Dubai is one of the most amazing cities I have ever visited, a statement in steel of boldness, ambition, and wealth. And Dubai is only getting bigger! Sheikh Zayed Road looks like New York City, lined on both sides with skyscrapers. Construction cranes are everywhere
building new high-rises, while dredges offshore build artificial
islands for ultra-luxurious resorts and personal getaways.
Like I mentioned, however, the city is still under construction. You may see a skyscraper in one area, followed by an aluminum plant, then another cluster of buildings further away, and desert in
between.
So far, Dubai also seems to have the best highways in the Gulf. It
figures that Dubai would have good infrastructure, since they have
Jebel Ali, the biggest shipping port in the Gulf and one of the busiest
in the world. There is a bit of congestion, though, near the city center - it looks like they'll have to start building some more highways pretty soon!
Among other things, Russian tourism in Dubai is a thriving business, apparently. I had read about Russians increasingly visiting Dubai as a vacation spot, and I did see a lot of vacationing Russians here. They dressed like new money; stylish clothes, overdressed for the occasion. Russian girls are hot, though, so I may have to pay Russia a visit someday.
Some of those new-money Russians I met on a Desert Sunset Safari tour. The tour was great! It started off with off-roading and extreme driving across mountainous sand dunes, followed by camel rides, and a recreation of a Bedouin camp. At the camp, they served a buffet-style dinner of Arabian dishes (my favorite is tabouleh), you could try a sheesha pipe (looks like a giant bong with flavored tobacco - I like "green apple" flavor), and of course, a belly dancer!
Cultural Crossroads
Also at the Sunset Safari, I saw a woman in an abaya sandsurfing. Dressed head to toe in black, you could only see her eyes and the board sticking out from underneath. Out of respect, I didn't take a picture, but I couldn't think of a better image to capture Arabia at a cultural crossroads.
It turns out she and her husband were having fun together. As a young couple, they were enjoying themselves immensely, yet she still felt obliged to dress traditionally. For Dubai being a very Westernized Arabian city, I was surprised. Granted, not every Arabian woman was dressed so conservatively, but then again, none of them were riding a snowboard down a sand dune.
I think a lot of problems in this part of the world stem from culture shock between Western and Islamic beliefs. Powerful people want to cling to control, and allowing cultural choice might loosen their grip on power. Confronted with cultural competition, it seems that some Islamic countries have reacted as any monopolist would, trying to regulate competition out of existence by making cultural alternatives illegal, expensive, or inconvenient.
Even in a relatively liberal city like Dubai, defined by luxury, women can buy every conceivable luxury clothing brand you've ever heard of - and some you haven't heard of - and then cannot show their fashions to anyone. They can wear whatever they want, so long as it's in their own home or under a head-to-toe veil, where no one will see it.
Perhaps another young girl I saw will have a better chance of living in a more open society. She wasn't shy about asking for help with her broken snowboard, she just asked. Since the bootstrap on her board was broken, I gave her mine instead. I hope her independent spirit lasts a lifetime.
Perfect business for Jebel Ali: truck stop!
Of course, I'm always on the lookout for potential business opportunities as we travel around. So, seeing the seemingly endless amount of trucks coming in and out of Jebel Ali port, I asked if there was a truck stop nearby. This elicited a blank look from the taxi driver, toll booth operator, and anyone else I asked, even after describing what a truck stop might have (a truck wash, restaurant, and gas station, for example). Apparently, for all the trucks, there is no truck stop to serve them.
Why not build a truck stop near the port's entry control point where they can gas up, eat, and relax? The truck stop could also double as a restaurant / entertainment center for the port workers, especially if you ran a shuttle bus to pick people up from spots around the port to bring them to the restaurant. Add-on businesses could include therapeutic massage, a capsule hotel, and massage armchairs, to name a few.
Of course, not everyone in Dubai thought this was a good idea. For example, the husbanding agent in Dubai, who arranges services between the local economy and our ship, explained that most of the truck drivers are poorly-paid immigrants from South Asia, who likely wouldn't have the money for something like that (too American a concept, apparently). My thought would be, though, how much money would it take to buy a cold shower for the desert heat, or a cup of coffee? Even if these guys don't make a lot of money, they still eat! Someone out there could be making money... may as well be me someday!
