubai was't what I expected. I imagined glass materialism uniting with showy architecture and desert heat. I was surprised by how big and sprawling it is. I had no idea so many 100s of 1000s of humans could live on the 36+ floor. To get from place to place you can cover quite vast distances. It isn't like London where everything gravitates to the city centre like the centre of an atom.

Before meeting Nibby that evening, a friend from SOAS, I visited the famous Dubai Mall. In most ways just a regular but very large Blue Water, it sported the addition of a sky high waterfall and worthwhile touristic water light display over the flashy lake. Distinctive Emiratis in white traditional Bedouin robes were strolling into Cartier amongst ice-cream eating kids and trainer wearing teens.

I met Nibby and his friends in the Palm Beach Hotel before heading out to another complex to a bar. The Dubai night scene is generally a meat market of boob jobs and Gucci handbags, with posing and peacocking... night clubs and bars are only allowed in hotels which allows for little variation. Expatriate women teeter around in heels and little else within the complexes, but it's advised to cover up outside, and similarly drinking in these venues is fine, but you can get arrested outside for being drunk. The country carries these antithetical realities of East and West, debauchery and decency, liberalism and conservative Islam. Amongst the varied demographic, as described by a local, is a fairly defined hierarchy of race with local Emirates (15%) at the top, followed by other Arabs from Iran, Iraq and recently Syrians who have fled the trouble, with Westerners close behind, then Egyptians and then other expatriates from Asia and so on.

The next day we again met at the Palm Beach by the pool and began the unwind into the calming setting of privilege and sunbathers with green Arabic coffee and locally grown dates. Nibby's other friends arrived and they got lost at the pool bar for a while. Sadik doesn't drink, so we lounged on the beach, with hot sand underfoot and the backdrop of the world's most exclusive hotel.

At about 3pm we headed to Deira, the old part of the city, with one purpose: to visit the fish market and purchase dinner.  As we weaved in and out of the busy tables of fresh crabs, wiggling lobsters, carved king clip and piles of prawns, I was grateful to not be there as a lone tourist. You take your bag of fish to be cleaned in another section, before moving on to another joint where it is spiced and grilled. We then took our trappings to a further venue to be eaten. The grimy popular eatery spotted with plastic tables, together with our delicious locally caught fresh food, brought humble relief from the ostentation beyond.

                                     

"Let's go to the market", Sadik announced.
"What's at the market?"
"I need to get my mum some oppressive clothing".

Never having shopped for abayas, hijabs or niquabs before personally, this promised a new experience. Amongst the stalls we were met with spice shops and sacks overflowing with frankincense, sumac, zaatar, cinnamon, cloves, and other aromatic spices, and shelves lined with everything from henna shampoo to tiny boxes of saffron. Inside the small tailors, routing through variant designs of black abayas (long black robes without the hijab neck scarf or niqab which covers all but the eyes), I asked Saddik, "why doesn't your mum get these in the UK" where they live? "You can't easily get them there", he explained, and "my mum has classy taste. Her friends always comment on her excellent abayas chosen by her son in Dubai". The abaya is traditionally completely black but today, you might see some with colorful embroideries around the collar, buttons or on the sleeves. Furthermore, these days, the younger generations of Emiratis like to wear fitted abayas when these were originally designed to hide or prevent from revealing physical shape.

I had an early night, having to get up for my flight the next day. Again met by the experience of antithesis, the dual sensation of being quite ready to leave and wanting to stay and have more fun, I departed for New Zealand.

Thanks Nibby and Sadik - I am grateful to you for showing me the city as you experience it - and for your humour along the way.