I got there at 5.45am local time. Their airport was big and shiney and strangely empty.
I promise that's the only airport photo I'll post. Bangkok airport was similarly shiney & fancy and even more so compared to the complete dive that is Heathrow.
As I'd been warned, there's not a whole lot to do in Dubai that doesn't involve spending vast amounts of money. I went to the only mosque you can go to there because it has been de-blessed or whatever to let my heathen feet tread on their super-plush prayer carpet.
Ah, so majestic and ancient! Except it was built in the 1970s.
The tour guide gave a talk on the religion of Islam, their dress etc which was interesting though she was obviously a converted British expat with a strong east London accent which didn't quite match the surroundings.
In the afternoon I went to the Bastakiya quarter which is their "heritage" district. It was very pretty but mostly empty because it was too bloody hot to walk around in.
Those tower things were a kind of pre-air con ventilation system used to cool the inside of the buildings but they weren't doing me much good. I probably drank about a litre of water in the 15 minutes I spent wandering around. Then I tried to find the museum, which took me another 20 minutes blundering about in the unbearable heat.
This is the museum which is in an old fort, mostly inside but this bit is just through the entrance. I only mention it because that was where I slipped on one of their sandy ramps, got a bruise on my ass the size of a toffee pop (that I couldn't even show anyone), and just about burst into wretched-jet-lagged-running-on-3-hours-of-sleep tears.
In the evening I went to the gold souq. It was more like a mall with open shop fronts than the market-y kind of setup I was expecting.
In the bits of Dubai that I managed to walk around in, I was surprised that I was frequently the only female, and the only Westerner. You get massively stared at.
The next morning I'd booked to go up to the observation deck of the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building.
You have to book ahead, if you just rock on up it costs 4x as much (probably works out to $180). So I had booked a time for 10am, got to the Dubai Mall at that time (when the mall opens), then spent 15 minutes trying to find the damn entrance to the Burj Khalifa bit because Dubai Mall also happens to be the biggest mall in the world, and I asked about 6 different people for directions but then just nodded vacantly when they answered because I'm rubbish with people with strong accents, ended up going down to the loading dock twice, eventually got there at 10.30 where luckily they didn't seem to care that I was late for my allotted time AND the lady on the info desk said I looked like Amelie which always improves my mood.
Basically your money gets you a ride up a super fast elevator to the 200th floor or something (not actually the top of the building), an impressive but smoggy view of Dubai, and plenty of info panels about what a Great and Glorious achievement it is with thanks to the UAE president who bailed them out when they ran out of dirhams.
Then I had a look around the rest of the mall which includes the world's biggest candy strore (disappointingly small, actually), an Olympic-sized ice rink, and the world's largest acrylic panel:
I would've rather seen it when it was like this, though: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1253700/Dubai-Mall-evacuated-cracks-appear-giant-aquarium.html
Dubai is hot. Seriously freaking hot. Like, 42 degrees the day I was there, so hot that it dictates the way the city is organised/built. You just can't walk around for more than a few minutes so you have to taxi everywhere, some streets don't even have footpaths, and as I said, pretty much the only place I saw any other Westerners was in the mall. I really liked the cultural aspects: the dress, the language, even the music they played in the taxis. Unfortunately, they don't really make anything of this - it's all about doing what you could do anywhere, but on a bigger scale (& more expensively, natch). So I'm glad I went but I can't honestly ever see myself going back.
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