Travel Review: the spectacular magnificence of Dubai

Dubai takes your experiences beyond reality offering spectacularly designed architecture, and visuals that go far beyond the extreme with the world's tallest building, one of the world's largest aquariums, and more luxury high-end shopping malls per capita than any other city in the world

By Ray Hanania

When I first visited Dubai in 2006, it was a small Middle Eastern city with some amazing buildings and an exotic best known as having more construction cranes than any other city in the world.

The city was experiencing a massive building growth, but not just any buildings, buildings that seemed to require unique architectural designs. The most amazing building, the Burj al-Arab, was designed to look like the wind-filled sail of a ship sailing into a horizon of spectacular man-made islands shaped like a palm tree and a map of the world.

During the past 16 years, the forrest of construction cranes have been replaced by a forrest of some of the most unusually designed buildings, including among them the world's tallest building, a glass-like Shish kabob skewer that rises 2,722 feet into the glistening hot sun of the desert sky. Completed in January 2010, the Burj Khalifa rises to 163 floors, which is 35 floors taller than the next tallest building in the world, the Shanghai Tower in China at a modest 2,073 feet high.

The Burj Khalifa. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania

There was a time when America boasted the largest buildings, the Empire State Building (1,240 feet), the World Trade Center Twin Towers (1,368 and 1,362 feet), destroyed by terrorists in 2001 but replaced with a magnificently new One World Trade Center which rises to a patriotic height of 1,776 feet, symbolizing the year in which America was born. Three of the once largest buildings in Chicago are now dwarfed by the construction achievements in the Middle East and Asia. The Sears Tower, now called the Willis Tower (1,450 feet), the Amoco Building, now called the Aon Building, at 1,136 feet, and the Hancock Center which is a meagher 1,128 feet.

Visitors once awed by the view from the Sears Tower, are now blown away by the spectacular views from the Burj Khalifa's three observation decks. The Burj Khalifa first opened with a Sky Deck on the 124th Floor, the highest in the world, with an observatory at the 125th floor. But a few years later, the Canton Tower, in Guangzhou, China opened its own observation deck a few hundred feet higher than the Burj Khalifa. To regain its title, the Burj Khalifa opened a sky deck on the 148th floor, making it the unchallenged absolute highest observation deck in the world.

The elevator to the Burj Khalifa observation floors is a spectacular moment of amazing digital entertainment.. The lights dim to darkness and the walls and ceiling of the elevator turn into a night sky filled with stars and amazing images. As the elevator makes its way to the 124th floor in less than 30 seconds, you are entertained with amazing digital images of sky, space and buildings.

Shopping area adjacent to the Burj Al-Khalifa. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania

But the dizzying heights of the Burj Khalifa, which is often called the Shish Kabob Skewer of the Arab World because of its glistening, narrow pointed shape, is bolstered by being located in a water plaza adjacent to one of the largest shopping malls in the World, the Dubai Mall, which has 1,200 stores in 3.8 million square feet. 

One of the most famous equally large malls is also in Dubai, the Mall of the Emirates, which is located adjacent to the Kempinski Hotel, and features 2.4 million square feet of retail space but fewer stores, about 630. The Mall of the Emirates is also located adjacent to the 25-story tall Ski Dubai man-made, indoor snow ski mountain.

The Mall of the Emirates adjacent to the Kempinski Hotel and Ski Dubai has 630 retail stores including more than 100 restaurants. The mall was opened in 2005 and not only has a lot of stores, but as lot of space. The plazas are enormous. You'll see a mix of shoppers from women in black Chanel Burkas with their faces covered peering either through the silk itself or through a 1/4 inch opening between veils on their faces, to women in halter tops, shorts and the latest in Western style that is both conservative and revealing. Men do not have the same restrictions as women and will commonly wear western styles like blue jeans or suits, to Arab style with long white jalabas or thawbs.

California Pizza Kitchen restaurant at the Dubai Mall adjacent to the Burj Khalifa. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania

The first thing you learn about Dubai is that it is the Mall capitol of the world, and has more malls than any other city. Dubai is an economic resort where visitors come to enjoy the luxury of the city's surroundings, and its exquisite architecturally designed buildings. Although Dubai is the jewel of the United Arab Emirates, the majority of the population is service-focused consisting of expatriates from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and the Philippines. Locals will quickly tell you that only 20 percent of the population are actually Arabs.

