This was originally (kind of) supposed to be a trip to Taiwan or South Korea, but the United Arab Emirates seem a good substitute.
When, during COVID, travel was severely restricted, I was sitting at home and wondering where I should go once travel would be possible again.
Of course, there were the usual destinations, like dogsledding in Scandinavia or going to Italy. And the 2024 eclipse in the US was beckoning. But what else?
I've figured that I should go somewhere new, a place I hadn't visited before.
After a while, somewhere in Asia seemed like a good idea.
I'm not much of a beach person and cultural traditions or visits to temples don't excite me much. So Thailand or Vietnam didn't seem good choices. They felt too much like 'default destinations'. And I wasn't quite ready to go to the 'obscure' destinations, like Nepal or Mongolia.
But Taiwan and South Korea seemed good choices. Both feel (in some vague way) more 'modern', forward-looking and technology oriented. They have a good tourist infrastructure, but they also have other things going on.
My vague 'plan' (more like wishful thinking) was to go to Taiwan or South Korea, once travel was possible again.
And then I mostly forgot about it.
The 'go somewhere new' plan ended up as a day trip to Andorra.
Then I found out about a zipline in Dubai.
I like ziplines.
And the one in Dubai seemed special.
Instead of being somewhere in the countryside, it is right in the middle of the city.
Starting out from the top of a skyscraper and going along the Dubai Marina with spectacular views of the city to the left and right.
Definitely something I wanted to try.
This might have become the next 'vague plan' for something to do at some time in the future.
Then I read the small print.
"Ages 17-65"
The zipline has an upper age limit.
I'm not sure whether the '65' limit means that you can no longer ride when you're 65. Or whether you can ride until you reach your 66th birthday. But either way, it's not something I will be allowed to do in two years. (While they probably will still allow me into South Korea in ten years' time...)
So 'at some time in the future' became 'I need to go there soon'.
Originally, I wanted to go to Dubai for my birthday, so I could ride the zipline on the very last day that I was allowed to do it. But June isn't a good time to visit Dubai. It tends to get a bit hot. Even people who like to go to warm places on their vacations considered Dubai in Summer too warm to go outside.
Once it became obvious that riding the zipline would not be something I should do close to my birthday, there was no need to figure out whether the age limit included or excluded people with the age of 65. (Which otherwise would have decided whether I went there this year or next.) Might as well go as soon as possible.
As a result of all that, I travelled to Dubai in February 2025.
And, in some strange way, the trip matched the idea about travel I had during lockdown.
Dubai is a modern and forward-looking city in a country I've never been to.
Technically, it even is in Asia.
So while it wasn't a place I had even considered when thinking about future travel back in 2020, it unexpectedly fit in with the original idea (which wasn't much more than elaborate daydreaming in any case).
When I talked to people about the upcoming trip, I was surprised that opinions were strongly divided.
People who had been there liked it.
But others disliked it on general principles.
The whole thing reminded me a bit how people talk about Disneyland.
There are a lot of reasons to dislike Disneyland on general grounds. It's corporate entertainment, cashing in on nostalgia, recycling the same idea over and over until there's no charm left, promoting questionable ethics, treating their employees badly and being bland. There are lots of reasons not to give money to Disney Worldwide Greedy Moneymaking Enterprises. And support a local puppet theatre instead.
Fair enough.
However, most people who go to Disneyland enjoy the experience. They may dislike what it represents. But the theme parks are still fun.
And, based on what people were saying, Dubai (and by extension Abu Dhabi, though maybe not the United Arab Emirates as a whole), caused similar reactions.
I thought about it and it seems to make sense.
If you consider Dubai a state that operates like a theme park, it isn't a one-to-one fit, but there are many things that seem easier to understand.
And many complaints I heard about Dubai are valid against a state, but seem meaningless against a theme park.
In a Human Freedom Index, the United Arab Emirates are ranked below Belarus, Uganda and Rwanda. All not glorious examples of human rights either.
If you look at rankings of countries by freedom or democracy the Emirates tend to be somewhere in the lower ranks. It doesn't rank high on the freedom of press scale either.
The primary issue for most of these lists is that the UAE is, essentially, a sort of tribal kingdom. The king/sheikh of Dubai usually ends up as the president of the country. And there are also restrictions on freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
True.
