Our plane ended up in Dubai after a “medical emergency” required us to veer off course yet it proved to be a fortunate diversion with the UK airspace closing down Heathrow and our timing leading us to simply stay grounded instead of turning backwards, or ending elsewhere on the European continent.

I have to commend Qantas for doing an outstanding job with the first hotel arranged for 175 people in economy within an hour of passengers starting to filter through. Prioritising and forming reasonable queues seemed to be a big problem but as mentioned in the previous post, was probably more due to a lack of ground staff than anything else.

Even them smaller hotel, the Arabian Park Hotel did a great job of finding a number of bus loads appearing on their doorstep, offering people breakfast in order to mitigate the growing queue out their front door as they slowly worked their way through the crowd. Admitedly this hotel isn’t as nice as the two ones that I stayed in last time (fairly thin walls to the point I could hear the TV next door) but it certainly did the job or providing a temporary place to rest and freshen up.

After breakfast, checking in and freshening up, the first task was hunting down Internet. As previously mentioned, the hotel wasn’t really that up to par with the whole Internet thing (no wi-fi in the rooms and the LAN didn’t seem to be working in my room) so off it was to hunt down Internet. Although the first task was really about trying to get some cash. Strangely the hotel did some conversions although they only accepted British Pounds but it was enough to get me a cab ride to “Bank Street”, the wide road that hosts almost all of the different banks. A couple of ATMs later, and I found one that would accept my card.

Now doshed up, I walked around until I recognised a few places and ended at a place with lots of internet cafes. It’s pretty cheap being AER2 (about 40p) per hour with many terminals equipped with webcams, speakers. Some of the terminals were well old-school as well. Think really large CRT screens and the gratifyingly loud keyboards that almost made me very self conscious as I sent out the announcements of my delay.

Last time I came to Dubai I don’t think we saw the markets on the side of the river, a short “Abra”-ride away from everyone. The Abras provide a huge service to the community, connecting both sides of the river for only AER1 (20p) ferrying a constant stream of people. When the Abra-drivers get tired, they moor their boats alongside a quieter part of the river where they have their own social gatherings with other Abra boat-masters.

I love wandering the various markets in other countries, although don’t really like the hassle of all the touts trying to get you into their stores with their different tricks. “Come in and look only.” “Look only,” is the phrase that puts me on the defensive. I think there’s a huge difference between the bargaining rituals you need to go through and the touts that are there to draw in the tourists or the first-time sucker. One of the special things about the markets are the little person drawn-carts that ferry goods around the smaller alley ways although this doesn’t really stop them from getting on the road themselves.

(spice market)

Out of the various souks, my favourite by far is the spice market. You know when you’re in the vicinity when the strong pungent odours hit your senses and the walkways seem to be covered in an even more of a dusty haze (if that seems possible in Dubai). Buckets of full spices fill your senses and despite all the normal spices one would expect in an Arabic spice market (saffron, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, etc) they did surprise me with a number.

There’s been plenty of development and given the constant construction sites, it looks like they’ll be plenty more new things being finished over the years to come. I didn’t get a chance to go to the tallest building in the world, this most recent attempt newly opened in February this year. The other most noticeable investment which I’m pretty surprised about is the metro system. I have no idea how it works or whether or not its a popular or economic choice for locals but I think it’s great they’re thinking so far ahead to a more sustainable transportation system.

After a very late lunch and lots more wandering around, I retired back to the hotel to repack my stuff and to freshen up for hopefully what would be the last leg of the journey.