Wednesday 28 October 2009

Dubai - the city built on a house of cards

So the story starts in Dubai, the land of excessive wealth (for some) and flashing lights. Since I've been to the city several times before, as I have an uncle who lives there, I felt fairly confident that I would know my way around and be able to show Mr F around without too many problems. I was mistaken. Its only been 4 years since my last visit yet due to the impressive speed at which the Arabs construct their buildings it felt as if I was visiting a whole different city!
There is a whole new flashy mall (which I think is the biggest in the world) complete with an aquarium, cinema complex and indoor amusement park (think indoor Alton towers). There is also a monorail system in operation, but as it still only goes to a limited number of stops we found it easier just to take taxis. The worlds tallest building, the Burj Dubai, which in essence looks like a giant penis, will complete soon at the impressive height of just over one kilometer! This will make it nearly double the size of the next tallest building, the KVLY-TV mast in North Dakota.

The amusing "my penis is bigger than yours" contest that Dubai has with the rest of the world is constant source of confusion for me. I fail to understand why a city-state which is in vast amounts of debt to it's neighbouring UAE states continues to build as such a rapid pace. When walking around the streets and looking up at all the skyscrapers with "to let" signs on them making up the bulk of the advertising, I have to wonder why do they want to build more when they can't even get people to fill out the buildings that they have available now? But these are just my musings, I don't know enough about the underlying economy to fully appreciate the randomness of mass construction.
The sheer opulence of the city is starkly contrasted with the mass influx of immigrant workers, who predominantly come to the city to work in the construction trade - after all, there's plenty of it going. They have set up camp on the other side of the river to the CBD. No doubt because the city doesn't want its tourists to be bothered by the poor.

I personally prefer hanging out in areas such as Nassar square - a shopping/market area where the workers live and tourists are few and far between. After all, who wants their perfect expensive holiday marred by the sight of poverty? You go to Dubai for opulence, wealth and high powered air-conditioning after all. Who wants to be outside in the baking 33 *C heat? But since I have seen my fill of shopping malls and have no need for (another?) Gucci dress, I found it much more satisfying spending only a few dhiram on my meals and bartering for t-shirts that I didn't really need. Isn't that what real travelling is about?

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