DUBAI (UNITED ARAB EMIRATES) – ALL  SHOW,  NO SOUL

At some point in the future  thousands of years from now when its oil runs out, as archeologists are sifting through the dunes of the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) and Dubai particularly, I am sure they will be very puzzled.  Yet they are sure to arrive at some interesting conclusions.

An indoor ski resort in the middle of the desert?  How will that be interpreted?  The planet’s finest set of vanity towers, crows nests without peer and nothing natural to look at.  High level bird cages for the anointed.  An effete paradise.  Excess without purpose but to drive more traffic.  A conspicuous consumption oasis that makes the Parisian Champs-Elysses Boulevard look like a row of dollar stores.  All show, and no soul.

There are no beggars here.  No obvious hustlers or panhandlers.  No cripples, and no local out of wedlock pregnant women.  Foreign women “of child” are sent home rapidly.  To remain here, one must have a job and be self sustaining.  It is very clean and orderly and modern.  Almost antiseptic.  Is there an old city souq here not catering to the jet set?

In fairness, the men of Dubai (one rarely gets to encounter a Dubai female citizen who is not covered head to toe) are immaculately dressed and have impeccable manners.  They are also highly educated and multi-lingual.  Most are quite helpful at all times, in the same dispassionate way that a Swiss railroad clerk hopes you make your train on time.  An obvious sense of duty and efficiency prevails.  But always with a sense of removal, lacking that spark of possibility and engagement travelers live for.

I liken it to an ice sheet capping a river in winter.  The two elements are co-dependent, and they maintain constant contact, but really without mixing.  That was my experience with Dubai’s locals.  Its so-called “guest workers” are an entirely different story all together.

United Arab Emirates (of which Dubai is a major portion, along with Abu Dhabi) has a population of approximately ten million.  Of that number, one million are local citizens, one million are European ex-pats or opportunity contractors, and the remainder are …  well, the Indians and Pakistanis at least have some workplace status, since they generally are the shopkeepers and restauranteers and merchants that keep Dubai running.

The others -- from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Malaysia, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, China, Korea and Eastern Europe (with the majority coming from the Philippines) – are serfs living in crowded dorms, riding the worker buses, eating in cafeterias, and necessarily dropping by Western Union regularly to send wages home to their families.

These are the people who man the shops, run the dining counters, change the hotel linens, clean the toilets, serve as maids, pump gas, and otherwise engage in work the Dubai citizenry find disdainful.  Don’t get me wrong – these immigrant workers are very happy to have these jobs.  However, there is next to zero observable interplay between the two.  The Emirate men and women both treat these folk like dirt.  They are dispensable. One is the ice, the other a hidden river providing support and flowing silently underneath.

It is rumored that citizens of Dubai – with an average household income somewhere in the range of $200,000 US dollars – do not really work.  They collect government benefits.  They play at business.  They offer financial services.  Oil revenues increasingly put effort (and especially labor) in their rear view windows.

It is factual to say that they can get drunk in public, hit you with their car, paralyze or kill you, and usually completely avoid the consequences.  If a pass-through western visitor or especially one of the guest workers did the same, they would have little recourse to western style rights and would be certain to await trial for a long time before finally spending a lengthy stint in prison.

Guest workers have their passports withheld almost as soon as they enter the country.  This act alone puts them at a serious disadvantage.  Reported abuses take place regularly, from restrictions on movement, excessive work hours, difficult conditions, unwanted sexual advances, and regular failure to pay wages.  Human trafficking in Dubai extends to both coerced and deception initiated prostitution, paying off debt bondage (up to two years of wages just for the right to work in Dubai), and oddly enough -- forced labor of camel jockeys.

To their credit, Emirate legal authorities have made some effort to control prostitution and sexual slavery in recent months.  However, they have done very little about work conditions or wage abuses, other than institute an electronic system of wage payment that can be monitored (but which is not yet anywhere close to being universal).

Dubai is in fact the third highest prostitution capitol in the world, after Amsterdam and Bangkok.  Saudi and other Arab men regularly take puddle jumper flights across the Persian Gulf to participate in sex junkets and long weekends of western style debauchery, including easy access to liquor.

Speaking of which: it is not difficult at all to get a drink in Islamic Dubai.  But the pricing is quite dear.  A beer costs the visitor a minimum of $10 US. Meals for some reason are quite reasonable.

The transport system in Dubai is outstanding.  An efficient elevated light rail system will comfortably take passengers from Dubai International Airport at the east end of town, to the Jumeirah Towers at the west end in a cool 45 minutes.  The metro access stops are all futuristic in design, air conditioned, and packed with amenities.  It is simply too hot to walk outside most of the year to span the 1.5 to 2.5 mile intervals between Metro stops.  Taxis (which are reasonably priced) are necessary to bridge the gap.

