DUBAI and ABU DHABI: Guest Post by Ann Stalcup

Courtyard of Grand Mosque, Abu Dhabi

My friend and fellow children’s book writer Ann Stalcup and her husband Ed love to travel. In June 2014 they went on a trip to the United Arab Emirates and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. Here are some photos and a report of their visit to Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Three story tall aquarium in Dubai mall.

Dubai: In June 2014 we had a fabulous trip to Dubai, the Maldives, and Abu Dhabi. Dubai’s sand-colored architecture is incredible. The most interesting architecture is found inside the immense shopping centers (we didn’t shop). There’s a ski slope, an ice skating rink, the largest supermarkets we’d ever seen, a three-story aquarium where you can rent scuba equipment and dive, plus two gorgeous shopping areas built in the style of the ancient souks.

Spices in supermarket

In the supermarkets we saw huge containers of spices, sold by the kilogram.

Burj Kalifa, Dubai

From the observation deck (124th floor) of the Burj Kalifa, until recently the world’s tallest building, one is stunned by the size of the desert, and the tremendous amount of construction still going on. We went from place to place by “hop on hop off” buses. The shopping areas were chilly but outside temps were over 120 degrees. They predicted 140 for the following week!

Abu Dhabi: Abu Dhabi is much smaller than Dubai, but there is water everywhere and most hotels could claim having a beach and pool. The water was practically hot! A lady taxi driver from the Philippines drove us between cities. She was wearing Arab clothing and had a pink taxi to indicate that the driver was a woman. The men were terrifying drivers - VERY fast - so we were happy to find her.

Grand Mosque, Abu Dhabi

Some of the architecture in Abu Dhabi was even more lavish than in Dubai with palaces and an enormous snow-white mosque which by comparison made the Taj Majal seem very ordinary. They dressed me from head to toe in a black burka - too long, too wide, with a large hood. At 120 degrees plus, I thought I would melt into a puddle inside it.

View of Abu Dhabi from one of its tall buildings

Our hotel in Dubai had been very quiet and our room large; suddenly in Abu Dhabi, in contrast to the surrounding incredible luxury, our inexpensive room was dark and the size of a closet with a view of a wall two feet away. Again, the shopping centers were amazing and we did all of our eating in their food courts. Our hotel had seven restaurants - but no visible menus so we didn’t dare use any of them. Once again, hop on hop off buses took us from place to place.

ROOM WITH A VIEW: Two Year Anniversary of The Intrepid Tourist

Isle of Mull (Inner Hebrides, Scotland)--view from the front door of our country hotel, Tiroran House.

Two years ago, I launched The Intrepid Tourist as an outlet for my accumulated writing and ongoing thoughts from a lifetime of travel.  I didn't know if anyone else would be interested in my posts, but, somewhat to my surprise, the blog has logged more than 28,000 views since it began in April 2011.  Thanks to all of you have been reading my posts!  For this second anniversary I would like to share a few views from my hotel rooms as I have traveled to various places.  I almost always take a photo of the view from my room, both as a document of where I've been, and a reminder that the travel experience is not just the official sights, but also the more personal view.

View of the Dubai skyline with the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, seen from our hotel near the airport.

In the old days of film cameras, the room views were a way of starting off or finishing a roll of film.  Now, with a digital camera, the view from the room just becomes part of the overall photo album.  Sometimes the view is a spectacular vista, in other cases it may be a glimpse of local life, an unusual perspective, or a momentary event.

On my recent trip to Turkey, my hotel was on a narrow residential street. Each morning as light began to dawn, I was awakened by the call to prayer at the nearby mosque. Later, as I leaned over the small balcony on my third floor street-side room I could see my neighbors, the ubiquitous cats, and the view of the harbor beyond the end of the street. 

View toward the water down Kumbaraci Street, in the Beyglu neighborhood of Istanbul

Occasionally the most interesting view is aerial, sometimes looking down onto an interior courtyard.  On a trip to Barcelona several years ago we stayed in a large, high-rise hotel.  As we looked down into the atrium the umbrellas in the bar area loomed like giant mushrooms.

Looking down onto the bar area of Hotel Rey Juan Carlos in Barcelona.

Sometimes the most interesting view is at night. When I visited Chicago a year ago and looked out of my room one evening, I was struck by the geometric shapes of the buildings framed against the misty night sky.

Night view of Chicago skyscrapers from my room at Hotel 71.

I look forward to more travel in the future and to adding to my photo collection of rooms with a view.  I will continue posting reports and hope that you will continue reading them.  My list of places to go and things to see keeps growing!

Abu Dhabi

ARABIAN NIGHTS AND DAYS:  A Week in the United Arab Emirates (February 2011)

Entrance to Palace Museum, Al Ain, Ancestral Home of the Ruling Family of Abu Dhabi

Camels and Skyscrapers
As the plane descended, I looked down onto the aquamarine waters of the Arabian Sea and desert along the shore.  Then, as we circled toward the airport, buildings, roads, and neatly planted date orchards came into view.  At one point we appeared to fly over a camel market. Soon the roads and buildings became more and more dense and we passed over housing developments and shopping malls.  In the distance, I could see skyscrapers.  We were getting ready to land in the United Arab Emirates, a country that in just fifty years has transformed itself from a tiny desert outpost to a land of gleaming modern metropolises.

I had never been to the Middle East before, and the plane trip, from LAX to Dubai, was the longest I had ever experienced (16 hours).  When we landed, we were half-way around the world.  The twelve hour time difference meant that I didn’t even have to change my watch!  We were met by a representative from the conference my husband was attending, escorted through the super-sized terminal and then driven to Abu Dhabi, the other major city in the U.A.E. (In the UAE, it is preferable to be driven than to drive yourself.)

