{"id":508,"date":"2015-02-05T13:07:54","date_gmt":"2015-02-05T21:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/transitophile.com\/chango\/?p=508"},"modified":"2019-07-09T10:46:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-09T08:46:00","slug":"dubai-first-impressions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/transitophile.com\/chango\/dubai-first-impressions\/","title":{"rendered":"Dubai: First Impressions"},"content":{"rendered":"

(♦<\/span>) \u00a0Any Dubaian met by a run-of-the-mill tourist is likely to speak passable English. I started conversations in my native tongue, never felt presumptuous for doing so.<\/p>\n

If you aren’t run-of-the-mill and like to do odd things, you might wander far enough afield to meet locals who can’t savor great American artistes<\/i> like Moe and Larry and Curly without subtitles. That happened to me when I tried to ride the F30 bus from the metro to the Miracle Garden<\/a>. Most would have taken a cab. The F30 was full of Indian construction workers. The bus driver managed to tell me where to get off, but just barely and not easily. Your follicly challenged world wanderer just might have been stranded in the desert for awhile.<\/p>\n

\"Dubai<\/a>
Dubai Miracle Garden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(♦<\/span>) \u00a0If you’re a holder-of-grudges and still haven’t forgiven that rotten casanova who made off with your ex, consider comping him to a gala August vacation in a Dubai hotel without air conditioning. The needle can hit 115 degrees Fahrenheit in Dubai in August<\/a>, linger at a zesty 95 at midnight. He’ll wish he’d never seen her.<\/p>\n

Dubai is not a summer destination. I suspect that the big tourist draws are the winter heat and sun, particularly for seasonally affected Europeans. I could have walked around in my shirt sleeves when I visited in January.<\/p>\n

(♦<\/span>) \u00a0Dubai is many miles of practically-brand-spanking-new glitter and polish around old town acres on Dubai Creek. In the old town, you can stroll among spice and gold souks beneath boxy wind towers, among locals in robes and skullcaps, and feel you’ve arrived in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

In ‘new’ Dubai you’ll see robes, gowns and skullcaps, too, but perhaps while sipping a frappe at the Dubai Mall. European tourists stroll comfortably among Emirati in these modern blocks, but don’t seem to mingle with them much.<\/p>\n

\"At<\/a>
At the Dubai Mall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cNew city,\u201d said my amiable cab driver Abdul<\/a>, while pointing to skyscrapers. He gestured to one: the skyline had held only that building when he arrived in Dubai in the early nineties.<\/p>\n

(♦<\/span>) \u00a0If taking medications, read at least these<\/a> two<\/a> articles before booking your Dubai trip, unless eager to blog about Dubai’s jails.<\/p>\n

(♦<\/span>) \u00a0My most valuable conversation in Dubai was one of my first, and I’m still ticked off that I was too tired to get much from it.<\/p>\n

Red-eyed and dazed after sixteen hours aboard Emirates 226 from SFO, I lurched onto a metro at Terminal 3 and soon found myself chatting with two immigrants from India. (After boarding and disembarking a women-and-children-only car by mistake.) The Indians work at separate sites for a glitzy American hotel chain, one as a chef, the other as an electrician and handyman.<\/p>\n

They told me:<\/p>\n