Two points of interest in Dubai evoked my curiosity enough to lay over here for three days on my way to Nepal.  Those were the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, and the artificially created sandspit islands of the Palm Jumeirah.  I had also hoped to visit the adjacent attraction of the Burj al Arab – a sailboat shaped waterfront skyscraper, but was not allowed even minimal access without having expensive dinner reservations made in advance.

The Burj Kahifa – modestly described by Dubai locals as “the cutting edge of architecture, design, art, engineering, construction, and imagination” – is an impressive project any way you choose to look at it.  This hypodermic needle look-alike dwarfs buildings normally called skyscrapers near its base, and can be seen from 95 kilometers away.

Some fun facts: It is 829 meters high.  Its observation deck on the 124^th floor is the second highest exterior viewing platform in the world.  The tower has 2909 steps between the ground floor, and the 160^th floor.  It has 28,261 protectively glazed glass panels designed to protect against the extreme heat (122 degrees Fahrenheit) of the Arabian summers.  These windows take 3 to 4 months for 36 workers to clean. Its foundation has 192 piers, driven 50 meters through sand to bedrock.  It has 1044 residential apartments.  The Burj Khalifa has 57 elevators.  And it consumes the energy equal of 29 million pounds of ice daily to cool the massive complex.

The view from the top is incredible.  If there was only something green to look at!  What does appear from the 360 degree perspective is a 900 foot fountain at the base (world’s largest) looking like a lily pad … huge lagoons … the turquoise Arabian Sea …endless desert and odd corkscrew mirages, even from this height … the Dubai Mall at its base, looking like a postage stamp … various skyscrapers like the Burj al Arab dotting the periphery … and the palm shaped islets of the Palm Jumeirah.

I remember watching construction films of this remarkable construct on the Discovery Channel.  It started in 2001 with barges employing huge scoops, sucking up bottom sand and redistributing the slurry (obviously no environmental impact studies were required here) via massive nozzles into a series of arced palm frond like artificial islets.

These individual sandspits were connected to a central trunk with a huge vehicular parkway directed back to the mainland.  At its crown is the massive and luxuriant Atlantis Hotel, taken straight from Las Vegas playbook in both content and character.  It connects to the mainland by both road and a 5 kilometer monorail.

In addition to ocean water circulation and marine life environmental problems, Palm Jumeirah ran into financial difficulties as its builders underestimated costs of construction from 2001 on, and the Persian Gulf economy slowed markedly around 2009.  Their solution: to double the number of units beyond the 2000 planned.  Those buying residential units complained they were virtually living on top of each other.  Commercial building vacancies and up to 28 hotels with unmet demand also added to complexity of the island difficulties.

Presuming you are loaded down with enough disposable cash (not an option on an extended world tour), Dubai can be an adult playground.  Some would say family playground.  I dispute the latter assertion emphatically.  This is no place for kids.

Nevertheless, distractions abound.  There is golf … boating … deep sea fishing …falconry … water parks … shopping … auto racing …skydiving … swimming with dolphins … ballooning … four wheel driving … quad rentals … scuba diving and snorkeling … cruising … bird watching … and camel racing.

My favorite Dubai retreat involves none of the above.  It is instead the Dubai Museum, also known as the “Al Ayaala” Museum.  The stated purpose of this collection, located in the coral block Al Fahidi Fortress (1787), is to shed light on life in Dubai back to 5000 BC -- before oil elevated its economy into the modern age.  I am delighted at the staff’s superb map, diagram, diorama, multi-lingual sign, and photo enhancements.

Briefly, the museum beautifully and sequentially displays within the topic of sustenance: charcoal, use of fire, ancient spices, cooking oils, fresh and dried foods, rice, fish, flour production, and water delivery.

In the household and miscellaneous category: medicine, weaving, textiles, tailoring, tobacco cultivation, carpentry, blacksmithing, pottery, wind towers, ventilation, 1000 years of pearl diving, candles, falconry, wells, desalinization, Bedouin travel, palm trees, oasis life, fishing, dependency on the sea, nomadic existence, the growth of agriculture, and religion.

As I prepare to depart this wonderful place, mindful of recent beheadings and other terrors being spread in Syria and Iraq by an Islamic group called ISIS (justifying their extreme actions on citations from the Koran) I am struck by the irony of the following quote from one of the museum displays (my commentary is embedded in italics):

“Islam is the religion of mercy, encouraging friendship, love and negotiation [in reality, it has the reputation of being the religion of the sword].  It promotes an end to injustice and divisions between people [unless they have substantial oil money].  It is a complete way of life where worship calls for purity in body and heart.  It encourages education and knowledge [except for women, apparently].  Muslim scholars enriched medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and other humanitarian and social sciences for the last 11 centuries” [that ended 800 years ago – where are the current inventions and discoveries and Nobel Prizes?].

Enough said.  I would love to see evidence of Islamic intellectual achievement that benefits the planet and not merely believers, stepping up proudly into the 21^st century.