View from our room of the entrance to the Emirates Palace Hotel, with the Etihad Towers, a new hotel and business complex under construction in the background

The Most Expensive Hotel in the World
In Abu Dhabi, the conference was held at the luxurious Emirates Palace Hotel, by far, the most lavish hotel I have ever seen.  It made me feel as if I had landed in a chapter of the Arabian Nights by mistake.  (Luckily for us, our rooms were paid for as part of the conference.)  Featuring gold covered ceilings, multiple five star restaurants, high-end shops, a private beach, two giant swimming pools, and more, it was so big, that one day after lunch I got lost on the way back to our room.  For photos and more details about the over the top luxury at the Emirates Palace, read this article in the  Sydney Morning Herald. 

Camels on the beach in front of the Emirates Palace Hotel

But I didn’t really want to feel as if I’d flown half way around the world to spend a week in a fancy, land-bound cruise ship.  I wanted to see what the U.A.E. was like outside the hotel.  In preparation for the trip, I had read Diamond in the Desert: Behind the Scenes in Abu Dhabi, the World’s Richest City by Jo Tatchell, who had lived in Abu Dhabi as a child, when it was still largely undeveloped.  It helped me to get a sense of where the UAE had come from and where it is today. I highly recommend it.

Heritage Village

"Hinna" was and still is the most elegant traditional cosmetic used by women in the UAE.  The UAE motifs can be distinguished from decorations of other regions in the gulf.  The process includes drying the leaves, crushing and making the paste.  Special containers were used to keep the mixture.  (Exhibit in museum at Heritage Village)

Most of Abu Dhabi’s past has been bulldozed over.  However, one place you can get a sense of local history is at the Heritage Village where there are reconstructions of typical Bedouin tents and houses, live camels, and a small museum displaying traditional clothing, jewelry, household items, etc.

A Country of Superlatives

Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, Abu Dhabi.  Can accommodate 22,000 worshipers.  It is the largest mosque in the world.

Financed by the oil industry, development in the U.A.E. has proceeded at a frenetic pace (the country feels like one huge building site.)  Everything is over the top.  The country boasts the tallest building, the largest mosque, the biggest shopping mall, the largest dancing fountains, the most expensive hotels.  A whole museum complex is being built that will include a satellite Louvre and Guggenheim plus two other museums.  (Models are displayed at the Emirates Palace Hotel.) 

Al Ain, the Garden City

Majlis, or meeting room, at the Palace Museum in Al Ain, where most decisions were made when the palace was the center of government.  Here was where the Sheikh received local and foreign dignitaries. 

The UAE is a federation of seven emirates, (each originally a tribal or family based unit) that banded together after oil was discovered in 1958.  Although they function as a political unit, they also retain some independence. On a MAP you can see that there are three major cities, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, both on the coast and Al Ain, which is inland and the ancestral home of the ruling family.  After five nights in Abu Dhabi, we spent two days with friends in Al Ain.
Al Ain is a desert oasis and promotes itself as a garden city.  Before the discovery of oil, fresh water was in short supply.  Now, oil powered electricity plants provide the energy for desalination, and water is pumped everywhere.  For a desert country, the landscape is surprisingly green.
 
The Palace Museum

Interior courtyard of Palace Museum, Al Ain.

My favorite part of the trip was visiting the Palace Museum and Jalil Fort in Al Ain.  Here one gets a glimpse of traditional life (bedrooms on the second floor taking advantage of cool breezes for natural air conditioning,  meeting areas for men, separate areas for women and children.)

Jalil Fort, Al Ain

Ramparts of Al Jalil Fort, Al Ain

A Trip to the Zoo  

Marabou stork (native to Africa) at the Wildlife Park, Al Ain

Whenever I travel, I always like to go to the zoo.  The zoo in Al Ain, recently remodeled, features the usual suspects (lions, tigers, giraffes, etc.) but also displays animals unique to the Arabian peninsula.  On the day we visited (in February), the weather was sunny and cool.  The animals were active and seemed to enjoy being out-of-doors. 

Shopping

In food court of shopping mall, Al Ain.  Note that "Subway" is spelled backward in Arabic.

Shopping malls and supermarkets provide most of the same kinds of things you can buy in Europe or the United States.  We visited Carrefours, part of the French supermarket chain, and the associated mall, complete with an American style food court.


The Weather
Our trip, in February, was made during a time when the weather in the UAE is optimal–warm during the day and cool at night.  (I actually wished I had brought a warmer sweater for the evenings.) In summer, temperatures in the UAE apparently climb to 118 or more!  Before there was air conditioning, people went to Al Ain from Abu Dhabi and Dubai in summer to get away from the damp sea air.  It was better to be hot and dry than hot and humid.

Dubai skyline with Burj Khalifa (at 2,716.5 feet), the tallest building in the world.  The Burj was designed by the architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in Chicago.

Heading Home
Our last night was at the Premier Inn hotel near the airport in Dubai, chosen because of an early flight the next morning.  The week felt like a whirlwind and there are still plenty of things I’d like to do if I go back again.  I’d like to take a tour of the mosque (appropriate clothing is provided for women), go to one of the camel markets and/or camel races, do more birdwatching (actually, I saw quite a few birds on the hotel grounds), find out about local crafts, visit the falcon hospital, take a trip out into the desert.  Nevertheless, for a first visit I felt I saw a lot and got a glimpse of life in the UAE.  It is developing fast and, no doubt, will have even more to see in the future.

Road construction, Abu Dhabi.  Note aquamarine water of the Arabian Gulf.