While the Mall of the Emirates and Ski Dubai complex adjacent to the Kempinski Hotel is spectacular as a massive retail and resort complex, the Dubai Mall offers even more besides access to the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. Inside is a huge aquarium with the entrance consisting of a giant three story tall aquarium glass that is more than 200 feet wide. You can pay to walk through a glass tunnel that takes you through the heart of the aquarium as the huge sharks, sting rays and grouper float by staring at you like you are food. But so many people just stand outside of the Aquarium glass wall and watch the fish swim by from inside of the Dubai Mall itself.

The Malls have most of the same high-end, luxury retails stores that are found in any city around the world. Most of the stores, about 40 to 50 percent, are luxury, high-end jewelry, followed by high-end luxury clothing lines like Burberry, Chanel, Coach, Dior, Fendi, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany, and Versace just to name a few of the familiar ones for Western consumers. About 30 percent are jewelry stores. The remainder are popular retail outlets offering food, books, records, music and computers including Virgin, Apple and more. The rest are restaurants, ice cream shops and candy stores.

Dubai Mall adjacent to the Burj al-Khalifa. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania

Dubai is divided by a main road that runs North and South with the ocean on the west and the endless desert on the east. Along the coast is the Burj Al-Arab, which overlooks a man-made island shapped like a large palm tree featuring thousands of newly built homes fronting waterways between the island's "fronds." The beach waters are beautiful and emerald green clear. But access to the Burj al-Arab, unlike the Burj Khalifa, is restricted for most and only guests at the hotel are allowed to enter and enjoy is gold and gold-plated faucets and bathroom appliances.

Called Sheik Zayed road, named after one of the patriarchs of the Dubai's original Arab family, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who died in 2004. A large fixed bill board of Sheikh Zayed adorns the roadway.

Dubai Taxi Cabs are like brand new and it only costs about $10 to go from one place to another in Dubai. The monetary system is the Dirham which is valued at about 28 to 30 cents per dollar. Most fo the Taxis take credit cards and will charge you based in Dirhams or Dollars. Prices for retail merchandize are about the same in Dubai as they are at malls in America like the Woodfield Mall. 

You will find the same food in Dubai that you find in America. I ran into Five Guys, the Cheesecake Factory, PF Changs, McDonalds, Burger King, Starbucks, and more. 

It's a little disturbing that there are so few local restaurants, although you will find some. But remember, most tourists to Dubai are not America. They are Indian, Philipino, Bangladeshi and Pakistani. Visitors come from other Arab countries, too, so they idea of eating a crappy burger at McDonald's doesn't phase them at all. 

There's lots of pasta, a local version of pizza, but if you try hard, you will find a few Middle East restaurants like Mado's a famous Turkish restaurant which offers a culinary inspiring food presentation of Shish kabob, quinoa salads with pomegranate.

Dubai Aquarium view from the entrance int he Dubai Mall. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania

Al-Iraqi restaurant offers Mezgoof, a meal of smoked fish cooked around a massive fire not burned on a tanior. The Iraqis would catch fish in the Tigris River, filet them and stake them around a hot fire letting them cook for 90 minutes or more.

Everything is air conditioned, which is a blessing when the outside temperatures during the summer are as high as 102 by 8 am in the morning. I tried to visit one of Dubai's original, authentic souqs, the Al Fahidi Historic District at the north end of Sheikh Zayed Road near the Dubai Museum and the American Consulate Building. I went on a Saturday morning -- Friday and Saturday are more of religious weekends for Muslims, similar to the secular weekends on Saturday and Sunday for Americans -- and the place was nearly empty. But the temperatures were so hot and shade was hard to find, I didn't spend much time there. The best time to shop outdoors is in the evening after 7 pm.

I visited the Burj Khalifa on a Friday morning and the crowds were absent. Friday is a religious day for Muslims and most Muslims don't shop until late on Friday or they stay home with family. The Burj Khalifa staging areas and waiting areas were practically empty and there was no waiting to begin my self-led tour. Normally tours last about 30 to 45 minutes but I managed a relaxed pace and spent nearly two hours enjoying the views of the city and the deserts.

The views of Dubai's buildings is an architectural delight. They architecture is varied and unusual. No two buildings look the same. The imagination of the designs are phenomenal and nothing seems too complicated, and yet they are very complicated designs.

