Dubai

When the name “Dubai” is mentioned, the first thing that comes to mind for many people is the modern, towering, exotic architecture that is now symbolic of the city. I knew I had to be at the airport at 3:00 this afternoon to catch my flight to Ethiopia, but I couldn't leave Dubai without seeing some of the famous architecture first-hand.

One thing I really respect about the government of Dubai is that rather than squander their income from oil on wine, women, and song, as many other Middle Eastern ruling families have done, they've used the money to build a highly developed society. Since the 1960's the ruiling sheiks have focused on making the emirate free from it's economic dependance on oil. The money from oil has been spent partly on building the local infrastructure, but it also has been funneled into the tourism industry. Today income from oil and gas reserves makes up only 6% of Dubai's GDP. Income from tourism accounts for 74%.

In the 1990's Shiek Mohammed bin Rashied al-Maktoum decided that if the city was to become a world-class tourist destination, it needed an iconic symbol - an “Eiffel Tower” of Dubai. His dream was realized with the construction of the Burj al-Arab. The Burj al-Arab is an ultra-luxurious hotel that sits on a man made island facing the Persian Gulf and is shaped like the sail of an Emirati dhow ship. It is the world's tallest hotel and also the world's only self-proclaimed seven-star property. I left my room in the Bur Dubai neighborhood this morning and took a bus ten miles East along the coast to the location of the Burj al-Arab. Unfortnately resevations for a room or a meal are required to enter and I didn't have one for either, but I came for the view of the outside and I was happy with what I got. After getting off the bus I walked a few minutes towards the coast until I came to the hotel's security gate. That location was great a few pictures, but I had to wander a bit further until I had a good view of the building in profile. As I was walking back to the bus stop a helicopter approached overhead and lowered down onto the hotel's landing pad. I can only imagine what kind of guest merits that kind of transportation to the Burj. Watching that chopper fly in today might be the closest I ever get to finding out.The second item on my adgenda was the Burj Dubai, which is currently under construction but is already hundreds of feet taller than the next tallest building in the world. The Burj Dubai is not only the tallest building in the world, but it is also the tallest structure ever created by man - a distinction previously held by a telecommunications mast in Poland that collapsed in the 1970's. I took a cab halfway around the massive Burj Dubai development before hopping out to take a few pictures. I've read a lot about the Burj Dubai online and I've seen a lot of pictures, but actually standing only a few hundred feet away from the building and observing every detail about it was one of those “I can't believe I'm really here” moments.New developments are everywhere in Dubai, but the largest, most expensive, most extravagant skyscrapers are almost exclusively located along the eight-lane-wide Shiek Zayed Road. I had intended to take a quick look at the Burj al-Arab and the Burj Dubai, then to walk for a couple of hours down Shiek Zayed, but transportation between the two buildings ended up taking a lot longer than I thought it would, and I really only had time for one more stop before I had to call it a day. I took a quick cab ride to the Emirates Towers, two skyscrapers similar in design which together comprise one of the most iconic sights of the city. I didn't have much time at the towers, but I wandered around the perimiter of the buildings to snap a few pictures and I also walked through the lavish shopping mall inside.The number of cranes crowding the skyline of Dubai is only outnumbered by the number of advertisements seeking tenants to fill the buildings they are constructing, and I passed by one giant advertisement in the Emirates Towers' Boulevard Mall. A large model had been made of an entire city of skyscrapers planned for Dubai, and red signs marked “Sold” showed which properties were no longer available for purchase.Dubai has been fun and I feel like I've seen quite a bit considering I only had a day and a half to work with. I think that most visitors to Dubai come for the shopping, the theme parks, and the lavish accomodations, but none of those things really appeal to me. I've experienced most of what I want to experience about the city, but if a typical visit means a world-class hotel and a bank-account-busting shopping spree, then my visit has been anything but typical. If I'm passing through the region again sometime and I have a layover in Dubai, maybe then I'll find the time for a slightly more traditional visit.

Ethiopia Disclaimer

From July 7th to July 14th I'll be in Ethiopia and probably won't have access to the internet. I'll post blog updates whenever I can, hopefully before the 14th. Thanks for reading.

Dune Bashing

Desert scenery is one of the most iconic sights of the Arab world, and what better way is there to appreciate it than by rallying a Land Cruiser over the sides of giant red sand dunes? While in Kathmandu last week I e-mailed a desert safari agency in Dubai and booked a "Dune Bashing" tour, one serious can't-miss activity for any visitor to the United Arab Emirates.

