Sept 5th: AFter customs and baggage I opted to take a taxi rather than wait for the metro to open in 2 hours. I had arranged a couch on couchsurfing but it was last minute so I didn't have a chance to plan it out well and ended up being like 20 miles from Dubai. I arrived at 5am and the taxi driver (after a $30 ride) even had trouble finding it. The directions said it was behind this resturant but didn't really say more than that. All that was behind the resturant was a little concrete building thing that looked like a bomb shelter, but smelled worse. Well, this was my host. He didn't answer the unmarked door so I walked around until I found a person nearby and showed him the name of the guy I was staying with. He walked me in and opened the door to his room. I kept trying to wake him up but he was too passed out. Instead, this British voice from the floor spoke. Turns out someone else was staying there as well. I made room for myself on the floor and slept for about 5 hours. We all sort of woke up at the same time and me and the British guy ended up going into town together on the bus (which took an hour or so). We wondered down through the Deira part of Dubai and along the creek into the markets and Gold Souk area. We found some 1 start hotels that were about $50/night so split 2 ways we decided we were better off there. We spent 1.5 hours going to get our bags and telling our mutual CS host that we wanted to be closer to the center of town when in reality it was only partly that (and part not wanting to live in "basic" living conditions with a squat toilet). So we made it back to the hotel, ate dinner....
Oh yeah ramadan. Non muslims are expected to respect the fasting of ramadan so are not allowed to eat/drink in public while the sun was up. Also, no alcohol anywhere, and no music anywhere. Supposedly no sex for the entire month, but I somehow doubt everyone adheres to that one. In Dubai in general (not just during ramadan) there are rules about keeping girls shoulders covered and couples not holding hands and what not. So it was sort of sterile I guess. Oh, and it was 110 degrees outside. We managed to buy some bottled water and kept looking for alleys to hide in and sneak a drink. We eventually found a stairway and as we were drinking an asian guy walked up the stairs....but I don't think he was muslim so we just all kind of looked at each other and he kept walking upstairs. You get a decent fine and potentially arrested if you don't obey all this. Everyone kept telling me I picked a bad time to come to Dubai...I just kept thinking that's just too bad because its how it fell. In the end though, I didn't mind the heat as I'm used to it; I didn't mind fasting because I'm used to not eating during the day anyways (when working at night); you can still eat just as much as normal but only during the night. I managed to come during the last week of Ramadan so it ends in this big sort of family holiday and celebration and I imagine turns into a big party as no one has gotten wasted or had sex all month...but I guess we'll have to wait a few days and see.
Sept 6th:
Me and Oliver (the British guy) met up with some local CS who worked at the Dubai Mall Aquarium. She took us to the Dubai museum and paid the entrance fee as well as for the cab ride to the Mall. This is the largest mall in the world mind you. It has a 3 story aquarium inside that has diving lessons, sharks, and even penguins that can only survive at like 2degrees celcius. We ate lunch in the food court, they have this area partitioned off for non muslims. Interestingly it was basically the white people's area if you will. Reverse segregation but without the negative association. Really weird. I felt more comfortable behind the walled off area than in the rest of Dubai. So after lunch Rose (a Philapino girl) got us into the Aquarium for free and gave us a tour and what not. The penguins were shipped in from a zoo in Scottland and flown on a passenger plane in a cooled compartment, then were deplaned prior to the passengers and taken by police escort in a freezer truck to the enclosure as they obviously wouldn't survive long in the heat of the desert.
Oliver had to go meet up with someone else but wouldn't really say who...after that he was headed to the airport for his 7am flight....it was 5pm. We never really figured out what he was doing, but thought it involved either a prostitute or another guy. I had even offered for him to stay in the hotel with me as he said he would be done hanging out with his "friend" at 11 or 12. He was a weird person, but again probably better to hang out with him than by myself I suppose.
After that, another CS friend of Rose's (named Emma) met up with me and drove me around the sites. We saw the Burj Kalifa (the largest building in the world) and the hotel that looks like a giant sail whatever it is called. We watched the sunset there and walked in the water for a bit. Got some great photos. We then went to the nearby "old style" mall (kind of touristy) which was very nice, but again pretty empty. They had a real bar there that was fully operational and allowed drinking in public, etc.
