The Sandow's Excellent Adventure: SAYING HI FROM DUBAI

We arrived in Dubai at around 4 pm after cruising 2 days on the Arabian Sea. These 2 pictures are the first images we saw of Dubai from the ship. At first we thought it was smog but in fact it was dust from the desert just behind of the city. The effect made the city seem surreal.

The water is crystal clear and a beautiful blue.

It was too late to go into the city but the ship had planned a trip into the desert.

It was quite warm and more humid than I thought the desert would be. We set off in a convoy of white suv's for the 40 minute ride. By now the sun was going down and the temperature has cooled a little.

Our driver, and almost all the other workers in Dubai are foreign, mostly Indian. Our driver was from
India. Once we arrived at the edge of the desert he had to deflate the tires so that he had traction.

The camp was in an area surrounding by dunes. First thing I saw there were camels to ride. Needless to say I was first in line. These knitted nose stockings keep the camel from spitting.

The floor of the camp was covered with rugs and there were tables set for all of us to eat.

There was a falcon on display and although his head was covered, as you talked near him he turned his head in your direction.

There was an area where they invited you to smoke a shishsha (spelling may be wrong) a waterpipe, and I tried it. They used a thick syrup flavored with apple. It was smooth and really nice. Such tourists!

We had a wonderful dinner - no utensils needed and we watched some musicians and a spectacular belly dancer.

Here a woman is applying a henna pattern to my hand. It lasted more than one week.

Len took this amazing photo toward the end of the evening.

At the very end Len took this fantastic photo of a Bedouin making a fire. He will have to photoshop out the empty bottle of fuel on the sand and in his hand.

Well we got back to the ship around 11pm after a thoroughly delightful evening in the desert.

The next day we had planned to take a seaplane ride over the palm islands and around the big Burg Khalif, the tallest building in Dubai.

Here are some photos taken the next day of some of the beautiful architecture in the city. The sheiks have run out of money and all construction has stopped. Beautiful new buildings have huge for rent signs on them, and partially completed buildings are left unfinished. These 2 sheiks are the ones that started the building frenzy. The one on the right is the head sheik. He had to borrow money to finish the tallest building from him cousin, the other sheik and named the building after him, the Burj Khalif (burj means tall) By the way, the rest of his family is mad that he named the building after his cousin.

Unfortunately, the wind had not died down but had actually picked up. We waiting until 2pm and finally they gave up and decided not fly in the sandstorm. We took a short bus ride into the city to the main shopping center.

Dubai is the center of the east and west and shopping is unlike shopping anywhere else. Dubai does not have oil but relies on tourists to visit the city and shop. There is a shopping center outside the city

called Dragon Mall. If seen from the air it looks like a dragon moving through the desert. That mall alone has more than 4500 stores.

The city too has so many stores and the mall we went into had more than 1500. This is the gold souk

(souk means market) It is within the mall and has only high priced jewelry for sale. Both photos below were in the same section of the mall.

This group of baubles cost in US dollars $180,000, and is for some lucky bride to be.

We really wanted to see more of the city but the sandstorm made it difficult so we wandered the mall, saw people from every country dressed in their traditional attire, had a fabulous cup of coffee and a piece of cake, a la Starbucks, but better, and watched the kids ice skate on a huge ice rink in the mall.