Our World Trip: An awful lot of sand

Dubai - the last country where we really need the US dollar. From now on we carry the currency we need, either the Egyptian Pound or the Euro – we must be getting close to Europe! Mothers’ Day came with flowers and e-cards from home, so our cabin is now much brighter and P can look forward to a Canyon Ranch session very soon.

It was an early landfall and the lights were still out for pirate prevention when I got up to see us into the narrow entrance of Port Rashid, coming starboard side to ahead of the Costa Deliziosa, festooned with flags and fairy lights like any good Italian cruise ship! What a skyline at daybreak; almost like Manhattan, with the Burj Khalifa tower (tallest in the world at 2600 feet) reaching into the mist and the sun coming up behind the Hyatt as airliners drifted down to land against the rising dawn. The port had been the main commercial harbour until the newer container terminal was completed 30k to the SouthWest, so there is a huge hardstanding between the port and the city. Poor old QE2 is moored on the other side of the port, waiting to be re-commissioned as a floating hotel if The World development is ever finished. Still in her Cunard livery, the ship was fondly remembered by a generation of guests, who all seemed to be on the observation deck recounting their time aboard as we drew alongside – she does look small compared with the other ships in port and very dated.

The Boss had an attack of the ‘Cochin terror’ overnight, following N & L who had the same problem, so ‘Dubai the Golden City’ was a solo excursion as I waved goodbye to N & L on their balcony waiting to check out. A visit to the Dubai museum in the old Al-Fahaidi Fort was interesting, complete with a school trip in their Foreign Legion hats and bizarre stuffed birds suspended on string in the stairwell, before a walk through the fabric souk and a crossing of the Dubai Creek in an ‘Abras’ water ferry with its fascinating steering system! Dubai’s history goes back 5,000 years and camels evolved in North America, but today it’s a bustling trading city doing all it can to make the most of dwindling oil and establish tourism and finance before it runs out. The GFC had put a stop to a lot of development and the sea is re-claiming a lot of ‘The World’s’ islands, but ‘The Palm’ islands have been completed and there are still many tower cranes on sites reminiscent of Shanghai’s extravagance.

The souks of Dubai are more sophisticated than I expected, but the spice and gold markets are as fascinating if not as exciting as the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul but our Russian-born guide helped negotiations for incense and Egyptian National Dress – the Boss does have a small memento of the gold souk!

No trip to Dubai would be complete without a trip downtown, so we followed the highway through the financial district, past the Sheik’s office building and the Burj Khalifa tower, all linked by the new metro, with its ‘Armadillo-like’ stations. Down to the Burj Al Arab hotel, (cheapest rooms $1000 per night) and built to resemble a sail, where the bright sand runs into an azure sea adjacent to the marina with its luxury yachts behind serious security. A blazing day where the buildings and the sand reflect the heat straight back to you!

The current Sheik’s father once visited the UK and was struck by its greenness – everything in Dubai is either blue (the sea and the sky) or brown (the buildings, the camels and the desert) so he set about irrigation - now the public spaces have huge flower and grass displays, costing a mere $6m per month to maintain, despite recycling of waste water! The all-pervading haze comes from the fine sand blowing in from the desert and the ship has a thin coating of brown on the window cills.

The Boss had made serious progress with her knitting during the day and may soon need to borrow the assembly needle from the Social Hostess’ handicraft group, known on board as the ‘Stitch & Bitch’ brigade! Happily she is much improved and almost back to her normal cheeriness.

Back aboard for the sailaway with much hooting and tooting between the ships and even the QE2, we carefully performed the thrust-assisted turn out of the harbour and set course back into the Arabian Sea for the high-speed, pirate-deterring run to Aden and up the Red Sea to Safaga for Luxor, our next full day excursion. Not a sign of the pirates yet, a few merchant ships but no Naval vessels. The RN Liaison Officer aboard must have cleared a path!