After that she took me to get my stuff from the other hotel and then transported me to my new hotel. I had sort of panicked when my CS place didn't work out and due to the season that it was, the hotels were super cheap. So, I ended up booking 3 nights at a 3 star hotel for a total of about $110 plus a little tax. King sized bed, cable, rooftop pool, gym, etc for $35/night beats a floor in a shack 20 miles away. Of course, I had 1 other CS person reply to me and offer me a place, but due to the lack of internet access I wasn't aware of it until after I had booked the hotel...sucks beause he was from the US. We did eventually talk on the phone and were going to try and meet up. I didn't get a chance to get online again until that night about midnight. Turns out my Aunt's former graduate student had invited me out to dinner, sheesha, etc at the Dubai mall! fuck all, I hate not communicating well as I would have had plans with 2 people and a free place to stay. Again, probably my fault for not getting in touch sooner, but that's how it goes.
After the internet cafe, I went back to the hotel and stopped by the bar (which was fully operational) at about 1am. This was unlike any other bar I had ever been to. It was in fact a brothel! About 10-20% guys (mostly white) and 90% prostitutes (mostly from Africa). They were very aggressive and would walk right up to you and grab your arm and press up against you and make small talk with the limited English that some of them knew. I talked to an older British guy who was drunk and had been living there for like 8 years. He gave me the breakdown on it and I was amazed. I had somehow managed to attract an Ethiopian to my side. She was actually decent looking compared to the rest of the crowd but still creeped me out. I have never been in a place where I actually tried to avoid eye contact. Once you make eye contact, they come and hassle you and try to get you to buy them a drink and what not. The most amazing thing according to the drunk Brit was that they would take you to their place for the entire night for $100. I had noticed a line of about 20 taxis in front of the hotel when I walked back from the internet cafe.
One good thing is that if you are staying in the hotel you are treated well so as soon as you walk out of the bar, they escort you to the elevator and keep the African prostitutes from following you. I did have 1 beer (an $8 beer mind you) and that tasted quite nice as I hadn't drank in over 2 weeks.
Sept 7th:
Slept until 2pm, went to use the internet, forgot my itouch there and realized it after I was like 6 metro stops away. Turned around, went back and fortunately they found it and kept it locked up for me instead of just stealing it. Good karma. I gave them $5 as a "reward" and they at first declined it but I insisted. So I finally made it back on the metro and went to Mall of the Emeriates which was basically as big as the Dubai Mall and only like 10 minutes further on the metro. This one had an indoor ski slope/winter park thing. The other had a skating rink and Sega Republic which was like a Dave and Busters only bigger. I can't explain the size of these malls. I can't help but think that the people here have nothing better to do with their money. Its like if you took all the wealth in America but only had to support a country the size of Florida. People who work here don't have to pay taxes. Citizens get $1500/month from the government for doing nothing. I thought about looking into a job as a vet here, but realized that I have yet to see any animals or pets. I suppose they exist, just in a more private arena. What's crazy is that oil was only discovered here in the 60s and like 10 years ago the sea of giant buildings didn't even exist. Their economy used to be based on pearl diving and the shipping port. It's like they took super poor people and gave them all an infinite amount of money and just said "do whatever you want" and thus indoor skiing in the desert. I guess its like a giant California where everything is inflated. Of course being the middle east they are strict with crime so the place is very clean and there is no crime. The police/soldiers aren't as prevelant as in Egypt, but they are nice. Also, everyone speaks English. It's such an international place that I have a hard time figuring out who is arab, muslim, asian, pakistan, indian, etc. The only thing I notice is that the only caucasians are tourists and they look the part (the people wearing shorts). There are plenty of american chains here including Krispy Kreme which was quite good as an after dinner snack and coffee. I came back from the mall and of course went to the internet cafe for a couple of hours. I found a really cheap one that is only like $1/hr and they give me free pepsi as well.
I skipped the hotel club tonight for obvious reasons. I figured I would wait until Thursday night to drink as Ramadan would then be over.
Sept 9th. Slept in until noon, then met up with a CS from India for lunch. He was non muslim, so he knew where all the hidden restuarants were that served food. Ramadon was officially over when the sund goes down tonight. Eid (the holiday) starts Friday morning and goes through Sunday or something. We had some pizza and pepsi and he paid. CS are always good about paying for things as they are treating you as guests. We made plans to go out later that night and he was going to call a few other people to see if we could get a group together. I went back to the hotel, hit the rooftop pool, then the gym, then went back to my room and watched Robocop 2 which is as bad as any sequel can get. Internet cafe for a while, then met up with Vivarh and went to the Irish Willage (I'm using W instead of V due to the whole Indian pronunciation thing which I find ammusing). So 7 indians and myself drinkign pints of guiness. I got a full array of recommendations for my india trip. The funnest (drunkest that is) guy used to be a partier in the south and did as well as sold a lot of drugs at one point. He was a trip to listen to. He basically bashed Indians in terms of them trying to steal your stuff and your seats on trains, etc but kept professing his love for his country. Anyways, I got a few routes and recommendations but really everyone had a different opinion and I was left with basically being told to see the entire country in 3 weeks. Got a ride back to the hotel and called it a night.
