Goobye Dubai, Hello Shanghai
// January 15th, 2008 // China
I’ve been slow on the picture front, but Annetts flickr stream has raced ahead so you can see some pictures here.
Good news, we’re still alive! Bad news we’re 1/25th of the way through the trip. Volcano Schlenker still simmers without eruption. All is good. The first tick was in the box marked “Dubai”. Here is the review:
Of all the places to start the trip, Dubai was a excellent first stop. Its clean, simple and easy to travel around and not that much more of a culture shock than a trip to Brick Lane, if you throw in a little sand, water and religion. Its winter there so temperatures were a perfect 20′c or so at best.
You can’t possible fail to get up early enough to pray. They’ve been thoughtful enough to place deafeningly helpful audio reminders every few hours (or so it seemed). Especially for us, our hotel being located on the front steps of a mosque. Internet research paid off fruitfully here. We ended up smack bang in the heart of the center, of the most important, of the core, of the midst, of Dubai’s backside - in a Moroccan fort in the Old Town. A long way away from the oppressive luxury of the strip. We hardly saw any westerns around are hotel which was nice. They looked as surprised to see us as we looked surprised to not see more people like us. We were surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the little shops, stalls and daily trading. I’m not exactly sure how society there worked, but it seemed too so I kept quiet. I am sure that you shouldn’t balance that much on a cart, bicycle, our children, a lorry though. This place brings a new meaning to ”health and safety violation”.
The most surprising thing was the omnipresence of religion, and the almost total non-presence of women from daily life. If I can borrow language from my university days dubai is a ”sausage fest”. But very quickly you don’t notice that there you barely see women, that no women ever drive, that if you do see a woman you’ll only see her feet and eyes, that every man keeps staring at Annett, much to her annoyance. Its their culture, so you accept it. But i’m surprised that I was so comfortable with it, maybe because I wasn’t the one being oppressed and i’m a secret chauvinist or more likely because we were leaving almost as soon as we arrived, and they had beaches and cocktails and stuff.
The contrast between the old town and the rest was huge. Price wise about 500%, as we paid for our two mains and 5 drinks in our hotel the price of a side portion of rice in s restaurant overlooking the stunningly imposing “7 star” Burg al Arab hotel.
This is the conversation I had with a taxi driver on the way to the airport:
Me: Do you like Dubai?
Taxi Driver: No, not really.
Me: Why not?
Its not my country, even if I lived here for 100years it would still not be my country. I’m from Pakistan, one day I will return there.
Me: I read that’s the most dangerous place in the world right now?
Yes that is true. Many people killing each other. Its the Americans though that made my country more dangerous.
Me: I think the Americans make every country including their own more dangerous.
Yes, I think so too.
Me: I admire your patriotism.
And I did as well, particularly how he spoke about Pakistan. Since then I’ve been thinking about where home is for me, and hopefully one day i’ll speak about somewhere like he did Pakistan. Lets see.
In conclusion Dubai is the quintessential desert mirage. At first so promising and tempting. Then after you rub your eyes, theres nothing really there.
Now onward. We’re in Shanghai, its freezing, nearly literally, hovering around the 3′c or 4′c temperature mark. We packed for 23′c to 24′c so that left a little cold shock to the senses. More on Shanghai later, for now I’m hungry. Let me try and find some of that screaming monkey brain Alex was telling me about 
Possibly related, hopefully entertaining other posts:
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annett
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adam
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ami
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fletchy
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Alex
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Gem
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Matt
