A Tourist’s Atypical Experience of Dubai

We pull up to a red light in our 1988 Toyota camper van. In front of us is a white Ferrari. Beside us, a Corvette; behind, a Bentley. Just before our light turns green, a Lamborghini jets through the intersection, roaring his motor furiously.

And the funny thing is, everyone is looking at our car.

I already talked about how Dubai is the City of Superlatives. How glitz and glamor are the norm here. I guess it’s little wonder that an old, beat-up Land Cruiser with a Made-in-Africa cell on the back and two paintings of Le Petit Prince on the side stands out here.

Our ol’ camper van has, in fact, been a blessing several times in Dubai. Parked along various public beaches south of town, more people have stopped by to say hello and inquire about our lives in three weeks than in the almost-three years since I started this camper-van lifestyle.

Because of Totoyaya (our Toyota), we got to share a lovely meal with Frank, Karine, and their two bright children, one of many French expat families in Dubai. Another one – with another Karine and more lovely children! – welcomed us in their home for an apéro. One day, we were presented with a temporary bicycle from Fatima, a Moroccan expat. Other days we were offered hot showers, laundry machines, Moroccan couscous, beer, and gas canisters.   So many people asked for my blog address that I ended up writing it in permanent marker on the side of our camper van!

The advertising worked – a day later I received a message on my blog from an American/South African couple who were planning their own overland journey from Dubai to Durban. Mere hours later, they ran into us, parked at a different beach, and invited us for drinks and dinner.

We would have loved to, but we’ve just been too darn busy doing yoga! My recent trip to Singapore got me back into yoga – and exercise in general – and I persuaded Bruno to get a one-week unlimited-yoga pass at Zen Yoga Studios. Between the two of us, we attended 19 yoga classes in a single week! Most mornings, we’d bike ride to the studio, take a class, head home for lunch and a bit of beach-bumming, and bike back to the studio for an evening class. Bruno was massively sore, but was happy to take a real hot shower every evening that week – turns out he was sick of the bum-gun showers too!

My new bicycle has been an absolute blessing, not only for yoga transportation. Rather than drive to the giant Carrefour supermarket to stock up on foodstuffs, we’ve been able to ride our bikes there. When we want to go to the cinema or the mall, we bike to the Metro station and ride the above-ground subway. And when we want to be tourists – like on the day we visited the ultra-modern urban promenade at Dubai Marina – we are mobile and independent.

I didn’t expect to like Dubai. Before I’d even arrived, my mom’s emails were already asking me if the place as bling bling as she’d heard. The truth is, it is – Dubai is all about the biggest, the best, the most expensive. It’s like being back in high school, where everyone wore Abercrombie and Fitch and showed off their Land Rovers and Jeeps in the giant parking lot.

But for some reason, this side of Dubai hasn’t stopped me from liking it. Is it the cleanliness, the civilization, the modernity that I’m drawn to? Is it the fact that I can do yoga, bike ride on a smooth road, and jog on a beach promenade without being stared at? Was I craving malls and bikini waxes or something?

When most tourists come to Dubai, they climb the Burj Khalifa for a view of the skyscrapers on the edge of the desert. They shop at the massive malls and the traditionally-styled Arab souqs. They allow their skin to turn flamingo-pink on public beaches, and dine on posh cocktails at the Burj al Arab seven-star hotel.

Instead, I was playing with a two-year old Emirati girl at a villa on the artificial palm-shaped island, Palm Jumeirah. For the past couple of months, I’d put some effort toward finding a job as a private governess/French tutor in the Middle East. These types of jobs are plentiful here, and the money is amazing. Finding work would also allow Bruno to stay put in one place long enough to finally attack the work on Totoyaya that he’s been putting off since we met. It made sense.

The first morning of my job trial didn’t start out well. The Dubai Marathon – only one of several special events in Dubai during my time here (Shopping Festival! Tour of Dubai! Food Festival! Yoga Festival!) – was blocking my route from the beach to the Palm, and I couldn’t get there by car, as planned.

“No problem,” said the mother. “Just walk a bit, until you see cars on the road, and I’ll send my driver to meet you.”

That “a bit” turned into 13kms of walking alongside the marathoners – indeed, I can now say I’ve taken part in a marathon and cross that one off my bucket list – so that by the time I reached the family’s villa I was two hours late, soaked in sweat, and with a bloody blister on my flip-flopped feet.

The day didn’t get any better after that. The house was full of Filipino women chasing the children, vacuuming floors, cooking food, and tidying the playroom. Little Girl clung on to her mom, refused to listen to anyone, and screamed bloody murder anytime anyone asked her to do something she didn’t want to do. I tried to interact with her, but with so many hands stirring the pot – women popping out of nowhere to tickle, sing, read, distract, hand a toy – it was impossible.

The next day was better, and Little Girl and I spent an undivided hour playing with shells, sand, and water at the family’s private beach in the back. Nonetheless, the job wasn’t the right fit, but the experience was an interesting door into wealthy Emirati society. It was the only interaction I had with Emirati people in our entire month in the U.A.E. The closest I’d come was photographing them buying expensive modern gadgets in the glitzy malls of Dubai (which, by the way, provide some of the best people-watching I’ve ever experienced).

I can’t really complain about lacking interaction with the locals, though. Between the mini camper-van community we accidentally fell upon at Jumeirah Beach (at one point, we were seven European camping cars camped at the beach) and all the expats we’ve met, I’m not exactly starved for socializing. I feel like we have developed a local connection, even if it hasn’t been an Emirati one.

We’ll be back in Dubai in a month or so. It’s where we plan to take the ferry to Iran, providing we can get our tourist visas (easier said than done for Canadians, I’m afraid). I’m already looking forward to it. We have friends to see, and yoga to do.

And maybe we’ll climb the Burj Khalifa after all. I mean, you can’t go to Dubai and not visit the tallest tower in the world, right?