Sept 10th. I had gotten in touch with Olivia, an Australian girl that I knew from London 9 years ago. She was living in Abu Dhabi. We weren't the best of friends, only hung out 3-4 times through other people (paul in London) but none the less, it was a contact in an unfamilair place. I had been emailing her all summer and talked to her on the phone during the week. We agreed to hang out Friday night in Abu Dhabi...being the end of Ramadan it figured to be an active night of drinking.
Back up a moment...I had to get to Abu Dhabi first. I woke up in time for breakfast, showered, packed, then headed to the bus station to catch the Emirates Express which is about $6 to make the 2 hour trip. ONly problem was it was a holiday and loads of people were going to visit others all over the country. The ticket line was fucking unreal. There was no actual line, just a gathering of Indians and Pakistanis in front of the ticket window. Of course I had my bags with me so it wasn't condusive to pushing to the front. Literally there was a couple at the window and this guys ducks under everyone else and crawls/pushes in front of at least 20 people and pops up right between them and sort of pushes them both out of the way. No one really stops anybody...it just makes them want to do it more. Then a security guard comes and makes people line up, but only like half the people do (me one of them). Then people walk up to the front of the line and jsut push in. I eventually gave up and it was a good thing because I was in the wrong line. One thing for sure, this would not happen in America...you cut in line, you get the shit beat out of you or at least alert security. I would have loved to just pull or push one of the little fuckers that slipped passed me in the line and then ignored me when I tried to speak to him, but I seriously felt that it wasn't worth it. So, I made my way over to the proper line which actually had a cattle chute type barrier line that you couldn't cut in front of...yet somehow people managed to try. After getting the ticket, then you had to battle in teh same fashion to get on the bus. I was approached by a taxi driver who was trying to get 4 people to split a cab and I went for that...$17 instead of $6 which for me was worth it. Got to the car and sure enough, it wasn't a taxi but a car...so basically someone spending his holiday making a little extra money. Road with a pakistani family in the back seat (husband, wife, 4yo kid in the lap) and 1 other guy in the front. Oh, and the a/c didn't work and it was 107 degrees at 12pm. I was about to ask for him to drop me off but after getting on the highway and stopping to hose down the radiator and air intake it cooled of enough to be tolerable. I let the pakistanis yell at him as I knew it would be fruitless for me to do so. He said this was the first time the a/c didn't work, but he seemed to know several tricks to try and get it jumpstarted...most of which actually helped. So, we finally arrived but he rufused to drive me the last mile to the hotel I was going to...I had to get out and get a local taxi for $1.50. Whatever.
Back to Abu Dhabi. So Olivia had pre-emptively declined to host me as she had a friend visiting from Australia that week and had no extra room. She recommended I stay at the sheraton as it was onlyh $98/night and they were probably going to hang out at the pool there on Saturday anyways. I wasn't keen on that so I found a last minute CS host with a french couple. They had plans Friday night also, I so it worked out well to go out with Olivia and her husband and her friend. They only problem was that they had gone out late the night before and then went on a 5 hour boat cruise in the afternoon. The combination made everyone worn out. The friend was bascially drained and sitting on the couch in a daze. The husband was flat out drunk adn passed out after taking a shower. So, Me and Oliva ordered pizza and drank 2 vodka cranberries and just caught up as much as you can with a limited acquaintence. Went home at like 10pm. I was a little pissed because the whole reason I came over was to see her....1) I didn't have a place to stay with her, and 2) she didn't want to go out even that we had plans. So bascially I didn't really care to talk to her the rest of the weekend, but I made a phone call the next day just to say hi and that I had plans with the French. So much for that. Seriously, if someone was traveling and was halfway around the world from home and I knew them from previous in my life, I would make a hell of an effort to see that they had a good time and make sure I wasn't passed out when they arrived after traveling 2 hours to come see me. Fuck it.
So, I wondered around Abu Dhabi at 11pm looking for a bar. I found a Chili's and figured at least I could have a beer. Nope, no alcohol available at Chilis...just virgin daquaries and stuff. So I found a hotel bar and it was the usual prostitue scene, but not as overwhelming and they had a band so I had a beer there and chatted to a few African women as they weren't as aggressive as the ones in Dubai...just friendly, somewhat intelligent working girls. I left and wondered home.