After arriving this morning from Nepal and checking into another free four-star hotel room compliments of American Express, I walked to the historical center of Dubai, which sits along Dubai Creek near the coast of the Persian Gulf. The Bastakiya Quarter in Dubai is a maze of narrow alleyways and late 19th-century Middle Eastern architecture. Originally the area was home to many of the wealthy Persian traders in Dubai, but today it houses several distinctive art galleries and one tasty cafe.I stopped in at "Basta Art Cafe" for a an early lunch. The name "Art Cafe" is well deserved at that place. I ordered the "Jacket Potatoes" and got a giant, soft, baked potato with chunks of chicken and raisins smothered in a mild honey mustard sauce. I large salad came with it and I also ordered the Basta Cocktail (non-alcoholic, of course), a smooth green mixture of lime juice and sharp mint flavoring. After the meal I wandered through several of the galleries in the Bastakiya Quarter. I visited "Sahory Gate", which specializes in Arabic Calligraphy, "Archiglass Display", which featured colorful abstract creations made completely of glass, and "XVA", a modern art gallery with giant painted canvases selling for over $60,000.My next stop was at the nearby Dubai Museum. The entrance to the museum is housed inside the 19th century mud walls of Old Dubai, but just inside the gate the museum becomes a modern, underground, air-conditioned facility just as suddenly as Old Dubai became a world-renown cosmopolitan metropolis. Several exhibits described the heritage of Dubai, from it's beginnings as a small traders village to it's modern, jaw-dropping development sparked by the discovery of oil in the area. Before visiting the museum I had no idea that Dubai started out as a regional center for the pearl diving industry. Pearl diving was the reason Dubai existed in the 19th century, and the century-old diving equipment and giant wooden boat inside the museum illustrated that well.

Later this afternoon I wandered through a few of Dubai's famous souqs. A souq is an outdoor marketplace similar to a Turkish bazaar. At Dubai's spice souq several local traders pulled me into their shops, excited to introduce me to their fresh vanilla beans, Iranian saffron, and aromatic frankincense. One merchant told me proudly that he originally was from Iran, then asked me where I'm from... "I'm from America." The man smiled and grasped my hand, shaking it slowly. He spoke to me solemnly... "Iranian, American people are old, old friends."In an effort to jam as much of historical Dubai as possible into my one day of sight-seeing in the area, I finished up with quick, self-guided tours of Dubai's Al-Ahmadiya School and Heritage House. The Al-Ahmadiya was the first semi-formal school in Dubai. Before the school existed local children were taught by a local Al-Muttawa, an older man with a wealth of knowledge of writing, arithmetic, and the Quran. The Heritage House depicts the typical household as it existed decades ago in Dubai. The house was once owned by wealthy merchants, but has since been restored by the government and converted to a museum. Both the house and the school consisted of several rooms opening into a large, central courtyard.Back at the "Le Meridian Dar Al Sondos Hotel" an Indian driver named Shajie met me in the lobby and we headed off in a Land Cruiser for a night of dune bashing. On the way we stopped at another hotel to pick up a family of five who had also booked the trip for the evening. Shajie flipped on the radio and Indian pop music blasted from the speakers. The family of five, who came to Dubai from their home in Karachi, Pakistan, instantly recognized the song and started singing along with Shajie. I can't say that I knew any of words myself... or that I understood any of the words for that matter.

Fifty miles South of Dubai we turned off the road with a small caravan of Land Cruisers and Shajie showed us what he really could do behind the wheel. The man's driving abilities would have made Cruella de'Vil proud. I braced myself with my feet and the Pakistani kids shrieked in the back seat as Shajie sped at sharp angles along the edges of the dunes, rallied over sandy peaks, bottomed out, hit the chassis of the car several times against the sand, and generally abused the vehicle in a way reminiscent of my high school days with the Astro Van.Dune bashing alone would have been well worth the time and money I invested in the evening, but it turned out that the tour also included a huge Arabic barbecue buffet and a night of entertainment in the middle of the desert. I paid a few extra dirhams to do some rallying of my own on an ATV. Later I chowed down on pita bread with hummus, barbecued beef , pasta, lentils, beans, and several other dishes as a belly dancer performed for the small crowd. The lady moved her hips, back, belly, and shoulders in ways that I didn't know were physically possible, then she pulled several individuals from the crowd and encouraged them to imitate her.Before piling into the Land Cruiser for the ride back to Dubai, I gave my camera to the Pakistani man and had my picture taken with the belly dancer. As I walked back to the car I pulled the photo up on the screen of the camera and showed it to Shajie. Shajie nodded approvingly as if posing with the dancer were a great accomplishment, "Ohhhh... Well done sir."