On the other hand, try to go into Disneyland, take out a camera and start to interview a random employee (or 'cast member') about working conditions and salary.
Or take out a protest sign and stand next to the Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland and critizise the way Disney cashed in on Grimm's fairy tale.
You will (probably) be escorted out of the park quickly.
Cast members have strict rules on what to wear, how to behave and what to say. They can't have visible tattoos and can't eat while in uniform.
And when was the last democratic election for a Disney CEO?
The point I am trying to get across is not that Dubai is a theme park. Or that it is good to have a state that acts like a theme park. (For one thing, there aren't any courts in Disneyland you can appeal to if you feel badly treated, whether as a customer or an employee. But you can sue from 'outside the system' in a regular US court. If you are in a country that is run that way, there's not other court to appeal to.)
However, a lot of things about Dubai seem to be easier to understand if you look at the place with this concept in mind.
At least, Dubai doesn't have a mascot that greets you at every street corner. Making the place automatically more attractive than theme parks.
But enough of the Dubai - Theme Park comparison.
I arrived in Dubai in the evening.
First thing I did next morning was my initial reason for choosing Dubai - the Dubai Marina Zipline (or XLine).
It's amazing.
And feels different from other ziplines.
While I wouldn't go as far to say that this alone made going to Dubai worth it, I already knew that morning that it was the right decision to travel there.
The start is somewhat unusual.
The starting point is at the top of a residential skyscraper. You get driven to the underground garage, take the lift up to the 42nd floor and then walk up a small access staircase to the roof.
Up there is a small viewing platform and the upper end of the zipline.
The starting procedure is clever, although a bit irritating.
To make it easier to hook you onto the zipline, they have a mattress on a hydraulic lifting table.
You lie down on the mattress, they lift you up to the cable, attach the harness and then lower the mattress again until you hang freely in the air. Then they push the lifting mechanism to the side and only need to unhook the safety cable and off you go.
A sensible way of doing this.
Except that they operate the hydraulic lifting table with a foot pump. And it is not a smooth motion.
So, you're lying on a mattress at the edge of a skyscraper, 170 meters above the ground and someone is bouncing the mattress up a few centimeters each second. It feels a bit like you and the mattress might slide off the hydraulic lifting table at any moment.
This can't really happen (I think) as you are clipped into the safety line (presumably), and probably the mattress is secured somehow as well, but it feels stranger than any other zipline start I've seen.
Once they let you go, it's fantastic! (And they even pull you back a bit before releasing you, so you go in with a little swinging forward motion, which feels like a proper start.)
The views are great and it is more intense than ziplines in the mountains, as you (unless you live in the mountains, presumably) have a better feel for the height of buildings or the size of ships and cars.
This makes the zipline more 'immersed' for lack of a better word.
If you're 200 meters above a forest, it is a bit like being in a plane (or maybe a Zeppelin). You feel like a slightly detached observer and don't feel the height that much.
On this zipline, with a city all around (and below you), as silly as it sounds, you feel a lot more like Superman making his flight over the city.
Especially towards the end, when you are 'flying' low over the boats and bridges.
An unexpected bonus was the second camera that was attached to the pulley system. I was, obviously, aware of the camera attached to the helmet, pointing at my face, but when they sent me the videos of the 'flight' they also included an fish-eye view from above, which looked neat.
After having done the thing that brought me to Dubai (and having a perfect time doing it), I've spent the afternoon in a much more leisurely way and went on a dinner cruise.
While there are dinner cruises on restaurant ships (modern ones, like the ones below the zipline, but also ships built to look like old dhows)...
...there are also dinner cruises on 'superyachts'.
The tour was laid back and relaxed.
There were about 20 people on board, so it didn't feel crowded. The weather was nice and I had enjoyed my ziplining.
And there was nothing much to do but sit, take in the sights and savor the trip.
And, of course, taking pictures. (And having pictures taken.)
Ultimately, and that fits my perception that Dubai is a lot like a theme park, the important thing about Dubai seem to be pictures from Dubai.
