My thoughts:
Dubai is a manufactured city. 43 years ago there was nothing but desert and a small village. From that they built a modern city with all of the amenities of any western city. They dredged out the harbor to create one of the largest seaports in. the world. Dubai is one of the major centers for aircraft overhaul. It has a state of the art airport and maintenance facility. Planes from all over the world are flown in for a complete overhaul.
It is a city of ultra rich and upper middle class. There are very few actual permanent Dubai residences. A majority of the population are people who work for corporations. They work in Dubai for about 5 years and then go home. The rest are service workers, in low paying jobs from third world countries. There is no middle class. The economy is very fragile. In 2008 when the economy fell. people lost their jobs. They walked away from apartment leases. drove there leased cars to the airport, left the keys in the car and flew home. Construction projects just stopped. The constriction cranes were left and the building(s) stood like skeletons. Most of the building were eventually finished and more are being built. More high end shopping malls are being built or expanded.
There is construction everywhere, I mean everywhere.
The number of big boats, and I mean BIG, are astounding.
Some are are even bigger.
This is the largest yacht in the world, The Azzam. It is owned by Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nayan, president of Dubai. Docked at the Sheikh’s private Island.
Some boats have outboard motors. Most have two outboards.
Some have three.
Some even have four. I guess you never can have enough outboard motors.
There are more Lamborghinis' and Ferraris' then anywhere else. We were stopped at a hotel on the bus tour, 3 Lamborghinis pulled up.
There are speed bumps on many major streets. It is amazing to watch these high end cars speed along the street, then come to a complete stop because they are so low to the ground they have to go very slow over each speed bump.
Everything is expensive. Everything has to be imported. Domestic water is super expensive. A gallon of water is more expensive than a gallon of gasoline. There are some local wells, but most of the water is gotten from desalination. Bottled water is imported.
If you look carefully at the construction pictures above. All of the buildings in Dubai contain no wood or steel super structure during the construction. All building are constructed using concrete and rebar. Rebars are thin steel rods, inside the concrete form to give it extra strength. All interior wall are concrete or cinderblock.
We toured the city on a “hop on, hop off” tour bus call the Big Bus. One of the many stops was the Dubai Museum (if you click on this link and use Chrome. It will automatically translate the text). It was a recreation of the way things were from 1930 to the present.
This is the Dubai Marina Canal. The entire canal was dug out of the desert. It is completely man made.
More to follow.
Life is great all over the world on the Roan Road…