Bodhnath Stupa

I really did make every minute count at the Gokarna Resort today. After wrapping myself in the white down comforter on my king-size bed and laying there until 8:00 this morning, I rolled out, pulled on some shorts, and headed for the gym. I finally got my first real workout since leaving Salt Lake five weeks ago. Afterwards I stood for a half-hour in the steaming hot shower in my bathroom, then went to the hotel's dining room for a complimentary breakfast buffet. I ate two full plates of spicy indian potatoes with chapatti along with baked beans and sausage, and on top of that I put down a two-egg omelet, two fried eggs, two large muffins and a croissaint, and five glasses of sweet pineapple juice. With my belly full I headed for a dip in the pool. While heading back to my room for one last hot shower and a nap I stopped by the reception desk to confirm that check-out time was really at 12:00, then I requested a wake-up call for 11:45.

This afternoon I paid a Nepali guide to take me to the nearby Vhairabnath Temple, which sits on the Bagmati River near the Gokarna Golf Course. I don't know a whole lot about golf, but as my guide walked me across the course to the temple I could tell that it was a pretty good one. If I knew how to golf then that would have been a fun thing to do today, but since I don't I figured I would have just wasted my time shanking the ball into the trees over and over. Years from now, when I come back to Kathmandu, maybe I'll have learned how to golf and I can stay at the Gokarna and play a round or two.The Vhairabnath Temple was fun because it was something to do, but like I said before, I've seen so many Buddhist and Hindu temples during the past few weeks that the novelty has worn off a bit. The temple had a few small Hindu shrines, a few of which had depictions of the famous Hindu elephant-god Ganesh. There was also a ghat that ran into the tiny Bagmati River and a few Hindu pilgrims bathing down below.The Gokarna Resort arranges free transportation to the airport for all it's guests, but since I still had several hours before my flight, I asked them to drop me off at the nearby Bodhnath Stupa instead. Bodhnath is another place that I visited in 2007 but didn't quite feel like I had enough time at. Many of the Tibetan exiles in Kathmandu live near Bodhnath Stupa, and the surrounding area is distinctly Tibetan and distinctly Buddhist. I paid more attention today than I did the last time I visited and I noticed several typical elements of Tibetan Buddhist culture besides just the prayer flags and prayer wheels. I wandered through a couple of monasteries surrounding the stupa and saw silver bowls of holy water, ritual cakes made of colored butter, colorful decorative cloths hanging from the ceiling, and brightly painted images of legendary Buddhist religious figures. Also, as I walked along the lower edges of the stupa I passed by monks and nuns performing prostrations as well as one monk who was studying ancient Buddhist texts.Asia has been a blast but I'm ready to move on. Myanmar felt completely mind-blowing to me. Bhutan's culture was vaguely familiar since I had already been to Nepal. Nepal has been amazing and I've been dying to come back since last year, but I feel like I've adequately covered it for now. I'm ready for something completely different. Tonight I'm flying to Dubai and after a couple of days there I'll spend five weeks in Africa. Africa should feel completely foreign to me, and that's exactly what I want right now. I'm ready for the remaining six weeks of my trip to be completely out-of-control.

Mountain Biking the Kathmandu Valley

This morning I ate a couple of tasty pastries from Thamel's "Hot Bread" bakery, then headed off on a mountain bike for a ride along the North edge of the Kathmandu Valley. It's funny how mountain biking is a little bit different everywhere. In Utah "mountain biking" usually means finding trails in the mountains and biking down them. When I went mountain biking in Peru in 2006, my guide, Juan, loaded our bikes onto the top of a filthy bus, and after a six-hour ride up one side of the Andes mountains we pulled the bikes off and hauled down a narrow dirt road through tiny Peruvian villages. In Nepal it seems that every mountain in the country that's not covered with snow is terraced with rice patties. Naturally mountain biking in Nepal involves navigating tiny paths between the flooded rice fields

