Defining Dubai

HOT OR very hot. That’s your only choice for bath water at the three-star Howard Johnson Hotel in Bur Dubai.

“You should have come last month,” laughs Lerma, the receptionist from Laguna. “Then you would have had a third option – scalding hot.” Ha, ha.

Scorching 41-degrees-Celsius heat out in the open. Still, locals and tourists alike make do like mad dogs and Englishmen – go out in the midday sun.

To the Deira Spice Souq with its scents of saffron and aniseed, cinnamon and turmeric, chillies of every kind, dried rose and lemon, hibiscus tea, and various herbs mix with that of incense whence waft the aroma of a thousand and one delights.

Tales of Arabian nights segue to the adjacent Gold Souq – the glitter of 18- to 24-k gold in all malleable forms of rings and earrings, bracelets and brooches, necklaces and anklets, tie pins and nose rings, even watches, dazzles. And that is an understatement.

All that glitters at the souq is not gold. Indeed, there are diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires and other precious gems too that equally sparkle. Making the place, arguably, the priciest piece of real estate per karat in the whole wide world.

The souqs aside, Old Dubai gets its full expression at the Dubai Museum housed in the Al Fahidi Fort, the oldest existing building in the emirate. The dhow (traditional boat) outside the museum serving as a living testament to an era all but totally obliterated by modernization.

Here, local antiquities and artefacts from African and Asian countries that traded with Dubai along with a life-size diorama trace the evolution of the emirate from its humble beginnings as a nomadic settlement to a fishing and pearl-diving village before the discovery of oil in 1966 that transformed the emirate into a bustling business center, earning the moniker “Hong Kong of the Middle East.”

Surpassed Hong Kong, Dubai has, if only for the Burj Khalifa – the world’s tallest skyscraper – which, at 828 meters, outclassed Hong Kong’s International Commerce Centre, the world’s fifth tallest at 484 meters.

It is this cityscape of skyscrapers and modern architectural wonders that Dubai has come to be defined as, starting with its international airport which in 2011 was acclaimed the “Best Airport in the Middle East” in the Airport Service Quality Awards by the Airports Council International.

With its design representative of a billowing sail, the Burj al Arab, the world’s most luxurious hotel, has come to be the image of Dubai to the world – miniaturized in plastic, glass, brass or resin for souvenirs, stencilled in T-shirts, postered and postcarded, woven in rugs, and crafted into refrigerator magnets.

Easily affordable to tourists finding access to the all-suite luxury Burj prohibitively pricey.

An even cheaper – aye, free – alternative: photo shoot by the gates leading to the Burj, which we did with delight.

A shopaholic’s heaven is Dubai with its 17 malls, the biggest of which is Dubai Mall near Burj Khalifa. The real deal here – from Panerai to Patek Philippe, Cartier to Rolex, onto Burberry, Facconable and Brioni and that worn by the devil herself,  Prada.

The “genuine fakes” like 200-dirham Blancpain or Mont Blanc relegated to some other lesser souqs.

For all its bounds to real-time 21^st century, Dubai remains bound with the old ways, adapted with modern conveniences.

Like the abras – old river boats – now motorized as water taxis plying the Dubai Creek. Clean, crystal clean waterway where corals cover the girders of piers.

Like the traditional wooden dhow, gaily lighted and decorated for dinner cruises, through old and new Dubai coming to light, literally.

And the piece de resistance of any sojourn to Dubai – the desert safari.

Brand new Toyota Land Cruisers tear through sand dunes, in tangled turns and twists, leaning dangerously left now, then suddenly swerving right in 45-angle glides only to rev up then soar over a ridge to land flat and bouncing off to a new dune. Pure adrenaline rush!

Calm down then with a short camel ride. Missed this one, arriving at the farm near dark, the dromedary done for the day.

But in time for the desert barbeque with exotic belly dancing show, not with an Arab but with a Russian though – and a blonde one at that. Aye, It can’t really get more exotic than that!

And all too suddenly, the three-day stay is over. The memories though will forever linger.

The souks and the dhow. The Burj – Al Arab and Khalifa. Definitely Dubai.

It is – to me – the desert though that is infinitely Dubai.

(Ties that Travel, SM City Clark packages tours with Meteor Philippines Inc., Pasig City and White Sands Tours and Travel, Dubai. Royal Brunei Airlines flies to Dubai from Bandar Seri Begawan)