Almost every activity, whether ziplining, climbing on the roof of a theme park, going on a cruise or flying in a helicopter had its own photographer. You could be sure of having some photo evidence afterwards (sometimes included in the price, sometimes as an add-on).
And while people always have taken and will take pictures of themselves during vacations since the invention of photography, I never noticed so much of it as in Dubai. At every bend of the marina there was someone standing with a phone in the hand taking a picture.
At times, Dubai felt like that:
Either people were taking a selfie, posting a selfie or checking the number of likes on the selfie.
It's not like I'm in any position to be snotty about it. There are enough pictures of me in Dubai as well.
But it was more noticeable in Dubai than in any other vacation place I've seen.
The cruise started in the marina towards the south-west, then went by the big Ferris wheel on Bluewaters Island and then along the coast for a short bit, giving good views of the beach and the marina skyline.
I was surprised how many boats were out there.
While Cannes or Monaco have a lot of impressive ships in their ports, I don't recall having seen many outside the harbour.
It might be a wrong impression (after all, what do I know about the mindset of superyacht owners?), but the yachts seemed to be more like things to show off and places to meet and have a drink, than something to cruise around in. At some point the yachts probably went from one place to another, but it didn't seem like there were used a lot for the fun of being on the water. I got more the impression that they were a bit like luxury camper-vans. Something that allows you to travel to other places, but still have your comfortable own environment with you when you arrive. And you probably don't drive a camper-van around for the pleasure of driving either.
In Dubai, people seemed to use their boats a lot. Surely a large number of them were for tourist trips, like the one I was on. But that probably doesn't account for all of them.
It seemed a bit like people were cruising not only in the naval sense, but also in the way you cruise with a car, where you take an open car and drive slowly up and down main street or the promenade as a social activity to see and be seen. Or people were simply taking their yachts along the marina like you would take out your dog for an evening walk.
In any case, the waterways were busy.
The 'planned route' for the tour was to go around Palm Jumeirah, but the captain mentioned that weather conditions wouldn't be good and most likely he would need to take a different route. (Which seems to happen almost every time, according to another guest on board.)
Once we got out of the protected waters in the wind shadow of the Palm, we stopped, bobbed up and down a bit and changed direction.
It felt a bit silly, as the water looked like this:
If a superyacht has problems coping with this kind of waves, then it's not that 'super'. It's hardly a yacht.
From a practical point of view, it surely made sense. They were getting ready to offer dinner. And a ride across the waves (as small as they were) would have been bumpy and it was better to go where the waters were calmer. Fair enough. But it felt a bit silly how the captain emphasized the point. If you stop a boat out on the sea, it will roll in all kinds of directions and it'll feel unpleasant, as the movements are unpredictable. It's like riding a bicycle very slowly and then wondering how unstable it is. It would be better to go at some speed. It might get bumpy, but less uncomfortable.
While it surely was a more comfortable dinner by turning around again, it didn't seem like a good demonstration of a 'superyacht'.
But then again, they were selling a dinner cruise and not a yacht.
We did get to see the Atlantis hotel (old), the Atlantis hotel (new), the Kempinski hotel as well as the Burj Al Arab hotel, but from a larger distance.
By the time we returned to the marina, the sun had set and a light show had started on the Ferris wheel.
It was a busy first day in Dubai, but the next days weren't going to be any less busy.
Although Dubai (the city) is not like my usual vacation places, as they tend to be in somewhat colder climates, it is a city. And as such not too atypical.
But Dubai (the emirate) also has an environment in which I never have been before - the desert.
So, early on the next morning, I went there. (Even though it was still technically wintertime, I didn't want to be in the desert at noon. Hence the early start.)
The first part of the trip was 'dune bashing'.
For that, someone drives you through the desert dunes with some 4x4 vehicle. And throws up a lot of sand.
It's fun, but there's little to do but sit in the back seat and watch.
Probably partly my fault that it felt a bit tame, but they asked me at the beginning whether I'd like a regular tour or a more extreme one. Not knowing what to expect, I asked for starting in 'regular' mode. Which, as I said above, was fun (and some of the driving maneuvers were impressive and didn't seem like they could succeed), but it all was somewhat tame.
Then it was time for the fun bit.
They offer tours where they drive you around in a dune buggy.
