Dubai beyond kids

Now that visitor season is starting in Dubai, I've been thinking about what recommendations to make to friends and family, so that they can make the most out of their Dubai trip. I've already covered indoors and outdoors activities for kids, in two separate posts, as well as provided a detailed description of the desert safari. But visiting a place is more than just sight seeing and entertaining kids, no?

There's also just plain walking or hanging around, preferably in places where one can observe locals and their way of life. I personally always like to visit the supermarkets, particularly the food sections to check out what's on offer for the locals. It's interesting to see the various flavours Lays chips have in different parts of the world, isn't it? And shopping! Though I am not enthusiastic about buying stuff, I love to visit the markets just to see what is selling.

So I thought I should do a post which covers some of this stuff.

Eating in Dubai is a pleasure. You find cuisines from all over the world. Indians of course have no dirth of options. I like Maharaja Bhog for their thali for vegetarian Rajasthani/Gujarati food and Gazebo for North Indian non-vegetarian food. Good lebanese food is to be had almost everywhere. My favourite is the family-run Bait Maryam at JLT and I also like Ayam Elezz at The Mall near Kite Beach. The decor is cute and the food is really good and not very expensive. There are few restaurants that serve local Emirati food as well, I've heard good reviews of Al Fanar at Festival City from friends. Serious foodies may consider splurging on a food tour called 'Frying Pan Adventures" run by Arwa Ahmad, a food journalist and critic who writes about food in many publications. It's fairly expensive, so go only if you're really into this sort of a thing. Al Reef Lebanese bakery is a well-known basic joint in Karama, which has very good shwarmas.

If you're in a mood to experiment, try Filipino and/or Sri Lankan cuisines. After Indians, the next largest population group in Dubai is the Filipinos, so they do have a lot of restaurants catering to this community as well. If you want to really, really splurge for a special occasion, visit Tresind at Hotel Nassima Royale on SZR for their weekday set menu lunch. This fancy place offers fusion food, Indian cuisine with western twists, jazzed up by molecular gastronomic touches. It is quite a performance and the food is really good too.

It's a good idea to go to Global Village, so you can combine some shopping for knick-knacks and eating, and if you're lucky, a good show or two, and fireworks. My idea of a good time is to graze on small portions at stalls of various countries till I'm full, rather than sit down at one restaurant for a full meal.

Dubai is a horrendously expensive place to shop. I really wouldn't shop here unless there's a sale with deep discounts. But if you want to pick up souvenirs or small things representative of Dubai or rather the middle East, I'd rather hit the food sections of hypermarkets like Carrefour, Lulu or Union Co-op. Here you can buy dates (you'll be surprised by how many varieties are there), olive oil from Syria or Jordan, olives with different stuffings, harissa paste, bottles of tahini, halawa, various white cheeses that are used in the Middle East, date products like date vinegar, date syrup (a decent substitute for maple syrup on pan cakes) and date jam, pomegranate molasses, saffron from Iran, Arabica coffee beans, middle eastern spices like zatar and sumac from the roastery section, boxes of baklava, some exotic stuff like camel-milk ice cream, and there's even caviar.

When touring the Bastakiya districts and the Spice souq, I'd maybe buy lavender petals to make into sachets or pot pourri, or some saffron flavoured tea. But Bastakiya is more for feasting the eyes rather than exercising the wallet. Camel milk soap is very expensive, I've never had the courage to buy it.

'Sheesha', or what we know as 'hukkah' in India, is very popular and many Dubai restaurants offer it. I went to a place where the locals hang out and it was thick with smoke, but also had some board games that are local to the MENA region. Though personally I always steer clear of the smoke. Another thing that is popular as an experience is a 'Moroccan hammam'. This is a beauty treatment that entails you lying on a heated marble slab while a therapist scours your body clean with a black-coloured Moroccan soap and a glove. Bear in mind that soap and the glove are uber-abrasive to clear off all your dead skin and that this treatment is not for the delicate and the faint-hearted. Women have been known to come out of this with sore backs and wondering, what is wrong with Moroccan women?

Incidentally, you can buy this Moroccan soap and glove at the supermarkets if you want to do a DIY Moroccan bath at home. Bear in mind that the soap smells evil, even if it is good for exfoliation. Another local beauty product you may want to try is a colouring shampoo called 'Henna Speedy', a shampoo which colours your hair. There are many shades available and I am told it does work.

I visited the Iranian mosque for the pictures, and it turned out to be a cultural immersion experience. The mosque staff was so happy to see us, that they invited us to be a part of their celebrations for the birthday of Fatima, the prophet's daughter. I recommend going to this mosque, even though it is small, for the beautiful mosaics and for the friendliness of the staff. If religion is your thing, you can also visit the Hindu temple at Burdubai and the gurudwara at Discovery Gardens.

