DUBAI

Dubai, UAE  24 – 26 MAR 11

It’s 5 AM and we’re sitting in the terminal building at the port of Dubai.  Why 5 AM?  Because it’s free internet here but once more than ten folks get on line at the same time, the service slows to a crawl.  And as I count, there are already 6 others out here with us.  It’s amazing how we’ve become addicted to something that we didn’t even know existed ten years ago!

Dubai is Dubai.  Plastic, Disney World and Vegas combined, sad and eclectic and just not one of my favorite places.  Ski slopes in malls, the biggest everything, you get the idea.  The only thing worse than a day in Dubai is two days in Dubai and we’re here for two days and a morning.  Day 1 we took it fairly easy and visited the local museum which cost under $1.00 for admission.  It was actually a very well done affair extolling the minimal local history along with some of the nature.  Lunch on the small river here called the Creek was also reasonable with great hummus.  We then stumbled upon a very nice souk which was cool and comfortable for shopping and even had some goods of a little higher quality than the tourist junk sold everywhere.  We took a cab back and of interest was that the cab fare doubled from the time we entered the port area to the time we reached the ship.  The distance from the port entry to the pier has to be at least two miles for what could be no more than ½ mile in a straight line.

Day two was a Friday which is the equivalent of a Sunday at home only more so.  Even the Metro doesn’t start running until 1:00 PM.  Speaking of the Metro, this is a well-run, modern, unmanned system with sleek new cars and excellent air conditioning.  We rode for about 1 ½ hours for the equivalent of $10 after lunch in an Indian restaurant.  The desire for Indian food was strong after not being able to find an Indian restaurant in Mumbai!  Views out the Metro window reminded me of Las Vegas away from the strip.  Pretty ugly and barren.

We’re off to Muscat, Salalah, Aqaba, Suez Canal and Ashdod.  Our itinerary has already been changed twice due to problems in Egypt and now they are lobbing rockets into Ashdod so who knows where we’ll be headed.  About 32 days to Fort Lauderdale.

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