United Arab Emirates

Arabian Dreams

April 27th, 2022 & May 5th, 2022

Table of Contents

A Day to Remember

Going to the United Arab Emirates took place after a very special day for us. Just 24 hours before, we stood across from each other in front of all our family and friends and agreed to be with each other forever. It was the greatest day of our lives, we were both on cloud nine.

And now, it was time for the first adventure as husband and wife: our honeymoon. Before we could get to that destination, however, we had a 20+ hours to spend on a layover in our 9th country, the UAE.

Flying Emirates

This was our first time flying Emirates. We’d heard great things about the hospitality and quality, so were excited for the experience.

It was a long, long flight, and we landed in Dubai at 5am. Sleep deprived and hungry, our lifeless corpses dragged themselves to the hotel transportation desk. Since we booked DubaiConnect, we were given a complimentary room and rides to and from the hotel. I have to say, it was impressive how fast the bus came. I think they run every 30 minutes or so.

Our hotel was standard, nothing special. Being a DubaiConnect hotel there had to be a ton of easy, standard rooms. It felt like there were thousands of them, and everything was empty, which made it feel a bit dystopian. Getting to our room meant going round an endless maze of rooms. All the with the same dull, 1970s color palette. But, hey, it was free.

We had about 20 hours in Dubai before the connecting flight to Mauritius, and we were going to make use of it. After a short rest, we called an Uber and headed into downtown.

Beeg Building

We were dropped off at the Palace Downtown, a beautiful 5 star hotel in the center of Dubai. The car drove through a giant, stone arch that revealed an intricate ceramic fountain surrounded by palm trees. This was too fancy for us. As we pulled up, hotel workers hustled over to the car to open our doors. “Checking in?” They asked. “Nope, just seeing the Burj” we replied and walked off. Not embarrassing at all.

Our online research to find the best photo spots of the Burj Khalifa had led us here. Palm trees lined a long, rectangular pond and in the distance, the Burj. To say it dominated the sky would be an understatement.

Built in 2009, the Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world at a staggering 2,722 ft tall. That’s over half a mile just straight up in the air, and it definitely looks like it.

Now we just had to get inside. We did a little walking over the Burj Khalifa Lake and into the Burj Khalifa Park (Yes, these are the actual names). It’s honestly beautiful. The Burj Lake was a crystal blue, the park a luscious green grass, both with modern, silver skyscrapers on the skyline. That’s when we started to notice something that was off. It was midday and we were the only people here. Yes, I’m sure Ramadan means a lot of people stay inside, but everybody? Something about it gave off dystopian vibes.

I walked up to some construction workers and asked them how to get to the Burj entrance. We did not communicate well and he pointed us off in some direction. We walked and walked, then turned around and walked and walked. It was 100 degrees here, and the desert heat was starting to take a toll.

Then finally, the Dubai Mall. We had made it. We bought our At the Top tickets and waited in the short line for the elevator. Around the queue was a timeline of pictures during its construction, which was actually pretty interesting. It had taken 5 years for them to build which seems like a feat in itself.

We stood, packed together, in a large elevator. The lights went out and displayed graphics on the building. The floor number was flying up until it finally slowed to floor 148. Our ears popped simultaneously as we stepped out. Here we were, on top of the tallest building in the world.

The scariest part is you can actually feel it slightly wobble as you walk around.

Fancy Mall

I don’t really care much for malls, they all seem pretty much the same to me and this was really not that different. Yeah there’s an aquarium, an ice rink, massive fountains, dinosaur skeletons, and 1200 shops but, it’s still just a mall. Apparently 84 million people visited here in 2019, making it the most visited mall in the world. I get why you’d come here if you liked this stuff.

We walked around the somewhat empty mall, past Gucci’s, Versace’s, and Louis Vuitton’s. Occasionally there would be a little light or water show that would kick off and attract a crowd of people.

And yeah, that’s really all that happened at the mall.

Time for Iftar

Ramadan fasting officially ends at sunset, which happened around 6pm. The days fast is broke with a large feast called Iftar. We hopped in an Uber and headed to Dubai Festival City Mall which would be the location of our Iftar restaurant. Walking in was one of those culture shock moments. The Islamic call to prayer was blaring over the speakers throughout the mall.

We walked past Five Guys, Cheesecake Factory, and a Texas Roadhouse, all with modern, western designs and filled to the brim with pasty white people. Then came our restaurant: Al-Fanar. Designed to look old with its stone exterior, old land rover parked outside, and lanterns lighting the entrance. A host led us to our seats. Unlike the restaurants we’d walked past, not only were the only white people here, we were the only ones not donned in traditional attire. Perfect, this would be a good meal.

We were handed a special Ramadan menu, 113AED ($30) for a 4 course feast. Our waitress started by bringing over a plate of dates. Traditionally, this is how Ramadan fasts are broken and Iftar begins. The Prophet Muhammad would break his fasts by eating 3 dates, and this tradition is carried on to day. Dates replenish sugar in the body after a long day of fasting. Never have eaten a date before, I dove straight in and threw it into my mouth, not realizing a pit was waiting to destroy my teeth. Not making that mistake again.

Emily and I looked across from each other with the same thought. 5 years ago we’d just met at a Chipotle at our college. Would we ever have guessed that in a couple years we’d be married and taking part in a Ramadan Feast in the UAE? Our lives had taken us down a crazy path. I had so much gratitude.