Or you can drive one yourself.
Which is a lot more fun.
Something that became obvious on that tour (as well during most of the other activities) was that February is already post-season for the Emirates.
Most tourist go there for winter vacations. Things get busy in December and well into January, but after that there are fewer tourists. (At least that was what I was told and that what it seemed like. I tried to check the numbers, but according to most statistics, there are more tourists in February than in any other month, excluding December.)
For the desert tour, I was the only customer on the early morning tour.
For the dune buggy drive, a guide drove ahead on a quad and I was trying to follow his tracks as closely as possible.
Which made the driving, especially towards the end of the drive, a lot more exciting.
During a short stop, the guide commented that some clients follow him more in the sense that they try no to lose him out of sight, but otherwise drive where they want. While others try to emulate his driving as close as possible. And the latter would allow him to drive on more exciting bits. Those work well, if you drive the right line and right speed, but if you deviate from that, you get stuck or roll over. So he doesn't go there with clients that follow him only approximately.
Not sure how much of that is true, but I enjoyed the drive a lot.
A dune buggy has massive shock absorbers, so even on bits of the track with washboarding surfaces, it was a smooth ride. Clearly the kind of vehicle you want to drive in order to ignore all the speed bumps in the city...
We had a short sightseeing stop at a rocky outcrop for some desert gazing. And the posed 'walking in a desert' photos. (Might be a good motto for Dubai tourism: "Photos are mandatory")
And some posing next to the dune buggy as well.
After a bit more driving, we stopped at one of the larger dunes for a bit of sandboarding.
I did that sitting on the wakeboard. Which kind of worked, but it was a bit like going down a small hill on a sled when I was a child. I probably should have tried it standing up. It wouldn't have succeeded, of course, but it would have been a better 'fail' picture.
Back to the main activity - driving through the desert.
I had my GPS on and noticed later that the 'wide expanse of the desert' that we drove in was in fact a rather small stretch of desert between two highways. And while we didn't see many other cars, quads or dune buggies around (touristic post-season), all other companies offering 'desert experiences' seemed to be clustered around this specific section of desert.
Red is the 'dune bashing' trail, green is the 'dune buggy' trail.
After the drive there was one more (kind of unavoidable) thing to do in the desert - ride a camel.
Probably the most tourist stereotype thing I have done for a long time.
At least nobody pretends it's more than a photo opportunity.
You get on the camel, it stands up, someone walks it on a leash for a hundred meters, takes some pictures and the camel lies down again.
At least, now there's a picture of me on a camel. 'Camel riding' checkmarked and time to move on.
Riding the camel was smoother than I thought it would be. Due to the unusual gait of camels (moving both legs on one side at the same time), they have a swaying motion that can supposedly make people seasick. I didn't feel any of that. Maybe the swaying motion happens when the camel moves at some speed. We were going at a slow pace. But I assume that on long desert tracks, camels don't hurry much either and that the slow step-by-step walk is the same that someone sitting on a camel during a multi-day tour would experience as well.
Although sitting on a walking camel was surprisingly comfortable, I definitely wouldn't want to be sitting on one that is running.
Sometimes it seems that even professionals don't want to do that anymore.
There's a lot of camel racing on sports TV channels in the Emirates.
But there's no rider on the camels during the race.
All they have is a 'robot jockey', which is a fancy name for a remote-controlled whip. During a camel race, there is a huge fleet of cars running on a parallel track, where the handlers (not sure whether they are still called jockeys) with the remote controls are sitting. Admittedly, the main reason for this is not that they don't want to sit on the camels, but because the trend went to lighter and smaller jockeys. That, ultimately, lead to younger and younger child jockeys. Due to human rights issues and underage labor regulations, the practice got banned. And the jockeys replaced by robots.
Enough of camels and the desert. Back to the city.
After the mostly flat expanse of the desert (give or take a few high dunes), it was now time to head upwards.
Burj Khalifa in Dubai is currently the highest building in the world at over 800 meters.
Unfortunately, it's impossible for a regular tourist to go that far up.
The highest place you can go to is 'The Lounge' at 584 m, so you 'only' get up to about 70% of the building. But it's still the highest accessible observation deck in the world. Again.
