Jetlagged in Dubai

Departed Auckland 6.40 PM. Arrived Dubai 5.30 AM. A full 20 hours travel (via Sydney).  Flying on Emirates was luxurious – touch screen TV’s, good food and comfy enough to get a decent sleep.  

We arrived to the rising sun in Dubai – a mild 22 degrees when we landed to climb to 30 degrees in the afternoon. 

Our hotel started off the day with a bang – 5 golden couches and 3 bathrooms … too bad we drunk the tap water before they told us we shouldn’t be drinking it.

We started our day with a run across a 10 lane highway in search of food – we saw skyscrapers and cars everywhere, but no eatery in sight. Fortunately we stumbled across a supermarket/warehouse to fill the gap and got back to the hotel for our tour around Dubai.

Kash our very informative and friendly tour guide showed us around many of Dubai’s most famous landmarks over a few hours, that included the Dubai Museum, Palm Jumeriah, the beach, Burj Khalifa, Dubai Mall and some older parts of the city/shopping areas.  Everywhere is bigger, newer and more impressive than before – the mall housed an indoor aquarium three stories high and an indoor ice rink!  The man-made Palm Island houses a 1500 bed hotel and too many skyscrapers to count , just nearby Burj Al Arab is the worlds only seven star hotel (we weren’t allowed in that one). 

The beach was a beautiful white sandy expanse, with again skyscrapers behind, and in the distance we could see the newly built ‘world islands’ and no doubt should we come back in a few years there will be skyscrapers on the horizon too. 

By the end of our tour we sat down for a well deserved meal of kebabs overlooking the dhows on The Creek before touring through the souks (markets) that held an array of textiles, spices and more gold and jewellery than we could ever have imagined. 

What a crazy place Dubai is – a city of cars and skyscrapers, devoid for the most part of life, a mix of old and new – but definitely more new.  In 30 years Dubai has grown from a city of 200,000 to 1.2 million and even today we saw construction sites everywhere. 

One can only imagine what a stark contrast today will be to what we will experience over the coming weeks.