So, during our visit to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, we are using the touring services of Tours by Locals. We’ve used their guides before and we’ve always been pleased. Today, our guide Sachin arrived at 9am to show us old Dubai. Unfortunately, Sharon had to sit this one out but Marsh, Kathryn and Peter were ready to see the sights.

Dubai is a city of nearly 4M inhabitants, with 90% of those as expats. In the United Arab Emirates, the majority of persons working and living permanently here are not from here. UAE passport holders (residents) reap a lot of benefits; free healthcare, free education through college, reduced costs for water/electricity and sewer and even a 4 bedroom/4 bath home when you marry (paid back to the government over 30 years, interest free). You can live here for 100 years but you’ll never become a resident unless you are born here, or marry someone who was born here (after 7 years).

Sachin also explained about how the UAE was formed. In the early days, there were 9 small emirates (countries) in this part of the world, each with a small oil industry, but all with a large pearl export industry. With the invention of the cultured pearl by Japan, the pearl industry was all but eliminated. At the time, in 1971, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the ruler of the Abu Dhabi emirate, determined that they were vulnerable to takeover by much larger countries so he persuaded 7 of the 9 to come together to form the United Arab Emirates (Bahrain and Qatar declined to join). He also is credited with investing early oil revenues into building modern hospitals, housing, roads and schools. With these modern facilities, he worked to build a second industry for the UAE, tourism. The UAE boasts 11 million inhabitants, with 11% Emiratis.

The first stop was the Museum of the Future. Next was the AlSeef area of Dubai, the original and oldest part of Dubai which included Spice Souk. A trip across Dubai Creek on a water taxi allowed them to reach the Gold Souks. A photo opportunity at “The Frame”, which divides old and new Dubai ended the tour.

Sachin also shared the numbering scheme of license plates in UAE. A 5 number license plate is standard and costs the equivalent of $250USD. If you would like 4 digits, that will set you back $10K, three digits is $250K, 2 digits is $500K and last year, a 1-digit plate sold at auction for $13M. Talk about vanity plates!!!

There are lots of expensive penalties too. For instance, jay walking is $1500, running a red light is $15k, and taking photos of people without their consent is $25k. That’s why the rich and famous make Dubai and the UAE as a vacation destination. Dubai is also a notorious global centre and sanctuary for money laundering, corrupt political figures and sanctioned businessmen. It has been called a ‘gangster’s paradise’. We learned early in our stay at the Raffles that we were surrounded by Russians on holiday. Of course, we’re not implying that they are all criminals, but Dubai is one of the few places on the planet where they are allowed to visit, due to the sanctions from Putin’s war on Ukraine.

In the evening, we made plans to go to visit Estralitta at her workplace in the Four Seasons hotel. We left our hotel at 6pm, via Uber. One and a half hours later, we had only gone 4km, and we had 18km yet to go. Talk about a traffic jam! We hung in there for another 30 minutes, but our ETA kept getting longer and longer, finally at 8pm, we bailed, asked the driver to do a U-turn and we came back to the hotel. We were disappointed! Unfortunately, Dubai has a major traffic problem that seems to be a 24/7 issue, especially for the Palm Jumeirah which has only one way in and one way out.

Tomorrow: Abu Dhabi