When I looked at the options for visiting Burj Khalifa, I was a bit surprised.
The regular viewing platform is at 452 meters, which was more than a hundred meters lower than where I was going. Barely halfway up the building.
And then there was, at about twice the cost, the opportunity to go to the 'sky' level at 555 meters.
Or you could, again, pay twice as much and go to 'The Lounge' at 584 meters. (To be fair, you don't pay the extra price for the higher level alone. You also get free canapes and non-alcoholic drinks (plus one alcoholic one) for that price.)
I opted for going to 'The Lounge' (if you go to the highest building on Earth, it makes no sense not to go to the highest accessible place on it), but I kept wondering about the strange set of options.
Only when I tried to look up the altitudes of the platforms to type this text, I found out why.
When the put in the original observation deck at 452 meters, it was the highest in the world. But then the Canton Tower in China put in a higher one at 488 meters. Not to be outdone, Burj Khalifa then added a second observation deck (the 'sky') at 555 meters. Then the Shanghai Tower opened an observation deck at 562 meters. So Burj Khalifa had go and open 'The Lounge' at 584 meters, in order to, again, have the highest observation deck.
So the strange system of observation decks has little to do with planning, but is based on reacting to building activities in other countries.
In any case - 584 meters is a lot. And there were good views all around.
From up there, you also can see all of "The World".
You can't see all of the world from there (obviously), but a group of artificial islands, called "The World", forming a, somewhat abstract, world map.
When looking down from Burj Khalifa the though struck me that Dubai is the city that Los Angeles wanted to be when it grew up.
There were also two things I could see from Burj Khalifa that were like a 'preview' of places I would visit later that week - the Museum of the Future and the Queen Elizabeth 2.
Sights grew a bit hazy in the distance, but I assume that has to do more with deserts sands and wind than with smog.
I stayed on Burj Khalifa until the sun had set, looked at the way it was illuminated at night and then went back to the hotel.
Next morning - the future!
Specifically, the Museum of the Future.
The Museum of the Future intrigued me.
The obvious reason was that the building was amazing looking.
But I was also somewhat fascinated by the whole idea of having a Museum of the Future.
Or even having an interesting future.
Most futures nowadays seem to be restricted and restrictive.
Somewhat reminiscent of science in the middle ages.
Back then, there was the assumption that the ancient Greek had essentially achieved scientifically and philosophically what was achievable. And all there was left to do (for more than a thousand years) was to find, translate and study the ancient works.
Many predicted futures make it seem like the things have peaked in the 60s (which had lots of exciting new things, like moon flights, supersonic travel, hovercrafts, massive social changes, peace&love and innovative musical styles). And all that's left to do for the future is to see of how many of these we can still afford to keep.
Berlin has a 'Futurium' that houses 'futuristic' exhibitions. Among the topics covered there are, predictably "reduce your own consumption", "making do with less", "to save the climate", "economies without growth", "any extraction of raw materials has consequences", "climate friendly production methods" and "one record high temperature after the other",
All relevant and important points that should be addressed. No doubt.
But the overall impression that the 'Futurium' provides is that, currently (or maybe a few decades ago) we reached a peak. It's as good as it gets. And, to drive the moral home, mankind got there by being destructive, exploitive and unethical. With the result that the only way out of it is to accept penance and have less.
While that will probably happen, the underlying message is: It's still good now (but you better feel guilty about it), but it'll get worse and worse in the future.
And for many countries, it seems like hopes for a future are replaced by misplaced nostalgia. There's a real or perceived decline in the standard of living and suddenly some point in the past is remembered as a 'golden age'. Then some conservative picks out a random difference between then and now and this suddenly becomes policy. Like Britain worrying about the future, dreaming of the days when it was a big empire, picking 'joining the EU' as the thing that made a difference and Brexit happens.
The point here is not the futility of the whole thing in its many variants, but that there is some point in the past that people try to get back to. It's usually not about shaping an amazing new future.
While the underlying attitude in Dubai seems more along the lines "Let's give it a try."