Dubai is an Emirate, a small country ruled by an Emir who is a part of the United Arab Emirates on the Southeast coast of the Saudi Arabian peninsula along the Arabian Gulf (sometimes called the Persian Gulf). It is a coastal city that runs along the Arabian Gulf from the northeast to the Southwest. Two major roads traverse the length of Dubai and they form a corridor of amazing architectural splendor.

Burj al-Arab hotel along the Dubai coast. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania

The main road is Sheikh Zayed Road named after one of the Emirate founders. One of the most beautiful buildings is the Burj al-Arab which preceded the construction of the Burj Khalifa. The Burj al-Arab is a high-end, posh self-described 7-Star hotel that forms the shape of a sail on a ship. Just to the south is are two man-made islands that forms a palm trees. To the north is a group of small man-made islands that form a map of the world. The beaches along this coast are beautiful and the waters are crystal clear.

I stayed at the Kempinski Hotel which is not only a very classy hotel but connected to the Mall of the Emirates and Ski Dubai.

Dubai's downsides are few but still worth mentioning here.

The first is that access to the beaches is limited with very little support for tourists who are not staying at the very expensive hotels or villas along the beachfront. Most average people can't stay at the gold covered toilet faucets at the Burj al-Arab, or at any of the villas on the Palm Islands. There are no companies that offer chairs to beach-goers who are staying at hotels inland. So you are really stuck out there. Only the very wealthy have support at the beaches, which are beautiful.

The other downside is that for most average people, flying to Dubai from America is a downer. The Economy Class is a little more expensive than "affordable," and very uncomfortable even on Emirates Airlines. It's a 14 hour flight in a 17-18 inches wide seat. Business Class is too expensive for regular travelers and costs upwards of $4,500. So travel to Dubai is basically for the wealthy. Most other people would be better off choosing a different location for sun-fun.

Road Trip: Monument Valley offers amazing panoramic views

On a road trip from Las Vegas to Chicago via Arizona, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, we saw so many amazing sites. One of the most memorable was a drive through Monument Valley along the border between Utah and Arizona off of US 163. It's really worth it

By Ray Hanania

Every time we turn on the television, we can see majestic images of the American West. These iconic geographic images are stunning, but often burred by a sale pitch for a car, or distorted by a advertising promoting some agenda.

One of the most popular are the shale and sandstone buttes, narrow flat topped mounds with the steep sides of Monument Valley which stretches over the border between in Utah and Arizona.

Monument Valley has been used as the backdrop and setting not only for commercials but also for many movies including those Westerns staring John Wayne and John Ford. The images of the various buttes stir the imagination for those watching the big screens. But seeing them in person is breathtaking.

Mountain cluster. Monument Valley. Photo courtesy fo Ray Hanania

It's something everyone should do at leas once.

We drove through Monument Valley during a road trip that started out in Las Vegas and ended in Chicago. It took us through the Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon, dinosaur fossils and desert panoramas, many Native American reservations, and the super high mountain roads in Denver that reached 10,000 feet into the sky.
Monument Valley was spectacular.

It is a collection of small and large buttes and mesas. Mesas and Buttes have one thing in common, very steep walls that drop straight down. Buttes are small isolated mountains and Mesas are wider mountains and hills with flat tops. They're made of sandstone and shale, shaped by millions of years of desert winds, sand storms, and the heat from an oppressively hot Sun.

Monument Valley is located inside a 26,000 square mile Navajo Reservation that is on both sides of the Utah and Arizona borders.

The entrance to Monument Valley from the north is located off of US 163 inside Utah, and consists of a 17 mile dirt road "loop" which you can drive with a regular car that takes you across the border into Arizona. You don't need a jeep or four wheel drive, but the road can be dusty and sometimes rough like a washboard.

Camel Butte at Monument Valley. Photo courtesy fo Ray Hanania

Monument Valley has a Navajo Tribal Park visitor Center at the entrance where you can eat, enjoy the distant desert panoramas and pick up some souvenirs. You need to pay $20 per vehicle to drive your car into Monument Valley, but once inside you can either drive the 17 mile "loop" route yourself, or you can hire one of the many open air trucks to take you in as a group, or ride horseback. You'll need to hire one of the Navajo guides to take you up close off-road to see the Buttes.

