Dubai

It has been a busy few weeks! We had the opportunity to go to Dubai to present at a solar workshop last month. The trip was exciting. If nothing else for the big contrasts that one finds in a place like Dubai.


It is the most populous city of the United Arab Emirates, a major transport hub, in the last census, only 22% of the population was female, 85% of the population are expats. Despite a predominantly male population, I felt quite relaxed and safe walking through the city (Santiago feels a lot more ogle-y). They have calls to prayer, and there are prayer rooms in most public places. Some people dress very conservatively (full veil for women in contrast to lots of people wearing western clothes), including burkinis for some girls (I can't deny that it was a bit awkward getting inside the swimming pool next to fully covered 9 year old girls)! Talking to people there, it was fascinating to notice how similar (as human beings) and yet different  (in outlook of life and culture) we were.

The city displays an incredible amount of wealth (easy to say from our 5 star hotel, no doubt there is a lot of poverty too, we just weren't exposed to it). Attention to detail and aesthetics was almost a bit too much. We ate amazingly.

The Dubai Mall has an incredible aquarium (one bumps into it almost by chance and it is hard not to be in awe at the size of the fish-tank), the most complete dinosaur skeleton that exists in the world (yep, it is on display within the mall) and also the entrance to the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa (160 stories tall, if you want to visit it, reserve in advance).

The Burj Khalifa from the bottom

The Burj Khalifa from the top

The fountains from our dinner table

A fishtank in the mall! yikes!

Random camel

The fountains were also worth seeing. They put quite a show with music every half an hour. We also quite enjoyed that no alcohol is served!

Random fact of the day: the national sport is camel racing... however, no one rides the camels due to health and safety concerns. They have an electronic jockey...

We also managed to do a small Safari tour... with a bit of falconry, overnight stay, dinner, breakfast, sunset, sandboarding, henna tattoo etc... what was very interesting is that barely anyone we talked to was an Emirati! They were all from Pakistan, Syria, India etc... The whole experience was a bit surreal and we often felt like we were in a bit of a theme park. Some photos of the trip below:

Oryx

Henna

Camels

Us in the desert

Sand boarding

Falcons...