Adventures in Asia: Dubai, United Arab Emirates

From Mauritius I flew an Emirates Airbus 380 to Dubai, arriving late Saturday (yesterday). 

I have about 24 hours here solo before my wife Diana joins me tonight. Last night I simply checked in at our hotel, ordered in a late dinner, and fell asleep.

This morning I wanted to change some money so I wandered into Dubai's old city. Compared to some (shall we say) more authentic souks I have visited this one was a bit of a shock! Basically immaculate and without any people, it feels like you could be in a move set. 

I imagine a tourist could easily get away without cash through a couple of days in Dubai, but one thing I wanted to do requires cash, albeit not very much. The Dubai Roads & Transport Authority operate traditional abras in the Dubai creek. 

The fare is just 1 dirham, or less than 40 cents Canadian, but you need cash. So, once I had some US dollars exchanged I headed down to the creek to take an abra ride

The abras are fun to ride and they also give you a nice view of the creek and the city on either side.

I actually did not have any reason to be on the other side of the creek, however, so I simply turned around and boarded another abra for the ride back to the old town.

After my abra ride I took a much more modern form of transit, the Dubai metro, which is certainly one of the nicest metro systems I have ever ridden.

I got myself some Indian food for lunch, and then took a cab down to the port to see the Queen Elizabeth 2. After decades as an ocean liner, the Queen Elizabeth 2 is now permanently docked here in Dubai and serves as a hotel. I was curious to check it out. 

Part of the ship is open to the public, so I went on board and toured what I could, which includes parts of several of the floors which have basically been turned into a little museum. 

Beside the ship is a lounge area, which is also open to the public, and there is a cafe here and more exhibits on the history of the ship. 

I sat in the cafe and drank a coffee and perused the walls and showcases before heading back up into the city.

Diana arrives at 19:45 so I spent my early evening at the Dubai Mall. The mall is extremely impressive but what I really wanted to see was the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, which is right next door to the mall. Photographs are not going to do the Burj Khalifa justice. It is both incredibly tall, and the architecture is beautiful. I have seen many tall buildings, some of which were at one time the tallest in the world (e.g., Taiwan's Taipei 101, Kuala Lumpur's Petronas Towers, Toronto's CN Tower, China's Shanghai Tower), but I do not think I have ever been as impressed by a tall building as I am by Burj Khalifa. 

Outside the mall and below the Burj Khalifa is the human-made Burj Khalifa lake. 

The lake is actually quite beautiful in and of itself, but every half hour in the evening it comes alive with fountains and music. Like this!