Dubai

My first country on the Persian Gulf. I was fairly excited, since i always enjoy moslim countries. Not that i have visited so many, except Egypt (see also previous post), i went to Morroc and Saoudi-Arabia (diving, so spent most of my time on a boat, but did get to visit Jeddah).
I think it is because of my dark hair and brown eyes, but i am easily accepted by the people there. Of course, we are talking acceptance among men, since a lot of moslim countries do not appreciate free mingling between men and women.
What also helps is that when we get in a conversation i have read a thing of two about islam, it that is usually appreciated.

I was there one day early and spent the saturday with ... diving (what else?). I had booked a two fun dives at the east coast (Dubai is part of the United Arabian Emirates (UAE) and has a coast at the persian gulf and one at the Gulf of Oman, the eastern coast). I walk up pretty early and was the first to arrive at the diving centre. In total some 15 people were in my mini bus towards the east. All of them were working in Dubai. I talked to a guy from South-Africa, who worked in construction (as did most people in the bus). He was very cynic about the situation in his country and when i commented on how much violence people had become use to over there, he responded that that was the reason he left: he didn't want to become used to violence. I could only agree with him. Further in the bus was a girl from Ireland (you meet the Irish everywhere), who was a coastal enigneer (didn't even know that existed). Both she and the south africa guy told me that most of the big projects of infrastructure in Dubai are set up and being finalized. The focus is going to shift to Abu Dhabi in the future and apparently the projects they are planning there are going to dwarf those of Dubai. Because 'that is where the real money is'. We will see.

I made two dives, we only had to go out some 20 minutes by boat to get there. I got a nice guy from Denmark as my buddy, who wanted to set up his own lawfirm to represent Danish customers and assist them with investments in real estate. Problem is that because of the fatwa on the danish after the cartoon in one of their newspapers some years before, it was still not possible for him to start a lawfirm on his own. So he had to work together with an existing one.
Also talked a lot with a italian guy and a dutch guy, who worked for some kind of centre of excellence, a kind of telecom consultants group that worked for the UAE goverment. He left me his card, stating that they were looking for telecom experts. But you had to be able to stand the military way of thinking, so i don't think i will take him up on his offer. :-)

On the first dive i saw a lot of box fish, a pipefish and several lion fish. My buddy, who didn't have a lot of experience, was running through his air rather fast (had had a lot of trouble getting down because of his ears, so probably wasted a lot of air at that point). I was fearing that my dive would be short as well so i proposed to the divemaster to share my air with him and so we went on for a while together. And i was glad we did, because just when we were going to surface, a sea turtle passed us by :-)
Second dive was full of coral and was a nice dive, but became a very nice dive when no less then 3 black tip reef sharks came very close and even cricled us for a while, seeming very curious. Glorious!

My hotel was a Holiday Inn and was open for 3 months (had to explain to almost all taxi drivers that week that there was indeed a Holiday Inn next to the Emirates Mall). That is not really an advantage: there was almost nobody there and the pool wasn't ready yet! Normally the hotels i stay in are not the place where i get in contact with a lot of people, to say the least. Most of the business people are walking around in their suits, looking at me as if i am some suspicious individual and wondering what i am doing in their hotel. And if i overhear some of their conversation, i am sure i do not want to talk to them. And the tourist you see are even worst, since these are usually people with a lot of money, who are either surprised to see me or actual wonder whether i am not going to rob them :-) But an empty hotel is not nice either. For one thing, that means that all the staff is focusing completely on you. And all of them wanted to please me so much, probably because all of them still have to proove to management that they were doing a good job. I actually got a feedback form when i had dinner in the arabian restaurant :-)
Especially Lucy from Kenia really wanted me to like her. I usually get suspicous myself when they immediatly say that they would like to visit your country. Reminded me of a very friendly young man from Malaysia that worked in my hotel in Singapore and asked for my room number and was heart broken that i was leaving the next day already (for those who are now curious: yes i did give him my room number and no ... he didn't give me a surprise visit :-) ).

The course itself started of bad. I spend the whole sunday setting up the classroom (don't worry i am not over zealous, working week starts on sunday in UAE, friday and saturday are the days of the weekend). But starting the next day when the actual class started, everything went a lot better. Where i thought that the operator that i was teaching wasn't inclined to help me, one of the guys in the class, Khaled, a palestinian who knows a lot about IPTV, really helped me out.
The class consisted of only two guys from Dubai. Was easy to spot them since they were wearing the traditional white robes. There were two guys from Lebanon with whom i had a few lunches. One of them had a friend, a girl from Lebanon that went to the same school as he did when they both lived in Lebanon that joined us during one lunch. Absolutely gourgeous girl, i definitly have to visit Lebanon one day :-)
Further there was a guy from Syria, one from Jordan and even a guy from Iraq.
One lunchtime we all went out to an iranian restaurant, which was really enjoyable.

I had a bit of time to look around the time. I had hoped to visit the latest palm island, but the visits are during the day, so didn't have time. I did see the Burj Al Arab, the only 7-star hotel in the world (so far). Picture below, first while it was still light, with the beach next to it and the second one at night.

The city is full of building activity. One of the notable buildings i saw, was the tallest building in the world (see picture below) and next to it they are going to build the revolutionary concept of some italian architect, where all the floors will be able to move, so that the building will set itself depending on where the wind comes from (reducing its friction) and thus giving the people that live there a changing view.
Or what do you think of this little builing:
This last picture was indeed in Dubai, they have the largest indoor ski slope in the world. The thing is huge and is in the Emirates Mall (indeed, next to my hotel). I spent some time in the mall, went to the movies there, and had some good food there. Didn't ski (my knee pervents me) so took this picture through a window.