My story will be about a trip to three eastern countries. The familiar Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Bahrain and Qatar were new to me.
Let me start at the beginning. We were going on a Persian cruise as a group. Then the group broke up. I put up a number of adverts, but I didn’t find a travelling companion, so in the end I went alone. I got my plane tickets in advance. There Azimut with a same-day arrival. It turned out to be a mistake. Azimuth had changed the departure time and I was not in time for departure. I had to fly two days earlier. I should add that two days before the flight the Azimut plane was on fire in Antalya. Later I read reviews about this airline on the Internet – not a single good one, they cancel the flight when the plane is already beating its hooves on the runway! But alas, I took non-refundable tickets. We flew out, however, on time. The flight from Sochi took 4 hours.
Al Maktoum Airport was being built for Expo 2020. It is huge and empty, receiving mainly flights. It is located, as it seemed to me, in a clear field. My compatriots took an unimaginable amount of alcohol in Duty Free. Apparently, this is still a problem in Dubai. In shops there is only non-alcoholic wine and beer. In hotels there is, but expensive.
Former scaremongers that taxis at the airport there are no, it is necessary to order a transfer or go on 55 bus. It’s a load of rubbish. Just get in a taxi and go. Maps me works perfectly. It was a long drive, something like an hour, first through a deserted area, then buildings appeared and finally Dubai skyscrapers with many twinkling lights. My hotel Merkur is located in the neighbourhood of Tekom. Checked in quickly. The tax was 15 dirhams a day, the deposit, which I was scared of in the travel agency, was not taken. The room is huge, 60 metres, two rooms, kitchenette, large bathroom, balcony with table and chairs on the 38th floor overlooking the city. A place to chat with a travelling companion over a bottle of wine. But I only had tea there. The sanitary equipment in the bathroom is tired, however, they did not give me a bathrobe and slippers. From the pluses of the hotel – there is a jacuzzi and a large pool, sauna and hammam. The main plus is the exit from the hotel directly to the metro. There is a transfer to the beach, but you have to sign up for it two days in advance, there are not enough seats. In the reviews I read that at breakfast in the buffet you can’t find a place. It is true, even one person is hard to find – pandemonium. There are tables outside, but flies land on the food there. In the evening everything is normal – not many people. The food is tasty and varied. Wifi works, you can’t talk on WhatsApp, only text messages, but you can Skype. In the hotel there is a shop and a tour bureau, I bought there a ticket to the observation deck on the Palm.
A digression about transport. The two main types in Dubai are the metro and taxis. For the metro you need to buy a card. A silver card costs 25 dirhams, 6 dirhams for the card itself, 19 dirhams for the account. It is sold in the metro and at the airport. You have to put the card to the turnstile at the entrance and exit. You can see how much your journey cost and how much money you have left. The metro is divided into zones. My furthest journey to Expo cost 9.5 drh. The metro is too crowded, during rush hour. Another inconvenience is the long kilometre-long passages, it’s difficult for the elderly. There are women’s carriages – men are not allowed in them, but our tourists go anyway. There are buses, inexpensive, and the same card works. But I haven’t found out where they stop and how often they run. On holiday, time is worth its weight in gold, so there is no alternative to taxis. The natives try the same trick with taxis – they put them in cars that are on duty outside hotels. They are not metered and cost twice as much to travel in them. Be vigilant – take the beige ones with coloured roofs. Landing 5 drh, at the airport and port 20 drh. From the airport I spent 117 drh, from my hotel in Dubai Marina to Al Maktoum 81 drh. The cost of a taxi is twice expensive.
Those who have a foreign card can call a taxi through apps, Careem and others. For calls you also need internet. I had neither, so sometimes I had to wait. So at the Zabil shopping centre, all the taxis that came were on call. I spent probably half an hour there until I found a free car.
I arrived at the Mercure Hotel after dark and decided not to go anywhere, to relax in the spa. The next day I went to the Palm.
So, my first full day in Dubai. I went with the ticket I bought to the observation deck where you can see the entire Palm from. The tower is 52 or 58 floors, I don’t remember exactly. The area is 360 degrees, enclosed by thick glass. The inconvenience is the queues, a few people get through and then you have to wait again. You get tired of the shouting impatient crowd. In total, I spent an hour on the climb and an hour at the top. But I’ll be honest – I didn’t regret it. You can see in detail villas on each “branch” of the Palm, high-rise swimming pools in apartment blocks. The greenery, artificially planted on the artificial island, pleases the eye and contrasts with the reinforced concrete mainland Dubai. This is a paradise for billionaires! And indeed it is paradise – azure sea, flowering gardens, ships sailing back and forth, beaches with fine, like powder, and white sand. Looking ahead, I will say that from this observation deck I got more pleasure than from Burj Khalifa – there you can see badly, although I visited this attraction in prime time. Even more I will say – this VJU is the most vivid impression from visiting Dubai.
Euribia
The next day I went to the port by taxi. At terminal three I saw crowds of passengers. They were boarding the Euribia. The queues were wild, and the clerks were handing out numbers. I never found out what they were. Taking advantage of the fact that everyone was standing in groups and I was alone, I brazenly got in the front, the whole registration process took 3 minutes. I was photographed, my passport was not taken away. My boarding card was waiting on the door handle. The ITS employee tried to take away my suitcase, saying that it was too big to carry by myself. I said that I carry all my belongings with me. He said that the port staff would take it away anyway, but the port staff, I knew from last time, didn’t give a shit.
