We soon found out that today was Friday and everything was shut until 1pm. Today was pray day and this is the start of the weekend in Dubai. As such we resorted to having breakfast and lunch at Burger King which was the only place open.
We got picked up to go to on our city tour. The tour was attended by us and then about 40 other people over 80 years old. It had felt like we had stepped on a retirement home bus. But in saying that today was really good as we had learnt a lot about the culture and the direction of Dubai.
As I have mentioned in previous blogs, Dubai is truly a beautiful city. The government takes a lot of care in the infrastructure and the local people, Emirates. Emirates (pronounced Imiratys) are the local indigeniuos people of Dubai. If you are an Emirates you are able to claim a lot of benefits from the government. These include:
- No electricity or water bills (this includes immigrants)
- Free (luxury) housing along the coast line of the Dubai for the Emirates.
- Free medical paid by the government (and if any surgical procedures can not be performed in Dubai then the government will pay for the operation overseas including all accommodation and travel for the patient and 2 escorts.)
- If 2 Emirates get married then they get a $25,000 (USD) wedding present from the Government.
As mentioned before the local population is the minority compared to the foreigners that have moved to Dubai.
The government or Sheiks in Dubai are very intelligent and definitely think about the future. Dubai's water supply comes from desalinated water which supplies the whole city.
During the trip we drove past the Sheiks palace. We were told as we were driving by not to take any photos or footage of the palace. Asher did not take this on board and still did it anyway. He is now in jail and waiting for a trial. Just Kidding. Photos and video will be posted when we find a computer with USB connections.
Next stop was the Dubai Museum. This museum was an old fort that has been converted into a museum. The fort was rather small but underneath was a labrinth of displays and exhibits. This was very similar to the Images of Singapore museum.
Just as we thought the tour must be coming to an end there was even more. (This tour is really good value for money and is run through a company called Arabian Adventures). We all hoped on water taxis which took us to the other side of the Dubai river. These taxis much like their land drivers are reckless. They beep at anything and bump into anything that is near them. It is amazing these boats still float. Our tour guide told us they were made out of teak from India and the boats are very strong. The water taxis we were on are around 150 years old and have not needed to replace their wood. Quite impressive really.
As we disembarked on the other side of the river we were welcomed by various smells and colours of the Spice Markets. Just behind the Spice markets were the Gold Markets which was a stretch of around 200 gold stores. On the streets were a lot of Indians trying to sell blackmarket watches. Asher and I both bought some cheap branded $93 AUD watches.
Tim
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