Modern Babylon (Day 21 & 22)

That famous hotel, the Buj Al-Arab. Seven stars. 50 bucks just to walk in the door.

At breakfast, I notice our hotel is overrun with Euro-trash. Seriously, by their dress, it’s obvious that none of them caught on to the fact that the Ali G show is a joke.

I notice this because I sleep in, still feeling sick. I feel good enough to catch a cab and meet the group at the second of three school visits. I’m happy to hear I missed nothing at #1. After number two and three, we head over to the American consulate, where we are subjected to much security and then given another briefing about how they are now doing much better with issuing visas quickly to students.


1

I take a nap before dinner. We all meet down in the lobby at 8pm and decide to go to the Terrace restaurant within some big hotel complex. It is a huge, gourmet buffet. How could it be anything other than bigger and better in Dubai? Good time for a segue…

OBSERVATIONS:

Dubai. How to describe it? If there is one city you must truly see to believe, this is it. To even try to convey what it is like, I must resort to many fictional and semi-fictional pop-culture contrivances…


2

The Architecture: T.R.O.N. and Metropolis beget a bastard child on the edge of the Arabian desert. Included: Three palm-shaped island communities jutting into the Gulf (plus one shaped like a map of the world); A five-star hotel entirely underwater; Forty-five towers being built along the beach, all at once; A mall with a ski-slope inside; Foundations of the world’s tallest building. They won’t say how high, because they don’t want to give the competition (NYC) a target to beat.

The Social Atmosphere: Jabba the Hutt’s Star Wars hover-ship smashed up with a Sting video. Rather than bizarre races from distant stars, you have a mélange of races from all nations, each speaking their own brand of English, along with various native tongues. Regardless of national origin or social class, everyone knows how to dress (except the Euro-trash tourists in my hotel).


3

Transportation: European roundabouts and feeder roads on an American scale. Massive amounts of cars never having to stop at a light, yet going way out of their way to reach a destination in eyesight, all navigating through double-digit lanes. “Look Rusty, the Burj al-Arab.”

Prices: Predictably inflated, but somehow oddly justified. This is not the same as being trapped in an airport or movie theatre. Being gouged is the only sane thing happening here.

Religion: $ $ $ $ $
I don’t know how the mullahs across the Gulf can call America the Great Satan, the Corrupter of Islam, and keep a straight face, when Dubai is in their backyard.

Slavery: Legitimized by capitalism. Actually, more like indentured servitude. After all, it’s their choice to leave Bulgaria or the Philippines under iron-clad contract and come here to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, right? When the masses revolt, it will be a mess. Native Emiratis only compromise around 15% of the population, and they wear dresses. Spartans would cringe.

Future: my prediction is that the city-state of Dubai will leave fantastic ruins that will someday be confusingly excavated by either a post-apocalyptic human civilization or interstellar intelligent beings many, many millennia from now, wondering what the hell could have possibly been going on here to produce an amount of conspicuous construction not seen since the Pyramids, the Hanging Gardens, and the Colossus of Rhodes.


Back to who, what, when, and where. After dinner most of the other reps are catching a flight to Baku, Azerbyzan, so we say our goodbyes. Nasser, who lives in Dubai, is staying, so we hit the hotel bar for a drink. After this he takes me on a tour of all his favorite Dubai watering holes. At one, inside the Inter-Continental Hotel, we see three Filipina singers that make all previous Filipina singers look like crappy tribute bands. I am smitten. We end the night at a birthday bash at another hotel bar (as you can tell, lots of bars are located inside hotels). We stay with the Filipino theme. There are hundreds of them here. Nasser knows a lot of these guys through frequenting the spots where they work. He seems to have dated most of the females. Then to bed.


Nasser's pad in Dubai

Up in the morning for one last school visit that I set up myself. Dubai College – A Brit system secondary school. I get a student led tour, and have lunch with members of the faculty. I think I’ll end up getting some kids from here with a bit of diligent follow-up.

From the school I go to Nasser’s apartment to mooch off his wireless and do laundry for free. Thank God. I was wearing my last undershirt and pair of boxers. We both do catch-up work for several hours, until his internet connection mysteriously cuts out. It was time for another drink anyhow. This time we go to Wafi City, a huge mall, where I can first get wireless at a café and wrap up a few loose ends. We then navigate a warren of inter-connected restaurants and bars, finally settling on the first one we originally walked into. There is a great band and a favorable guy-girl ratio. I actually spark up a promising conversation with a dark-skinned beauty from Birmingham, England, but of course I have a 3:30am plane to catch and we have to leave. Nasser takes me back by my hotel to check out and then to the airport.