A Lady in London

Easter weekend took me to the Arab world. Easter is a time to reflect on death and rebirth, the old and the new, and the chocolate carbs vs. the jelly bean carbs. My trip to Dubai was Easter personified. The emirate was a blend of old souqs and new mega-malls, the death of an oil-driven economy and the rebirth of the emirate as a playground for westerners and frenzied skyscraper construction. As for the carbs, the variety of gastronomic delights in Dubai had me ignoring nutrition all together.

With rebirth comes new beginnings, but anxious Dubai didn’t bother tearing down old buildings to make way for new ones. Dubai consists of two parts, an old city and a contemporary one. In Bur Dubai and Deira, the older parts of the city where I spent my first two days, many of the buildings were of the ugly modernist style and small alleys between them were strewn with unidentified electrical wire and leaking water. To cross Dubai Creek one had to ride in a small dhow-like boat called an abra, as there were very few bridges spanning the water.

That said, the old city had its charm. Walking through the Spice Souq and Gold Souq made me feel as if I had stepped back in time, and the beautiful Bastakiya Quarter housed some amazing art galleries and cafes.

Twenty-five miles away in New Dubai every building was sparkling new and still under construction. Everywhere I looked there were cranes and uniformed construction crews working long hours to complete yet another skyscraper. It was amazing to drive through the city and see buildings that looked finished on the outside but were completely vacant on the inside.

Here too there were souqs, but these were of the 21st century variety. The contemporary Madinat Jumeirah Souq was complete with Vegas-like Venetian canals and food courts, and the Mall of the Emirates is known world wide for its indoor ski slope. So much for the little desert outpost. They are building a mega-city on a shocking scale.

Speaking of large scale, Dubai’s dining and nightlife scenes were impressive, particularly for a place where alcohol is only served in hotels and the culture is still fairly conservative. We ate one night at a restaurant called Tang, which is known for its gastronomic inventiveness (sweetbreads with mango cellophane, anyone?). Afterwards went out to Parisian Buddha Bar’s sister lounge of the same name. On another night we joined friends at an outdoor bar with great views of the famous Burj Al Arab and then went dancing till 3am.

While Dubai has been reborn in an architectural, gastronomic, and economic sense, I was sad to see that it is still disappointingly behind in a human rights sense. Their skyscrapers are being built on the backs of poorly paid foreign laborers who toil under abysmal conditions, and the rights of women are not great either. I was appalled to learn that I couldn’t sit with my boyfriend in an exit row on my Gulf Air flight, as “ladies and children” are not allowed to sit there. My inner feminist was none too pleased. Easter is about rebirth, but some old habits die hard.