My Nepali guide, Sunila, led me out of Thamel and we headed up a bumpy road that happened to pass by Nagarjun Forest, where I spent a day hiking in 2007. After only twenty or thirty minutes of biking the whole Kathmandu Valley was spread out below us. As I looked out over the valley I could see rice fields in every direction and the classic Kathmandu scenery of red-brick-and-concrete buildings with blue sillouettes of mountains as a backdrop. Sunila led me off the road onto a dirt trail and within minutes we were biking along the edges of bright green rice patties..Half the fun of the ride was people-watching as I cruised along the fields. Nepali women in the bright red clothing typical of local Hindus carried large woven baskets with them as they tended the rice. In the mean time the men shaped the terrain into new fields and plowed existing fields using teams of water buffalo. Several times we passed by Nepali kids walking to or from school (I couldn't quite figure out which way they were going). All of them wore their school uniforms of light green shirts, dark pants or a skirt, and a necktie.After traversing several miles along the edge of the valley we popped back out onto a paved road and Sunila led me to Budhanilkantha, a local Hindu temple. Budhanikantha was highly recommended in my Lonely Planet book, but to me there really wasn't a whole lot to see there. The temple is centered around a small pond with a stone image of the Hindu deity Vishnu lying in the middle. Hindu pilgrims come to Budhanikantha to gather and pray in front of the Vishnu statue. Maybe I'm not a very sophisticated traveler or maybe I just didn't appreciate the place for what it is, but I really didn't see what was supposed to be so impressive. The place was definitely worth stopping by, but I'm glad I didn't go out of my way to get there. Originally I considered paying for a cab to take me to Budhanikantha and back, but for only a few dollars more I got a mountain bike and a guide for the day instead. That option turned out to be a whole lot better.Before leaving on the epic trip I figured that I'd have to get my hair cut a time or two while I'd be gone. There's no better place to take care of that than in a developing country, where prices are cheap and the service is good. I dropped by a local beauty parlor this afternoon and let a Nepali barber trim me up. First came the typical work with the clippers, but the guy also brought out an old-school barber's razor to trim around my ears and neck-line and then massaged my scalp afterwards. I was apprehensive at first because I didn't want to end up looking like Vanilla Ice on a bad-hair day, but the haircut is the best I've had since my visit with Ron the barber at the BYU barbershop in 2005, and it cost less than three dollars. I doubt that Ron would give me the same treatment for that price.

I had an early dinner at a Tibetan restaurant in Thamel called "Old Tashi Deleg". I ordered "Tingmo", which is a Tibetan dish of a giant bowl of spicy curry with potatoes and pork, and three soft, steamed bread rolls on the side. There are some really great restaurants in Thamel. Dinner tonight was one of the best meals I've had weeks and it was as authentic as Tibetan food comes.

Tonight I rode a local bus packed with Nepalis about twenty miles East of Kathmandu and got off at the "Le Meridian Gokarna Forest Resort", where I had booked a room for the night. The room is one of four free nights that I got for signing up for an American Express card back home, and I'm definitely not disappointed with the place. The Gokarna is a four-star hotel with an accompanying 470 acre Gleneagles golf course. Only a few hours after leaving my ten-dollar room in Thamel the staff at Gokarna welcomed me like a celebrity and quickly ushered me to my massive room with a king-size bed and complimentary slippers. It's refreshing to stay in a nice place once in a while. Cheap rooms are alright and I could stay in one every night of the trip if I had to, but spending just one night in a really lavish place recharges me, so to speak, and just makes it easier to travel for the next little while. Besides that, it's something to really look forward to as well.Checkout time is 12:00 tomorrow and I'm going to use every last minute that I have at the Gokarna. I think that I'll eat about half the food that the hotel has prepared as breakfast for it’s guests, then I'll spend an hour in the pool, an hour in the gym, then another hour in the hot-tub. If I've only got a handful of nights in lavish places then I've got to make my time at the Gokarna really count.

Cross-Country Bus Ride

Dealing with the sub-standard infrastructure that exists in developing countries is either a novelty or an inconvenience, depending on how you look at it. I really didn't mind riding on the roof-top of a Nepali bus the other day, that was more of a novelty. When it takes nine hours to travel fifty miles though, that's what I call an inconvenience.

I left the Island Jungle Resort on a row-boat at 7:30 this morning. After crossing the river, riding for an hour on the back of a motor-bike to get to the nearest city, then waiting another hour for a bus to Kathmandu, I only had six more hours ahead of me before my trip would be complete. I passed the time by completing my first ever Sudoku puzzle. The puzzle was a little tough, but the real challenge was dealing with a ride bumpy enough to put Lagoon to shame and more car exhaust than Al Gore can write a book about. I also found time to wear out another twenty songs on my iPod. After a journey long enough to fly from New York to London, the bus finally pulled up next to a lazy cow lying in a heap of garbage in the middle of chaotic Kathmandu.

