It’s been just about impossible to get a hotel room in Dubai over the last few weeks. In fact I know of business people who’ve had to postpone their visits because they literally couldn’t find one room for the nights they needed to be here.

It’s the tourist season of course, the weather being perfect now and the ideal get-away from the freezing cold of northern Europe and North America.

But in addition to that we’re in the middle of the events season. We’ve had the huge Dubai Air Show, the Big 5 construction exhibition, powerboat championship at Mina Seyahi and many other events happening together or one right after the other.

Now we have the Fourth Dubai International Film Festival, with stars from Hollywood, Bollywood and elsewhere plus hundreds of producers, directors and all the other back-room people who make movies possible.

There’s plenty on that, with photos of the stars, at the Gulf News website. Here are some links:

Clooney, Sharon Stone

Ready to roll

Festive preparations

December 2 marks the 36th year of the federation of Gulf emirates into the country called the United Arab Emirates.

And united they are - I believe it’s actually the longest-lasting federation in the Arab world.

The UAE flag.

When the British pulled back from the area, in what was known as the ‘east of Suez policy’, most of what had been the Trucial States joined together in federation, Bahrain and Qatar deciding to go-it-alone.

In 1971 six of the emirates became the UAE, with Ras Al Khaimah joining a year later.
Read more

This is a good time to be in Dubai and for me not just because the weather is so pleasant now. Daytime around 30C, night around 20C and low humidity.

For me it’s a visual thing too.

My favourite colours are the orange/yellow/gold palette and at this time of year Dubai is full of those colours. The street landscaping, especially in areas of ‘New Dubai’, is full of marigolds and zineas. The landscaping method is to have large beds of the same colour flower so that there is, for example, a mass of gold, a mass of yellow, a mass of red.

It really is very effective, and very pleasant on the eye as you move around.

Some examples:

A follow-on to my posting last week about the severity of Dubai’s drug laws, which visitors often seem not to take seriously.

A Canadian brought in a tiny amount of marijuana, 0.66 grams for personal use.

He fired his layer, pleaded guilty and asked the court for a ‘fast verdict’, saying he would pay a fine and leave.

He has been sentenced to four years in jail followed by deportation.

1

Just outside Wild Wadi is what has to be the tallest palm tree in Dubai. It’s many times taller than the thousands of date palms used in roadside landscaping.

It is, of course, a fake. It’s actually a mobile phone tower.

But it sure looks better than just a usual industrial-looking tower, especially in this location outside Wild Wadi, Burj Al Arab, Jumeirah Beach Hotel and Madinat Jumeirah.

1

There was a report in Gulf News the other day that deserves wider international coverage. I wonder whether it was picked up by media overseas, because it really is important that people visiting Dubai understand the laws.

The report was regarding the laws in relation to drugs and began:
“Passengers who get caught carrying tiny amounts of drugs in Dubai face between four to fifteen years in jail and cannot escape with a fine as some of them assume, cautioned a judge.”

The judge made the comments after a case in which a Canadian was charged with possessing 0.66 grams of marijuana for personal use.

The suspect pleaded guilty and asked presiding judge Fahmi Mounir to give him a speedy judgement so he could pay a fine.

He said he needed a “fast judgement” and would pay a fine and then leave.
Read more

Dubai’s famous gold souk has gone through a major change in recent years. Not just in the fact that it’s been renovated and upgraded, but in the type of jewellery on display.

There are about 130 shops side-by-side, displaying gold and precious stones worth tens of millions of dollars.

But it’s changed dramatically from when I remember it in the seventies, before Dubai embraced tourism.

Then the shops all sold jewellery for the local market, and it was predominently gold in traditional Arabic and Indian designs.

Now with the influx of millions of tourists a year more than half the shops are selling what I think of as ‘European’ jewellery. The same as you see in European, or American, or Australian cities. So the gold souk, for me, has lost its magic.

But…
Read more

The 10th Dubai Air show is in full swing at the Dubai Airport Expo center, running between 11th and 15th Nov.

The show boasts the very best of exhibitors from around the world, including the grand Airbus A380. It is reported that a sheik of Saudia Arabia has ordered the 1st VIP A380 during his visit to the show.

head over to http://www.dubaiairshow.org/ for more info

Dubai’s new Metro train system is well on target according to the RTA’s Rail Agency and that seems to be true with what’s visible.

