(Almost) Done in Dubai

I'm laying here awake at 4AM, exactly 24 hours before my flight to Tanzania. The plan was to get a lot of sleep then stay up till my flight tomorrow, but going to bed early backfired and I've been awake in the middle of the night for a couple hours now. Apparently my body thought that was just an afternoon nap. It was lunch time back home when I laid down afterall. 

Tomorrow is still going to be a busy day so I may as well make use of the time and update the ol' blog. Doing it on the phone, so short form only:

- Dubai is a looooong way from home. I never really looked at where I was going when i booked this, and was surprised to realize I'm actually past Iraq, and due south of Iran. You can't fly much further east before you are actually flying towards home again. In fact, Muscat in Oman is the only other major city in the world you would fly east from Calgary to reach, and it's only 300km further. Next major city is Karachi and that's closer flying west. The only places in the Northern Hemisphere that take longer to reach are on the Indian Ocean coastline, like Mogadishu. Or Sri Lanka. 11 hour time difference and 23 hours in transit. I won't be doing this trip too often!

- didn't get to my hotel until 3AM (Welcome to Dubai! Please enjoy a 1 hour wait in the passport control lines). So I crashed pretty hard the first couple days. I did manage to walk over to the Mall of the Emirates, go for a swim in the hotel's rooftop pool, and take a half day trip into the desert. 

- the mall was really nice. But unless you plan on dropping $100 to access the indoor ski hill, it is still just a mall. Albeit with mosques on the top floor. 

- Just realized I didn't take any desert photos on my phone so no pics of that until I'm back unfortunately. It was a bit of a disappointment to be honest, but the ride out was definitely worth the price of admission. We had the most aggressive of the "dune bashing" drivers in our SUV (I know cause he kept passing the other drivers, who were themselves going insane speeds). It was by far the roughest and scariest roller coaster I've ever been on. I could have sworn we were going to roll several times, and there were long stretches where the only time the seat touched my butt was to ensure I stayed suspended in mid-air. Took a couple hours walking around the campsite to get my stomach to settle back down. The entertainment was ok but I found all the Indian tourists more entertaining than the belly dancer. They sure got into that! There was only 1 dune by the camp suitable for sand boarding, and even there you only got about half way down before the fun stopped. I guess I can say I've done it now, but I'm going to have to leave the Sahara on my bucket list to get a real good experience. Still, the free seesha at the end of the night left me feeling like it was a decent experience overall. :)

(Note: I've started saying "Indian" instead of "East Indian". After a couple days here you start realizing there is no need to clarify and you just sound silly if you do. It's like coming to Canada and calling it "ice hockey".)

- today I took the long walk all the way to the Burj Al Arab. You need a reservation at one in the restaurants to get on the grounds, so I booked into the sky view bar, whose minimum charge of only $60 was the cheapest I could find. With cocktails at $40 and up, it's not hard to hit that. The interior is very nice, with gold plating just about every where you look (including some parts of the toilets) but I was actually more impressed just looking at the building on my walk over. I'd seen it hundreds of times in pictures so wasn't expecting much, but it's a seriously imposing structure and stands out even among all the architectural eye candy in this city. At $1800/night for the cheapest room though, it's purely a status symbol. Cool experience going there, but if I were actually going to splurge on a room I'd stay at the Madinat next door. Walked through there on the way over and was far more impressed with what it offered. 

- in between both hotels was a poster for the Red Crescent (the local version of the Red Cross I assume), with a picture of a starving child and a caption "Your Wealth. Her Happiness." Well played. And I do agree. I'm all for having nice things and enjoying life (obviously, given my travel itineraries), but there comes a point where it's just excessive. I'm sure most people could do just fine spending a mere $800 on their hotel room and giving the other $1K to someone who needs it. Please shoot me if I ever start spending money quite that excessively.

- tomorrow I check out and head to the Old Dubai area to explore the quaint area of Bastakiya before heading to the Burj Khalifa for my "ride to the top" at 4:30, after which I'll kill my remaining few hours at Dubai mall, the current largest in the world (until they build a bigger one, also in Dubai I'm sure). I never did make it to a beach, so if I have time in between I'll try to pop by 1, although chances are looking slim now given I'll likely (hopefully) be sleeping till noon.