Anyways, after our dates, the meal officially began. We started with 2 types of salads (one made with Arugula and the other that was literally just chopped tomatoes and basil), chicken soup, samosas, cheese sticks, and meatballs. Our mains consisted of Chicken Machboos and, the national dish of the UAE, Harees.

The Chicken Machboos was great. Nicely charred, full boned chicken sat upon well seasoned rice. It was fragrant, flavorful, and with a hint of spice. Brilliant for breaking a fast.

And then came Harees, the National Dish. This was another traditional Ramadan meal that is eaten during Iftar. Harees is made by boiling wheat and mixing it with meat over a long period of time. The result is a concrete like substance that tastes like thick meaty hummus. Yeah it wasn’t for us, and we had a bowl that could feed a village. However, we were in the presence of locals and had to represent the Western world well, so I forced it all down with a smile on my face.

And thus our 20 hours was coming to an end. We headed back to our dystopian hotel and hopped in a shuttle to the airport. Ahead of us was an 8 hour flight to Mauritius where we’d be spending the next week of our lives. You can continue on with our trip here. But we’d be back in Dubai, another 20 hour layover was in our near future.

WE’RE BACK BABY

7 days later, we were back. We’d had the best week of our lives in Mauritius, and now another 20 hour long layover awaited in Dubai. On our first layover, we explored the city by ourselves. This time, we had something a little different planned.

Siri. Play ‘Arabian Desert Music’

We checked in to the same, dystopian hotel as last time, navigated the maze of empty rooms and made it to our room.

Outside the hotel awaited our guide for the day. An expat from Bangladesh, he had spent more than 20 years in Dubai and seen it grow into the crazy, modern city it is today. Joining us in our group was 2 other English couples, an older one and a younger couple from Liverpool. The banter with the scousers was funny.

An hour drive later we were at Al Madam Desert. We arrived at a compound with an absolute enormous UAE flag in the center. This was obviously a tourist trap, but it’s okay, we were tourists today. We were taken out into the desert and presented head scarfs and camels. I looked at Emily and sighed. My weakness is I am physically unable to not feel bad for animals forced into labor. Our guide comforted us by saying that camels are treated like royalty in the UAE and that they are all taken care of, better than a lot of people are. I guess that’s comforting?

Anyway the camel went to its knees, we hopped on, it stood up, and we walked around the dunes. Cool I guess.

In all seriousness, it was quite an interesting experience. How many people can say they have ridden a camel in the Arabian Desert?

Next up was ATV’s. We were placed in a large tent covered from floor to ceiling in colorful, persian rugs. A man presented basic ATV safety rules, gave us helmets, and set us up with an ATV. Emily and I shared one. The guide set off into the dunes and we followed like a pack of wolves.

Fortunatley, we had positioned ourselves right behind the guide meaning there wouldn’t be anyone in front to slow us down. As the guide sped ahead, we were given free reign to go as fast as we could with no limitation. Frequently, I’d turn around and see the rest of the group were far behind as someone didn’t want to go fast and everyone else would be stuck behind them. Not us though, I had my foot all the way down as I drifted over dunes and sped down hills. Emily’s screams of enjoyment and laughter deafened me.

After some time we were led up the biggest dune around and parked our ATVs at the top. One of the guides whipped out a board, and people started sandboarding down the dune. Not one person made it all the way to the bottom without falling. With a big head, I grabbed the board, fully confident I’d make it down. I made it halfway and went flying off. One of the guides tried to persuade Emily to try boarding. “No no no, I won’t be good” Emily replied, her face reddening with embarassment. A couple more people unsuccesfully made it down before more people tried to encourage Emily to go down. Finally she agreed, grabbed the board, and made it all the way down without falling, and turned around with a massive smile. Everyone watching clapped.

As the sun began to set over the vast, Arabian dunes. We climbed back onto our ATV and drove back to Camp Tourist. There would be one last thing to do today, a massive ‘Arabian’ BBQ. We got back into the car with our guide and drove for, what seemed a long time, through back roads in the desert. By this time it was dark, and the Scouse couple began shooting us looks of concern.

Eventually, we made our way to a castle-type enclosure. We were welcomed with rose water and escorted into a compound. Inside was a large open area surrounded by small lights and tents. A large open grill cooking a variety of meats sat near the middle. There were already a lot of people here. It seemed like all tour groups for the day had congregated.

We sat on decorative pillows in a small tent in the upper right corner. Again, everything was covered in Persian rugs. A large hookah sat on the table.

Tonight was a buffet. In large, metal containers were pita bread, rice, and roasted vegetables. At the grill, large, bearded Arabian asked what meat we wanted. Lamb, beef, chicken, I got it all. It was a solid meal.

A man walked over with smoldering charcoals and asked if we were using the hookah. We said yes and he dropped a large, hot charcoal on the top. The open area at the bottom immediately turned to smoke as I inhaled through one of the multiple pipes.

The End of our Honeymoon

We traveled back in darkness to our hotel, where we packed our bags, and caught a shuttle back to the airport.

Thus came to an end of a memorable honeymoon. A week which would set off the beginning of the rest of our lives as husband and wife. We had visited two ‘exotic’ cultures, so different to anything we knew at home. It was exciting, it was fun, but more importantly, it was ‘us’. The experiences we had in the UAE and Mauritius set off so many gears in our heads, so many potential places for travel and exploration. The ‘beginning of the rest of our lives’ is so commonly said about marriage, but this truly felt like the beginning of our adventures.