I had never visited Dubai or the Middle East before I had a 24-hour stopover between Europe and Sri Lanka. Dubai is an ideal international flight hub and stopover destination en route to anywhere. Conveniently, hotels are plentiful, inexpensive, and new. There are enough activities for tourists, even during a pandemic, to stay entertained while visiting. Even more appreciated was the fact that everything is air-conditioned. I had a very efficient and jam-packed 24 hours to explore while I was there, but I made the most of it.
Arriving at Dubai’s airport at 1 am from Sarajevo, I Ubered directly to my hotel just 10 minutes away. A 5-star hotel for just $88 a night; king-sized bed, big room. I awoke at 8 AM, had a workout in the hotel gym (with a mask-blah), and then showered and headed to the mall to do errands before breakfast. Dubai has 65 malls and one of them is attached to the hotel I was staying at, so it was easy to shop for the extras I needed for the warmer climates I was transitioning to: a hat, sandals, and antibiotics (you can buy over the counter at drug stores in Dubai). It felt as though Dubai was built with such conveniences in mind to attract and cater to people like me who are just passing through.
Then it was time to eat breakfast — I had a recommendation for a popular restaurant called The Arabian Tea House from a friend of a friend. A great place to get a sense of the local flavors across a diverse menu. I’ve had very little Arabic food previously, which seems almost impossible considering how much I absolutely adored everything I ordered. Why wasn’t Arabic food ubiquitous throughout the United States or any of the countries I had visited?
I had four entrees and two plates of hummus — my favorite dish ended up being this spicy liver. As I generally order liver anytime I see it on a menu, as I am of the belief it is a super-food, and I feel obligated to eat super foods when presented the opportunity* (*only when absolved of the obligation of buying, cooking it myself). The spices and flavors were extraordinary — salty with a rainbow layer of earthy flavors and turmeric, lime, curry, and seemingly a dozen other flavors I couldn’t identify.
As great as these dishes were, the highlight of my breakfast was not the food. Fortunately I was able to capture it on video for posterity:
After finishing the best meal I had eaten since Branka’s squid ink risotto in Split, I got in an Uber to visit The Dubai Mall. With only about 40 minutes available to explore the largest mall in the world (by geographic size, not leasable area), I was only able to scratch the surface of what was offered. The ultra comforts of such a glamorous retail establishment, on such a grand scale, felt similar to how Las Vegas feels — an oasis of capital investment in the middle of an arid desert.
Returning to the hotel, I had twenty minutes to recoup before my next sojourn: a pre-booked tourist trip into the Dubai desert. At approximately 2 p.m., my guide, Sharaf, picked me up at my hotel in a 4×4 truck. We continued on to pick up a family from Bucharest at a different hotel and drove out of Dubai about an hour to the desert.
The tour consisted of four parts: camel rides, aggressive off-roading through the desert dunes in our 4×4 vehicle piloted by Sharaf for maximum thrills, sand-boarding on the desert dunes, and then dinner and a live show at a desert camp. I didn’t partake in the sandboarding* as I had done this in the Atacama Desert in Chile (in a place called the Valley of the Dead). *Sandboarding down desert sand dunes is one of those activities that seems really great as you are imagining it, but in reality ,you are moving very slowly and it’s nothing like snowboarding. I’m not even sure why it’s a thing, other than it seems to be an effective tourist lure.
The camel rides are, just like the sandboarding, a tourist lure. You get on a camel, and then a guy takes your photo with your cell phone and leads you 100 meters away, then takes you back. Meanwhile, you are surrounded by other tourists on ATVs who opted to pay money to ride ATVs, while the others were on camels, within a fenced-in enclosure. Sort of my idea of hell, but also one of those things that I was hating with a big smile on my face — riding on a camel is fun and the absurdity of paying for the experience, too funny.
After the camel ride, it was into the desert. Sharaf deflated the tire pressure to afford better traction in the sand, pumped up Arabic hip-hop in the car stereo, and floored it.
Here’s a video to give you an idea of what it’s like to ride in a 4×4 with Sharaf
After the desert driving, we arrived at a camp, where we were given the opportunity to do more camel rides (no thanks), take photos with a falcon (yes, please), eat a buffet dinner (of course), and watch a dance show (sure, why not). Afterwards, the trucks’ tires were re-inflated, and we were driven back to our hotels in Dubai. A few hours later, I was on a plane heading to Sri Lanka.
A whirlwind, wonderful visit to Dubai.
