United Arab Emirates: 9 Hours in Dubai

Date: 04 February 2014

At the end of January, I'd finished my time in Australia and it was time to fly back to Glasgow. The University booked my flights and since Qantas offered the cheapest airfare at the time, I was flown back to Glasgow via Dubai. Now, I'd never been to a Middle Eastern country before, though I imagined Dubai would be to the Middle East what Singapore is to Asia, that is all the uniqueness of a culturally different place with many of the capitalistic comforts of home. Oh, the fact that I'd be able to get around without knowing any Arabic was a major plus!

The towering Burj Khalifa - World's Tallest Building
at sunrise in Dubai

I'd looked up a lot of reviews of the city before I left, and spoke with a few friends who'd been before. I wanted to be sure that I didn't just pass through the UAE (like I passed through Japan on my way home from Singapore a few years back), but that I experienced something uniquely Dubai-an. My flight landed early in the morning and I had 9 hours until my departing flight back to Glasgow. I figured 9 hours would surely be enough for me to get through customs, leave the airport, find my way onto the train, and then over to the Burj Khalifa - the world's tallest building.

In fact, with such a short period of time in the city, I figured the only thing I'd comfortably have time to do that was unique to Dubai was to get to the Burj Khalifa, take a trip up to the observation deck, come back down and return to the airport with plenty of time to spare in case security at the airport took a while.

It was fairly easy getting out of the airport after having figure which signs meant "This way to the Arrival Hall" and then figuring out which customs line I should get in to took a little help from one of the attendants. But getting through proved no big feat, and with a US passport you can easily get out of the airport to see the city for the day. The public rail system in Dubai was super easy to use and navigate, once you had a map in front of you, but it was like no other train ride I'd been on before! It was still early in the morning and the foreign workers heading to offices and construction sites were packing into the train at every stop. The seats were lined up parallel to the sides of the trains with the rest of the interior saved for standing room. Across from me, however, the bench was full but at one stop a man from southern Asia boarded the train and just sat down on the laps of two men who were already sitting on the seat! The reactions of the two men were priceless: one was listening to his iPhone and kind of woke up, looked at the guy who'd parked half of his bum on the guy's lap, but went back to sleep. The other guy just nervously sat there, giving annoyed sideways glances at his unwelcome lap-sitter, but still never said anything! I tried imagining what the reaction in Chicago or New York would be. Surely not as passive!

I got off the train at the stop for the Burj Khalifa and headed down the very long walkway from the train station to the Dubai Mall, but it was only 9am and every single store was closed. Nothing really opens in Dubai until 10am but the mall was still open to walk around in, even if the escalators and lights weren't on. But I made my way down to the ground floor and out to Downtown Dubai, the main plaza and huge fountain/pool in front and at the base of the Burj Khalifa.

Dubai skyscrapers lining the Sheikh Zayed Road

The Burj Khalifa is the world's tallest structure, standing at 2,722 feet (over half a mile high!) and has 163 floors, of which the public can access the Observation Deck on the 124th floor (over a quarter-mile up)! Having previously purchased a ticket, I was able to get in early enough in the morning that there was no huge line-up in front of me. In fact, I had the elevator up to the Observation Deck to myself for a 60-second quick lift up those 124 floors. I was thinking the observation deck would be like the Sears Tower (Willis be damned!), all enclosed, especially being that high up, but the majority of viewing platforms were actually outside with little gaps in the 20-foot high windows that you could stick your camera out to get a clean picture. But I tell you, I get so nervous when I see people doing that, and I surely don't trust myself to not drop my phone or camera. But the views were amazing! to the north was the Persian Gulf with its beautiful blue waters. And in all other directions was desert. Miles and miles of desert. And it doesn't take much to kick up a lot of sand into the air, and even though it was barely noon, the mixture of haze and sand made viewing anything with any semblance of clarity near impossible.

With the observation deck getting more crowded with obnoxious tourists, I headed back down to the main floor, took a few more photos outside, and then hopped on the train back to the airport. I figure that the next time I'm there, I'll try and spend more time seeing the cultural sights, but doing the Burj Khalifa was enough for me for the day and I found a small lounge chair in the airport and had a little snooze before my flights to Glasgow took off.