The overland stretch along Sheikh Zayed Road out to the Abu Dhabi border is really starting to take shape now, with several huge machines putting the concrete base for the tracks in place.

The Metro going over a road bridge at Mall of the Emirates.

More than 40% of the Red Line is complete and the trains, which are being manufactured in Japan, are due for delivery starting in March. The Red Line is still on schedule to begin operating on September 9 2009.

The frustrated drivers in Dubai can’t wait! We’re hoping it will relieve some of the terrible traffic jams.

The image of Dubai around the world is of ultra-modern skyscrapers, opulent interior decoration, luxury, five-star everywhere.

Well of course there’s that, but there’s plenty that’s not.

Remember that Dubai was a very small city and most of the new developments are in what was not much more than desert. There wasn’t an awful lot of ‘old’ Dubai, but the atmospheric older areas are still here.

One I like is Satwa, an older residential and shopping area in between the ultra-new Sheikh Zayed Road and the beaches.

Older villas are now, in Dubai terms, low-cost accommodation for expatriate workers and there are many apartment blocks, only a few stories high.

There are two main shopping streets, both sides of both roads lined with a huge variety of little shops selling just about anything you need.

There are plenty of cheap restaurants, cafes and coffee shops too and none of them displays the opulence that’s now thought of for Dubai. But I love them.

Here’s one I passed this morning for example:

1

About a month ago I took a photograph of the area in Jebel Ali being prepared for the Dubai Waterfront development, which is where the Arabian Canal will begin. It looks like this:

Today Gulf News has an artist’s impression of how a section of it will look after the canal and its waterfront ‘city’ are built:

That’s some improvement!

1

Back in Dubai after three weeks in UK & Europe, then showing visiting friends around the city and some of the new developments. At last I can put some time into trying to post here more regularly.

We need more authors for the Dubai Metblog by the way, so if you’re interested let me know.

Back to the post - today the papers have run the story that the Arabian Canal is going ahead. It’s been talked about for a while but the latest rumours were that it was either put on hold or cancelled altogether. It seems they were what most rumours are, untrue.

Arabian Canal will be a 75 kilometre waterway will come in from the Arabian Gulf at Jebel Ali where the Dubai Waterfront development is taking shape, flow inland around the new World Central International Airport and back to the Gulf close to Dubai Marina and Palm Jumeirah.

Graphic from Gulf News
Read more

2

When I first landed in Dubai, I was taken in by the sights, by the traffic, and above all, by the roads and by what to me then looked like perfection. Few months in, and I can see clearly the chink in the armour. I can spot the places where paint has peeled off and the brickwork (figuratively) shows through.
Rahul Bhatia talks much the same thing in this post:

The feeling that Dubai had moved on lasted a few years. Then, quite recently, a visiting cousin mentioned the spate of robberies and murders. Another spoke of seeing beggars for the first time. The city had poverty, it had crime, labor unrest, the traffic situation was incredibly bad - these were real problems and the newspapers were reporting them. This, ten or even five years ago, was unthinkable. They didn’t exist. Zero-crime place, we told everybody. But what to tell them now? That it is a city with real problems? In a funny way, this is rather satisfying. The city has overtaken everybody, its planners included, and is now something else. Now the fun begins. Now concerts will be chaotic, now social norms will change, now its pristine image will lose some shine, now classes of people will be more distinct and there will be markets for each of them. It will produce art and literature and all kinds of creativity. This is immensely exciting. It’ll be a real city.

Read the whole post. It’s brilliant.

[via]

I’m off to the airport shortly for a three week holiday. I doubt I’ll have time for any blogging but I should be back on here by the end of September. See you then.

I live at Dubai Marina and yesterday evening drove to Burj Dubai Old Town to meet a group of friends. The journey is less than half an hour.

It occurred to me that in that short distance I saw:

The world’s tallest building, Burj Dubai.

The world’s largest man-made marina, Dubai Marina.

When you live here and see these things being built every day you tend to just accept them without much thought. Pause to think about it and it really is astonishing for a place as small as Dubai.

Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest building, from Old Town

1