I have a new favorite hotel in Kathmandu. My criteria for a decent place isn't very demanding. It has to have electricity at least most of the time, it has to have luke-warm water or better, my room has to be clean enough to bear it for a night, and anything over fifteen dollars is out of my price range. The Northfield Hotel in Kathmandu's tourist-ghetto of Thamel fits all the criteria and more. After running the shower for about ten minutes, the water actually heats up enough to fog up the mirror! I let the hot water stream over me for a half-hour this afternoon until I was satisfied that the scum that accumulated on me during the bus ride had finally washed away.

Later tonight I dropped by Thamel's "Roadhouse Cafe" for a tasty meal. For the cost of a Little Caesar's "Hot-and-Ready" back home, I got the greatest thin-crust Hawaiian pizza I've ever eaten. I think I can take back everything I said about Nepali people not knowing how to fix Western food; the pizza tonight easily beat out the best stuff I've had in the US. Burning an entire day riding in a rickety Nepali bus is unfortunate, but the hot shower and tasty pizza tonight just about made up for it.

Rhino Sighting

After a quick breakfast of toast and scrambled eggs this morning, I headed off on an elephant to spot some more wildlife in the Chitwan jungle. I probably give up too easily when it comes to getting what I want while traveling. Only a few minutes into the ride today I figured that I wouldn't see any rhinos and I began to console myself. I convinced myself that the Chitwan trip was worthwhile even without a rhino sighting (which it was, but that's no excuse to give up on spotting a rhino). After passing by a few more spotted deer and some monkeys, I leaned back in the seat on top of the elephant and just enjoyed the ride. The elephant bobbed slowly up and down as it walked, passing through vine covered trees, tall grasses, and thick jungle growth. About an hour went by. Suddenly the Nepali elephant driver leaned back and called to me in a hurried whisper, “Rhino! Rhino! Rhino!”

To my left through the trees was a small muddy watering hole, and in the middle of the murky water sat a large grey rhino. The driver turned the elephant slowly and we gradually approached the beast. My view was obstructed by the trees, but as we got closer I could clearly see the rhino through the branches and leaves. I was surprised how long the animal held it's ground. The elephant inched closer and we came to within only twenty or thirty feet of the watering hole. The rhino grew apprehensive. Finally the animal stood up, trudged out of the watering hole, and rumbled off into the jungle.I have to say that I've been very lucky this entire trip. On the Base Camp trek I had prepared myself to see nothing but fog and the dirt trail ahead of me, but the weather turned out to be incredible, especially for the monsoon season. Then earlier today I accepted the fact that I might not see a rhino in Chitwan. I even told myself that it was alright because the Everest trek worked out so well and to me that was the most important of the two trips. Seeing Everest and a wild rhino within only a few days of each other is a big treat. I've been incredibly lucky.

Later this morning I went on a jungle walk with two Nepali men. In my Lonely Planet book one of the writers described an encounter with a wild tiger in Chitwan National Park. Tiger sightings are very rare in Chitwan, not to mention tiger encounters. Apparently while this writer was visiting Chitwan he came across a tiger and two cubs while walking through the jungle. The tiger became defensive and actually attacked the group of people on the jungle walk. I was secretly hoping that something similar, but less dangerous, would happen to the three of us. Just a sighting would have been great, but any kind of encounter would have made an incredible story. Unfortunately our only encounter was with some tiger tracks, but the walk was still worth while.I watched the elephant bathing again today. Today there weren't any other visitors at the resort except for myself, so unfortunately there was nobody to enjoy the experience with, but it was fun anyway. As I got on one of the elephants I felt it's rough, wet, wrinkled skin under my fingers and brushed my hand across it's lumpy head and it's coarse, black hairs. I rode bare-back again and just enjoyed the novelty of being on an elephant - a novelty that is next to impossible in the United States.As the sun set this evening I took another two-hour elephant ride through the jungle. I was hoping to spot another rhino, but instead saw a whole lot of monkeys and a few more spotted deer. It's alright that I didn't spot anything more this afternoon, I'm very satisfied that I saw just one rhino this morning. I told myself before I came to Chitwan that if I saw just one wild rhino then I'd be happy. I saw one, so I am happy. Besides that, I'm sure that I'll see plenty more during the four weeks that I'll be traveling through Sub-Saharan Africa.