And there I was in the cabin. It seemed like a mere cubicle compared to a huge hotel room. I should note that this single room cost 138 thousand roubles. If I had taken half of a double room, the price would have been 40 thousand roubles higher. This price included an alcohol package and internet. Everything we needed, however, was available, electric kettle, coffee, tea, TV, fridge with drinks, beach towel, safe. The TV has lots of channels, but the broadcast is unstable. My cabin Fantastica is also good because you can order breakfast in the room for a certain time, which I took advantage of in the days of early excursions.
Having laid out my things, I went to explore the ship. The amount of people just killed. I had the impression that I was at a major airport during the holiday season. The ship has a capacity of 6,000 passengers, which is clearly too much. The lifts, however, do a good job, I had to wait for a lift for a few minutes at the most. But in the cafeteria, where I went to have lunch, it was just pandemonium, always bumping into someone, it was impossible to get to the stations, it was difficult to find a place at a table even for me alone. There are people slurping, drinking, waiters scurrying around. To choose something to your liking is a quest, you just take something to satisfy your hunger and that’s it. The advantage of Euribia is that with a button on the table you can call the waiter – he will bring coffee, juice, wine, beer. But sometimes you have to wait for him for a long time, and he takes even longer to bring you what you ordered. Once I had already eaten everything, and only then did they bring me wine. In general, it is hardly possible to enjoy the food. Only in the evening at an a la carte restaurant is the situation different.
In the a la carte restaurant I went only for dinner, I was appointed for 21 hours, which suited me fine. Surprisingly, there were five singles at our table. Apparently, they had arranged it that way on purpose. Communication was very pleasant, all my travelling companions were born in the USSR, there were no disagreements, although they all came from different cities and countries. The cuisine was decent, we had salmon and escargot. The service is fast. The wine in the a la carte restaurant is better than in the bars. I drank Chardonnay all the time, our girls drank Prosecco. I had the Easy package, I was quite happy with it, and there is also the Easy + package, which contains branded drinks of well-known brands. The Premium package has expensive alcohol. Usually people with the same packages sit at the same table. However, there was a woman at our table without a prepaid bag. We poured her a drink and the waiters looked the other way.
Mores. Everyone is very friendly. However, I should add that I have visited touristy and expensive places other than Dey tu Dey. The metro is already less friendly – they push and pull ahead. It is understandable – working people are travelling after a hard day’s work. 90% are newcomers, mostly from South-East Asia and Muslim countries. India, Pakistan, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Egypt. There are a lot of young men. We are somehow used to the idea that cleaning is a woman’s profession. But there are men cleaning hotels and streets. You can see that they have to work hard. They eat in cheap street food places where I wouldn’t risk eating. Rumour has it they don’t live in the best conditions. It is these people who create a beautiful Arabian fairy tale every day. European tourists, or perhaps those who live there permanently, often wear overly revealing outfits. I’ve noticed the looks that young labourers throw at them. I think this gender bias can cause problems. It would be interesting to know what kind of wages they work for. In Bahrain, the guide told us that the minimum wage in the country is $4,500. However, a family cannot live on this amount, everything is so expensive. That is why the law forbids guest workers to bring their families. They send the money back home, and the family lives perfectly well on this amount.
More about manners. An Arab family came to our hotel – a husband and three wives. They were wearing black abayas, but with open faces. They wore sandals with sequins on their feet, with handbags on their shoulders – it looked very cheap. The girls were dark-skinned, beautiful. Long eyelashes, glued on or something? My husband is checking in at the reception. I still wonder how many rooms he took: 4 rooms and went to each in turn or two – for himself and for them? I also saw a couple on the beach. He was dressed normally, in jeans and a T-shirt. His woman is wearing a black hoodie and a niqab – only her eyes are visible. He flopped down on the sand and stared at his phone. She plopped down next to him and sat looking at the ground.
On the tour, we were told that Emirati women don’t wear niqabs, they are visiting Saudis. What’s underneath the black balaclava? “It’s interesting their technical progress, how do they get their women to walk around in knickers or not?” Someone told me that he had once seen an undershirt underneath a puffy abaya – all from Gucci and Balanciaga. An acquaintance who lived in the UAE for a long time told me that single men have the opportunity to relax, and in some hotels there are professional women, mostly European. So loyalty to ancestral covenants is eroding in Arab countries. I did not hear any calls for prayer on the streets of the cities I visited, unlike, for example, in Istanbul.
I did not want to leave. And lastly fed with a spoonful of tar, Red Wings – postponed departure for 9 hours. First for 4 hours, then another hour, another hour and so on all night. We were offered neither water nor food. At first I was shy, but then I followed the example of my compatriots and lay down on the floor, which was carpeted at the airport. I covered myself with my jacket on top. I even managed to fall asleep. And here the thundering call to prayer woke me up.
Sochi met with “beautiful” weather: + 3 and rain.
I will dream about Euribia for a long time, as well as sheikhs, gold jewellery, towers, belly dancing, desert ships and other oriental paraphernalia!
And the morning came – and Scheherazade finished her oriental fairytale… until the next journey, until the next fairy tale!