Hanging around in the parks is a good way to observe the locals. At first I used to find it strange to see huge Emirati families, carrying a good deal of paraphernalia, such as mats, chairs and huge metal pots of biryani! Now I feel a lot of affection at their love of life, togetherness and un-self-consciousness. Another place where you see locals in actions is at the sales, the ones frequented by the locals, such as the CBBC Big Brands, which are organised at the World Trade Centre. You'll see ladies with carts piled up with perfumes, cosmetics and other things, as if they're buying groceries.

Hope that this gives you a deeper sense of Dubai than the guidebooks and helps you experience it in a more authentic way. Enjoy your visit.

Fire dance at desert safari

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Desert safari is a touristy thing to do in Dubai. It has become extremely commercial and mass-produced but still forms an inevitable part of most visitors' itinerary. You drive for about forty minutes out of Dubai, south ( I asked my husband which direction we were heading in and he sarcastically replied that it could only be south since if we drove north we would end up in the Persian Gulf) towards the Oman border in a Land cruiser or some other four wheel drive vehicle and then move into the sandy desert. First, the driver will stop to remove some air from the tires for safety and then start dune-bashing, which is nothing but going up and down and sideways on the sand dunes at a high speed. It's good for some adrenalin rush, I suppose, to those who are into such things.

Then you are taken to an open-air camp site in the desert where there is a majlis-like seating in the centre surrounded by stalls on the periphery- for sheesha, henna tattoos, a spot of shopping and after you have partaken of these and other activities like camel ride and sand boarding outside the camp, there is some god-awful buffet dinner, for which you have to stand in a long line. I kid you not, the food is so bad that I carried a sandwich while accompanying my guests. Oh and I forgot to add, a  falcon, which is either tied to the falconer's wrist or has a drum tied to its feet to prevent it from flying away, is kept on display. Some people take selfies with the poor bird, I feel like calling the PETA.

Through and after dinner there are 'cultural' performances. Note the quotation marks. Generally there are two: tanoura and belly dancing. Tanoura is performed by a man- who wears a strange costume with a long, flared, heavy skirt, carries a strange contraption and whirls round and round with it, like a sufi dervish. Round and round he keeps on going, till you feel worried for him and finally dizzy on his behalf. His skirt, which is studded with light bulbs (remember Amitabh Bachan's jacket in that old song, sara zamana haseenon ka deewana?) flies up like Marilyn Monroe's (fortunately he is wearing pants underneath) and in some time, the bulbs light up to create a visual pyrotechnic display and you wonder if it's static electricity at work or the dancer has thrown some switch. Some research on Wikipedia informed me that 'tanoura' is what the skirt is called, this dance is in fact related to Sufi tradition (minus the lights) and that the weight of the skirt helps the poor dancer to retain his balance. Of course, none of this is explained in the announcements, that would be too intellectual and high-brow, wouldn't it?

Belly dancing is fairly self explanatory. This remains popular among the men I would assume, partly because of the low cut costumes of the women dancers and partly because of the titillatory dance, pun intended.

So while there are some middle eastern affiliations for these two, even though their current form in the desert safari has probably morphed far beyond their original avatars and probably beyond recognition for the local Emiratis (if any were to drop in- which of course they don't), this time we were confronted by a third performance, which I've seen for the first time- thereby meriting a full post. We thought it was time to go home after the belly dance and tanura, but then there was more music, an announcement, a spotlight in the centre and a tall, dark, handsome man walked into the centre stage. He was carrying a lit up wooden torch in his hand and started dancing with it. Impressive. After some time, he took his shirt off. Much more impressive! It was surprisingly considerate of the desert safari organisers to be so egalitarian, to organise some eye candy for the women as well, after giving the men a sweet treat.

This fire dancer took his job really seriously. He went on and on, performing some fairly dangerous stunts, like  drinking up petrol and spouting a huge flame from his mouth! Yikes. There would be a break in the music and you'd think it's over and then the dancer would again jump into a fire or some other crazy thing. After some time, watching this dance started feeling like being a part of an exploitation ring. What did this dangerous stunt (there's no other word for it) have to do with Middle Eastern culture and tradition (My wiki research informs me that this is Polyneisan in origin)? Although the young man's skill and courage were praiseworthy, I found myself hoping that the performance would end soon because I really had no interest in watching someone risk his life for my entertainment. Could the people who banned the child jockeys on the camel races please sit up and take notice?

Have you been to the desert safari? What did you like or dislike about it? What did you think of the fire dance, if you have seen it?