It was our first visit so we decided to stay in the comfort of our car. It wasn't bad at all.

You should go in with a map that the Visitor Center will provide. Each Butte has a name. Most have signs and you can drive up to them. But some are far away in the distance, accessible mainly by horseback.

One of the biggest problems, though, is that not all of the Buttes and formation have signs with their names and there are very few well organized books or maps you can find that offer a carefully laid out design for the valley with a description of the Butte formations.

Three sisters Monument Valley. Photo courtesy fo Ray Hanania

Many of so well known they dominate the Internet but many are few and far between.

Don't expect anyone to help you understand where Buttes like Merrick got their names.

Still, the formations are awe inspiring. Beautiful in the changing lighting during the day. It will take you two hours to really drive through the 17 miles and pause to enjoy each formation but you'll have to go there several times before you actually recognize all of them.

And before you leave, make sure you pause on US 163 to find that spot where "Forrest Gump" is running and suddenly stops while his disciples wonder what he's up to. It's a great place to get your own photo, too, if you are prepared to find it.

The Buttes are named by their appearance. The first group are the Mittens, East and West along with Merrick Butte. The Mitten Buttes each look like mittens with an area for fingers and a thumb sticking straight up.

Moviemaker John Ford often used these three Buttes as the backdrop for his Westerns. You can see them very well from the visitor's center, and also from the road side.

View of the Mitten Buttes and Merrick Butte from the Navajo Visitors Center before driving into Monument Valley. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania

The next one is a view of Three Sisters and Elephant Butte on the right side of the trail. Elephant Butte consists of a face that looks like the narrow face of an Elephant with a large trunk hanging down. The Three Sisters are three formations standing together, almost forming what also looks like a "W".

You can pull over to a large area where you can take in the beautiful views.

 

Road Trip Observations: Native Americans deserve better

Native Americans have been vilified, cheated, brutalized and ignored by mainstream American society. During a road trip through the Southwest, it seemed as if their situation has worsened in this country. The lies and propaganda against Native Americans by the news media and entertainment industry is disappointing. The way America abuses Native Americans is a reflection of the corruption of American society. 

By Ray Hanania

Published in the Southwest News Newspaper Group August 3, 2017

As I ended a road trip to America’s majestic Southwest, I came away with some unexpected feelings, including some I already believed and others that were surprising.

I flew to Las Vegas then drove back through Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming before entering the far less visually exciting “Great Plaines” of Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois.

I was surprised at how it seemed that there were so many more foreigners enjoying the tourist sites rather than Americans themselves.

Young Navajo guide at the Tuba City Moenkopi T-Rex dinosaur tracks site in Arizona

Most tourists I saw at the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, and many Dinosaur discovery sites like the Moenkopi T-Rex and Velociraptor footprint site near Tibi City in Arizona were from countries like France, England, Germany, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and a lot from Japan. (The observation is anecdotal, but someone should do a study to determine the facts.)

I was also disappointed to see tourists pack places with so much less culture, or nutrition, like McDonald’s and Taco Bell. They were everywhere.

Lastly, I was reminded of what I already knew. How terribly this country treats the original Americans, “Native Americans” from Indian tribes or “Nations” that include the Cherokee, Crow, Navajo and others.

Native Americans worked some of the big tourist places where I stopped. But most were owned by others.

Worse, when I went to purchase cultural novelties, I discovered many were “Made in China.” Why would anyone want a little “handmade” doll of a Native American dressed in cultural garb that is “Made in China?”

The focus wasn't on American history or Native American culture. It was all about the money.

I had the same uneasy feeling about this country while visiting Hawaii several years ago for the first time.

Don’t get me wrong, all of these places in the Southwest and Hawaii take your breath away. But in Hawaii, I also made the mistake of shattering myths, reading history books that contradicted the tourist messages: White Europeans stole everything from the “Natives” in America.

In Hawaii, many native Hawaiians won’t speak to White tourists – although the largest tourist group isn’t American or families of World War II veterans, but Japanese. I knew it was bad, but when you see how much was stolen from Native Hawaiians and Native Americans, you realize how bad it really is.

Throughout the trip, I saw clusters of tattered, dusty tents clustered on the road side with sparse displays of jewelry handmade by Native Americans from Navajo Tribes. Old women and children sat nearby almost begging for business. I spoke with many Native Americans and they seemed resigned to their fate.

