Week 4: Contrast

It’s possible that the number of oversized, white SUVs I’ve seen in Dubai in the past few weeks outnumbers all those that I’ve seen in the rest of my life. I get it, I guess. The SUV goes well with the overdone lifestyle that this city seems to portray and white makes sense given the intensity of the sun and heat as well as the fine, light colored sand that seems to blanket everything over and over again. Of course, I hadn’t really noticed the quantity of big light colored vehicles until I rented a car this weekend and got a tiny, fire engine red Toyota Yarvis – a Euro-style hatchback that looked like it was made as an appetizer for a big sharky SUV to swallow up.

You guessed it - my car in the middle.

The contrast between my car and every other car on the road was striking and this theme of contrast seemed to play out in about everything I did over the course of the weekend. On Friday, with the company of my visiting friend, Diane, I went to the old part of Dubai to check out the Dubai creek and gold market. Dubai’s decision to dredge/deepen the creek in order to promote trade and transport was a big part of what unlocked the city’s economy and transformed it from a fishing town to the business hub it is today. Today there are boats of all sizes, the most interesting of which are the small, wooden ones that workers use to cross the water.

Workers crossing the creek.

They cost only 1 dirham (~30 cents) each way and were great fun to ride across. The area surrounding the creek was amazing and nothing like the parts of Dubai that I’d been secluded to until now. The buildings were shorter and older, the streets narrower and there was pedestrian traffic everywhere. This is a stark contrast to the audacious buildings and massive highways of the rest of Dubai where a few walkers are corralled by taxis carting most people around.

Near the creek, we visited the Gold Souq (market), a t-shaped string of shops filled with gold and silver jewelry, woven rugs, shawls and fake designer bags. This, too, was a stark contrast to the glitzy retail stores and fancy mall I visited last week. The only thing I really considered purchasing was the cold water that men were carrying around on trays. It was really incredibly hot – I sweat buckets just standing still!

My favorite, beloved pizza from my college days, Papajohn’s, recently popped up in Dubai. Friday night, Diane and I ordered it to enjoy in my room while we got ready to go out to the Burj (7-star hotel) for drinks. Suddenly we realized the number of times we’d had Papajohn’s pizza in our dorm rooms before going over to the “Burge” dorm in Iowa City…it was such a coincidence and striking contrast of the somewhat dumpy old Burge dorm at Iowa to the fancy Burj hotel in Dubai…we got a good laugh out of it.

Drinks at the Burj

On Saturday Diane, two friends from my team and I drove the ~90 minute trek to Abu Dhabi in our itsy bitsy lipstick red Toyota. Abu Dhabi is both an Emirate and a city - the largest and wealthiest in the UAE and the capital of the country. Within the borders of the Abu Dhabi Emirate lays a significant chunk of the oil in the world. Our first destination was the Emirates Palace: once an actual palace and now a beautiful hotel reserved only for royalty. In contrast to most of what you see in the UAE, this place actually gave off an aura of historical significance. It’s egg-shaped golden dome and spotless lobbies were as ostentatious as to be expected, but pretty nonetheless.

Emirates Palace

(The dome from inside)

After the palace, we had lunch at a rotating restaurant on the top floor of the Meridien hotel in the center of town. From this high (and not to mention 360 degree) view, I could see just what a contrast Abu Dhabi was to Dubai. Most of the buildings raise 15-25 stories – none were sky high or growing to almost a kilometer like the new Burj building under construction in Dubai. The streets seemed well-planned and there were a number of parks within sight, not like the 6-lane highways, one way streets and random patches of grass in Dubai. The beachfront was marked by a long boardwalk that seemed open and public rather than blocked off by private hotels like the Dubai beaches I know. Abu Dhabi gave the appearance of real urban planning, which is not something I could say about Dubai.

Abu Dhabi from the sky view

Before leaving town we stopped by the Husn Fort and also drove by the largest mosque I’ve ever seen. Although it’s still under construction, it looks to be incredible. We heard the Muslim call to prayer over loud speakers near the Husn Fort in the center of town. This too was a contrast to Dubai – while you hear regular 5-times daily call in the old part of town, it’s near heard in the modern parts of town where I live and work.

Husn Fort

Mosque on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi

In the end the little red car served us just as well as any bulky SUV and it showed me just how much diversity there can be within a single city and within a country only about the size of the state of South Carolina. Next weekend we’ll be in Cairo, Egypt and I can only imagine how different it will be…