Chapter 1: Destination Dubai
Our Month in Dubai Begins Tomorrow
01.09.2022 - 01.09.2022 88 °F
Chapter 1: Destination Dubai
September 1, 2022
We are off tomorrow to spend almost a month in Dubai. We’re headed there to jointly advise a client about selling lab diamonds in the Middle-East. But this blog won’t be about diamonds. It will be about Dubai: “The Most Luxurious Place in the World” which is also a political and economic paradox.
Dubai is in a rough neighborhood. On this map: See Iran, Sudan, Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Somalia? These are unstable places where you and I would not and should not go. These are Dubai's neighborhood. Dubai adjoins the sliver of space between the UAE and Iran, the infamous Strait of Hormuz—“one of the world’s most important oil transport choke points.” The Strait is the scene of countless military close calls between the U.S. Navy and Iran.
The Strait is the place where I found myself aboard a December 23, 2011, cruise and lucky to get this quick snapshot when our ship, Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas, was harassed by masked aggressors which I assumed to be Iranian (as we were only miles from their coast). No boarding was attempted, they just harassed us. Here is a quote from the blog I wrote eleven years ago (yes, I have been publishing these things for a very long time) as I was disembarking Brilliance:
"I saw Captain Henrick Loft Sorensen, a Dane, Master of this ship, this morning as he smoked a cigarette at the end of the gangway. I inquired of him about the two ski-masked marauders who buzzed us yesterday. He told me they could have been the Iranian Navy or just some “crazy guys.” But, he said, “Not pirates. They are far south of here.”
Captain Sorensen had no comment about why they were masked or why the name of the manufacturer of their outboard motor was obscured or why they had that massive fuel tank aboard or why they saw fit to almost brush up against our clearly civilian cruise ship. My "Why" questions caused the good Captain to smile, snub out his Marlboro, and, with no more said, leave me in his wake (as it were).
A BBC documentary (easily viewed on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt5Soy6pKYA) claims foreign workers in Dubai are abused with their passports taken away; it says workers live in camps-like slums and must accept whatever they are paid. It says the place was primarily constructed with no minimum working standards and a suicide rate among Asian working population that is two per week. But, if any of that is true, nobody here speaks to us about it and we, as tourists now in the past, did not and can not see it. It may have been true at one time and is no longer true; that is what the Emir told another BBC interviewer when asked about it. Also on YouTube are scores of videos praising the country and "wow-ing" viewers with spectacular images.
Of note is the fact that ninety percent of the Dubai population has moved here from another country—only one of ten are native Emiratis. Why? In 2002, Dubai became the first place in this part of the world that allowed foreigners to own property…and there are nearly no taxes to pay. If you can't own property in Saudia Arabia or Kuwait or Qatar, come to Dubai where you can.
Laws are strict and crime is low; Dubai is super safe. This constitutional monarchy decrees no smooching in public. Alcohol in this Muslim nation is served only in hotels and private clubs at some very high prices )due to high taxes on imported alcohol). Another criticism of Dubai is that women here are second class citizens. The metro rapid transit system offers segregated “women and children only” cars. Again that is something that we have not personally witnessed.
Dubai is home to the world’s tallest building (here is B4 and the Burj Kalifa--taken when we were in Dubai in February). You have to walk far away and then put your camera on the ground to be able to get this mega-high building and your diminutive sweetheart in the same photograph. Dubai has a police car fleet augmented by “super cars” (more on that in a later chapter). Camel racing is their NFL football. Human jockeys have been replaced by $10,000 robots perched on the backs of thoroughbreds.
On the drawing board is a climate-controlled area spanning 4.3 miles—the Mall of the World would lie beneath a retractable dome. The Dubai Museum is a massive orb donut shaped iconic structure. The Dubai Frame is exactly that: a building in the shape of a frame—48 stories tall. It is estimated that 1/4th of all construction cranes in the world are here.
Amazingly, there is no standard western-style address system; instead there are 10-digit numbers that serve as addresses. I sent a package here which got returned six weeks later as undeliverable—even though the address was exactly that printed on the business card of the addressee.
It is a polarizing, amazing, confounding, awe inspiring place.
I have refused to go to Saudi Arabia because of its politics but I come here—again—and I am not alone in determining that it is not politically incorrect to do so. Online travel company TripAdvisor just named Dubai as the “Most Popular Destination in the World” in the company’s 2022 Travelers’ Choice Awards. There is something in Dubai for everyone. I would add to that: There is something for everyone with money to spend.
For the next 25 days, we will file a chapter a day to either prepare you for a visit here, cause you to avoid the place, satisfy your curiosity or bore you silly. You will decide. Feel free to unsubscribe at any time.
FYI: 8:00am to 10:00pm (daytime) in Kansas City is 5:00pm to 6:00am (evening/overnight) in Dubai.
Saying the same thing in a different and more useful manner, should you wish to give either of us a call—our phones will work in Dubai—the most mutually user-friendly time for you in Kansas City would be between 8:00am to 1:00pm Kansas City time—which would be 5:00pm to 10:00pm in Dubai. WhatsApp and Signal are even better. (Don't know about WhatsApp and Signal? Go to the App Store on your phone and download one or both. You'll be calling the world for free in no time)
Until tomorrow...