The Grand Canyon is really grand. The huge and tall standing stone mountains in Monument Valley are awe-inspiring. Driving through mountain ranges and valleys as high as 10,603 feet in Denver is impressive. It reminded me how beautiful this country is, geographically. But I was left with a bad taste.

History I read on the trip exposed ugly truths, such as exaggerated reputations of people like General George Armstrong Custer. He’s no hero. He was a brutal crook. Custer’s “discovery" of Gold prompted the Government to break more than one treaty with Native American tribes that ignited even more land theft from the Native American Tribes.

Our real history is all about profits, money and greed. In treaty after treaty, we immigrants abused Native Americans and stole their lands. We massacred their people and when they fought back, we used that to portray them as "savages."

Sorry folks. We’re the savages. And our history is filled with lies.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist, author and former Chicago City Hall reporter. Email him at rghanania@gmail.com)

Hawaii and the tragedy of its real history

By Ray Hanania

Review of the book "Lost Kingdom: Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings and America's First Imperial Adventure" by author Julia Flynn Siler. Lost Kingdom offers insight into the terrible history of the abuse of Hawaii by greedy American businessmen and by politicians who saw it as a strategic asset. It was the Hawaiian people who paid the price for America's enjoyment of this beautiful island and destruction of its rich history

Most Americans probably really don't know and don't care about the tragedy of Hawaii. All they see is a beautiful island of hula dancers and a dream vacation that often gather little more than dust in the bottom of the bucket lists of most Americans who never get to travel there.

Julia Flynn Siler's book "Lost Kingdom: Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings and America's First Imperial Adventure" may sound like a boring academic look at a long gone history of the islands, but it instead a compelling narration of how explorers from Britain and later America's Missionaries destroyed the innocence of the Hawaii people.

First, it was Capt. James Cook of the British Royal Navy who accidentally stumbled upon the Hawaii Islands in the late 18th Century while looking for a sea route to Asia's wealth. When his ship landed, the islanders were a complex people with customs, culture and historic rituals dating back nearly two millennium settled originally by natives from the Polynesian Islands.

 

Halona Bay, From Here to Eternity Beach, Oahu, Hawaii

Cook brought fleas and gonorrhea to the people of the islands which he first named the Sandwich Islands in honor of another British Admiral.

Cook was killed during a battle with islanders but when his men returned to England they brought with them stories of great natural resources, wealth and beautiful naked women.  A few years later, a Methodist Priest Asa Thurston led a group of missionaries to the Sandwich Islands, which were later renamed Hawaii, in the hopes of civilizing the natives there. But in the 80 years since his landing in 1820, the missionaries became greedy prospectors, stealing the land and resources of the island and imprisoning the native Hawaiians with teachings of forgiveness and love -- forgiveness for the foreigner and suffering for the islanders.

By the end of the 19th Century, Hawaii's royal family was deposed and jailed and the descendants of the American missionaries had managed to put most of the land ownership and the economy of the islands in their own control and hands. Hawaii was annexed and in 1959 was incorporated as an American State, against the will of the island's natives.

Siler tells this story in a poignant, detailed manner. It's a compelling narration of destruction and tragedy. Beauty destroyed by the missionaries who were driven by evil interpretations of the Bible.

The story of Hawaii is tragic beyond comprehension. Man of the natural resources of the island were destroyed and driven to extinction, while imported resources like sugar and pineapples were exploited into industries controlled by the "Hawlay" or White People as the native Hawaiians called them.

I remember as a child how America celebrated the embrace of Hawaii. We were told that the Hawaiian people wanted to become a part of America, but we were never told the truth of how American businessmen and robber barons stole much of what is now an American colony.

America can claim many great accomplishments. But the story of Hawaii and the imprisonment of their culture, transforming it into a cheap tourist industry now overshadowed by the many Pacific battles of World War II that began with the Japanese attack against pearl Harbor in Oahu on Dec. 7, 1941.

This is a must read book that will open the reader's eyes to the truth. In 1993, President Clinton and the US Congress offered an apology to the people of Hawaii on the 100 year anniversary of the island's annexation by the United States. Later under President Obama, legislation was introduced to grant special status to the native Hawaiians similar to the rights given to the Native Americans on the American continent.

Too little, too late. But it's not too late to know the truth of this beautiful island's sad and tragic history.

Click here for more details.