Saturday 11th: Woke up and hung out with the French people all day. They took me sort of sight seeing, but everything was closed and empty and they wouldn't let us into the Emerirates Palace which is another 7 start hotel which costs like $1000/night. We argued with the guard that there were toursits inside as we could see them from the gate but he just said we couldn't come in until Monday after I was leaving. So we went to the port and fishmarkert. The largest shrimp I've ever seen were just too irresistable to not buy. so, we bought about 12 shrimp which was enough to feed 3 of us. We also bought a couple of Sole fish. We came home (after being drained by the heat of the day) and chilled out watching the sunset on the rooftop terrace (which also overlooked the Nepal embasy) then cooked our seafood. Fanch and I went for a Sheesha and tea afterwards, then came home and swapped TV and movies that we had on our computers.
Slept in on Sunday as I had stayed up booking my hotel for Delhi. After getting up we went to the Zayad Mosque. Sheik Zayad was the man with the plan and put together the U.A.E. He is burried next to the mosque and they play constant islamic prayer hymns which actually made for quite a nice grave site temple thing. I took a picture and was immediately asked to delete it...appearantly not allowed. Would have been cool to have an illegal picture. But the mosque was crazy ridiculous...one of the top 20 in size or something like that. Girls had to check out and wear complete black garb..face could show but hair could not. Guys could wear whatever they want. An indian CS came with us and she was complaining about it because she was hot..then I pointed out that they got preferential seating on buses, etc so there was a bit of a trade off. Certainly not equality as it goes in America, but they do treat the women well...they just can't show their skin or faces...no biggie.
Afterwards we drove by this building that was designed and built to be leaning like the tower of pisa...again, these people have more money than they know what to do with so they just have to invent ways to spend it. AFter, we went back to teh Emirates palace and had a look. Not as impressive as on the outside, but certainly one of the nicer hotels I've ever been in. A few pictures, then back home for a small lunch before heading for teh bus stop. This time there were less people but still a retarded concept of whoever pushes their way to the front first gets to ride on the bus. I made it to the front of the line, but had baggage to put in the luggage compartment under the bus. I stepped over to throw it in and immediately like 4 people pushed their way in front of where I was. Then, they took 4 women from the middle and back of the line and I was the next person....I was not allowed on. So I had to wait 30-40 minutes to get the next one. Easy ride otherwise.
Back in Dubai, I decided I wanted to get a couple of souveniers, but unfortunately I wasn't in that sort of area so I just headed to the airpot as my flight was leaving in about 3 hours. It took me 30 minutes to find the entrance to the airport after arriving on the metro. I had a slight delay at the passport control as they didn't stamp my passport on the way in. It all worked out and I had some indian food at the airport food court in order to spend the rest of my Dhirms.
Flight was Ok, but the seats are the ones that lean back all the way and of course the guy in front of me took full advantage. Its like you can't even eat because your head hits the back of the seat in front of you when you lean forward. Then the guy next to me took over the arm rest and didn't let up on it the entire flight. He even leaned and was at the point where our shoulders were touching when it was completely avoidable. So I was cramped, but properly distracted by writing this entry and listening to podcasts. Again, I was the only white person on the flight. The entire rest of the flight was all Indian and all males. Just a weird observation...must have been the timing of the flight as it went fronm 10:40pm to 3:50am.
I ended up booking a hotel in the main backpacker/tourist area in spite of warning from a friend of a friend to avoid this area completely. It is just too cheap, too close to the sights/train station, and honestly I would love to run into some other backpackers to see if they are heading the same way as me at all this week. The other thing is that in 20 days (just before I'm scheduled to leave) the Commonwealth Games start. These are bascially a smallar version of the olympics. The problem is that due to India's lack of infrastructure, they are not ready for the games and its a big issue right now. The area has only intermittent electricity and no credit card readers are online due to the street construction damaging the cables under the streets. Accomodation, transportation, and even facilities for the games themselves are not even ready. The monsoon season caused flooding and revealed leaks in the buildings, etc. There was even talk of putting it off for a year as they could use another year of planning to actually be ready. So, I'm looking at avoiding Delhi on the back end of my trip and maybe end up in Kolkota as its a cheaper/shorter flight to Bangkok. Otherwise, I'm a bit worried from all the things I've heard about India, but I'll get acclimated soon enough.
