It’s 3:00 am Gulf Standard Time as my plane descends into Dubai International Airport. I’ve been up for over 21 hours and my eyes feel like sandpaper rubbing against wood every time I blink, but the dazzling city outside my narrow window instantly washes away my lethargy. From thousands of feet in the air I can see the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, conspicuously jutting out from the futuristic-looking city of Dubai. The mammoth structure dwarfs every other building in sight and appears comically out of place among its peers. As the plane passes over downtown Dubai, a rush of excitement fills my body and chills run down my spine. It is a uniquely exhilarating feeling that reminds me of the first time I laid eyes on the Empire State Building as I flew over Manhattan.
In a childish way, buildings like the Burj Khalifa give me hope that one day Earth will resemble the planet Coruscant from Star Wars.
After loitering around the bastardized Terminal 2 of Dubai International Airport for several hours, I stored my luggage and was off to explore the city. Since I only had five full days to spend in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, I needed to maximize my time and napping was not an option; I needed to power through my sleep deprivation.
Game on.
My early morning trek from the airport to downtown Dubai was frightfully reminiscent of my old life back in NYC. I was surprisingly uncomfortable as I made my way through the nicest, cleanest metro system I’ve ever laid eyes on. Around me, dozens of people were commuting to work, but there was a strange, almost funeral-like, silence among them. Nobody spoke a word as they power-walked through the polished, air-conditioned hallways and they all stared at the floor, headphones on, mindlessly going through the motions of another day of work. I could clearly see that everyone in the metro station was on autopilot, completely detached from the world around them and unaware of life slowly slipping through their fingers.
Everyone was dressed in the standard-issue business casual attire. The men sported bland, uninspired button-down shirts, prosaic black slacks, and mundane dress shoes that used to be the cornerstone of my wardrobe in NYC. While the metro ride was incredibly nice, I was packed in like a sardine among the crowds of (surprisingly smelly) employees while flashbacks of my daily commute in NYC raced through my head. Even after spending the last seven months traveling halfway across the world, seeing that old life terrifies the hell out of me.
Oh, how I really do not miss those days.
My walk from the metro stop to Dubai Mall is the physical manifestation of the Jetson’s-like future I was promised as a child. Connecting the two locations is a half-mile long elevated corridor completely covered, fully air-conditioned, and equipped with moving walkways to quickly shuttle people through. It took me easily over ten minutes to walk from one end to the other, but I never once stepped outside into the unrelenting desert heat. As large as Dubai is, there are dozens of massive construction project visible from the walkway. Coming from NYC, it looks like Dubai is simultaneously building multiple World Trade Centers throughout the city.
Compared to Amman, Dubai feels like I'm on another planet. The wealth disparity between the two countries reminds me of the movie Elysium.
The sparkling Dubai Mall is full of shops ready, willing, and able to take your money and it feels eerily like a Las Vegas casino - only without the gambling, alcohol, and prostitutes. Everything from the marble floors to the shimmering art installations hanging from the ceiling is immaculately polished. There are colorful, flashing LED lights lining the main corridors, smooth jazz playing overhead, and the air is even laced with a light perfume. Much of my trip so far has been spent exploring old, dilapidated ruins dedicated to gods and idols of civilizations long since passed, but here in Dubai I find myself in a decadent, hallowed marble temple to the modern gods of unnecessary consumerism, gluttony, and vanity. How times have changed.
Even with all this high-end, superfluous “premium” marketing I'm surprised there isn’t an Apple store here. This seems like the perfect place for Apple’s usual BS marketing.
Strangely enough, I feel just as out of place here in Dubai as I did in Amman, but for an entirely different reason. Everyone walking around the posh mall is sporting a nice outfit and toting around their new purchases while sipping on overpriced coffees… and then there’s me. Here stands a sleep-deprived backpacker who’s been up for the past 27 hours, hasn’t showered in the last two days, desperately needs to wash his wrinkled clothes, and sports a pair beat up old leather shoes still covered in dust from his recent hike through Petra.
Okay that last one is pretty cool.
As I conspicuously wandered through the cavernous hallways, my initial feeling of awkwardness vanished when I realized that I actually prefer myself in this state of affairs. Sure, I don’t have much, but I'm the guy who’s actually living his life and traveling around the world! It’s an incredibly liberating feeling to look through the countless storefront windows displaying at all of the crap I don’t need (or want) in my life and happily keep on walking without a second thought. Everything I saw in the mall reminded me of the life I gave up to travel the world and I'm not sad about it for one second. I honestly don't want anything here, not even slightly.
Immediately outside the mall stands the Burj Khalifa, a glimmering beacon of wealth and power that sparkles under the bright blue sky as if lit by a thousand Christmas lights. Although construction of the Burj Khalifa completely bankrupted the Emirate of Dubai (the Emirate of Abu Dhabi bailed them out), it is a spectacular wonder that dominates the skyline like no other building I’ve ever seen in my life. Compared to the surrounding high-rises, the Burj Khalifa’s absurd height differential makes it difficult to even rationalize that the building can stand on its own! I thought that once I saw the Burj Khalifa in person everything would make sense, but even when I stood right next to the thing, the tower still looked like an illusion - a mirage spurred forth from the hot desert landscape. While the building is almost twice as tall as the World Trade Center in Manhattan, up close the Burj Khalifa appears shorter than I'd imagine, even though from a distance it dwarfs every single structure in sight.
The building’s height actually bothers me because I can never frame a picture without cutting off a portion of the tower!
In front of the Burj Khalifa is an enormous fountain submerged in man-made lake nearly identical to the one found outside the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas – only this one is on a much grander scale. The nightly performances are utterly spectacular and thanks to its size, there is plenty space for the thousands of visitors to watch comfortably. The stone walkways encircling the artificial lake are immaculately well maintained and the architecture appears to be a blend between a distinctly Middle Easter motif with subtle Italian influences. As I walk around the lake I notice off in the distance a myriad of smaller residential towers completely obscuring the horizon while dozens of construction cranes go about building new ones!
It looks like someone here is playing a real life version of Sim City!
Even though I have many positive things to say about the Burj Khalifa, there is a dark side to the structure as well as the mesmerizing "city of the future" that it resides in. While Dubai and the Burj Khalifa, stand as a glimmering beacons of humanity’s engineering prowess (and what a nearly unlimited pile cash can do), I do want to mention that the Emirati effectively rely on modern day slave labor to physically build their sprawling metropolis.
While I have my issues, the Great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt were likely constructed in a similar fashion and people seem to brush off that fact without a problem.
I look forward to exploring more of this great city, but for the time being I need to collect my things and catch a bus to Abu Dhabi to meet up with Will and Sean! It’s been 34 hours since I last slept and the excitement of meeting up with my old friends is just about the only thing keeping me going at this point. Here’s hoping I’ll get some sleep on the bus to Abu Dhabi!