During the dinner cruise, there was a small amount of audio commentary. Not much and it wasn't intrusive. But when talking about Palm Jumeirah, they mentioned the plan of increasing the Dubai shoreline by building The Palm and then added that things like that don't magically happen, but it still took six years until it was finished. This was presented in a way that made it clear that taking six years for such a large scale project was an unreasonably long time. But, in comparison, there's a subway station close to where I live. Six years ago, they started to renovate it. That's repairing the walls and the ceilings. (We're not talking about replacing the rails or technical equipment.) Admittedly, that is done while the subway is operating. But still, that's six years for restoring one subway station. So, it's a bit amazing to visit a place where they think that building an artificial island with 56 km coastline for 25000 people in six years is a bit on the slow side. (While other places announce that removing some scaffolding to re-open an existing entrance to a subway station will probably be finished in another four months or so. But no specific date can be given yet.)
The idea of having a Museum of the Future impressed me, as that strongly implied that there would be a future and that it is something you could get excited about and look forward to. (And that 50 years is a lot of time to achieve things.)
To me, it didn't matter much how plausible the future looked.
It was likely to be mostly wrong about anything important in any case. A museum in 1950 wouldn't have predicted personal computers, the future in 1970 would not have included the Internet and an exhibit in 1990 would not have presented a smartphone. Even though the basic technologies for all of them existed at that time. The most unexpected thing was how quickly all of them became ubiquitous.
I expected the Museum of the Future to be over-optimistic about emerging technologies and (in hindsight after a decade or two) completely missing out on the big changes.
But that was not important.
What felt important to me was that there was the general assumption that the future wouldn't be bleak.
The Museum of the Future didn't disappoint in that respect.
Although some parts of the future seemed a bit old-fashioned.
Futuristic ideas, decades old.
At the beginning there was an elevator ride to the top floor that simulated a rocket flight to a space station. The space station was part of a system of stations that collected energy with solar panels and then transmitted that as microwave beams down to Earth.
An idea that has first been presented in the 60s.
But it remains an interesting idea and it is technologically only slightly out of reach.
(I had already wondered why they went for the elevator with the 'rocket flight' simulation instead of doing it as a 'space elevator'. But the scope of the museum is '50 years into the future'. Having space elevators in 50 years is technologically unfeasible. But solar panels in space with microwave beams might be achievable.)
As a presentation, everything looked amazing.
I had the impression that they missed a number of opportunities for interactivity, though.
At the entrance, you get a wristband with an RFID chip as the ticket.
Some of the exhibits had a sensor where you could scan the wristbands. But I didn't notice any 'follow up' to things I had done earlier in the exhibition.
For example, the spaceship had a 'recruiting station' where you can take one of six roles. You are then shown in that role on a screen (superimposing your face over an astronaut in a suit, for example).
But nothing else followed up on that.
I'm not sure whether I missed anything here (I might have), but it could have helped to make the experience more immersive.
Which can work well, even with much simpler means.
I remember a history museum in Australia, where you are given a random playing card at the entrance.
You then walk through a museum display about early immigrants in Australia (at that time mostly deportees).
It's a decent presentation. And usually you would walk past, look at some texts and artefacts and go somewhere else.
But here, they have mapped out the live story of 52 (or 32 - I don't remember what kind of card deck they used) people. And one of them (sort of) is you.
When you come to disembarkation, it's not simply an info table on where people got sent, what their crimes were and what their background was. You find out that, as a 'club', you were deported because you were a petty thief. And an image card shows that you were assigned gardening duty.
And so on.
Abstract history suddenly becomes a personal life story to follow and find out about.
Ultimately a cheap trick. (Literally cheap. Buy a pack of cards at a dollars store and you have an interactive experience for the next 32 or 52 people. So it's 2 or 3 cent cost per visitor.)
I had assumed that the RFID chip in the wristband would be used for something like that. But it wasn't.
Most of the presentations looked amazing, though.
There was one section on DNA banks, promoting the idea of saving the DNA of every species somewhere.
They represented that by thousands of glass cylinders, with animals (and plants and other lifeforms) laser-etched into the cylinders.
As a room installation, it looked great.
The futuristic part following that was, as before, a bit over-optimistic. But that was (kind of) the point of the Museum of the Future.
The idea was that biological challenges could be addressed by genetic engineering. And if the climate changes and there are more storms and fires, you bio-engineer wind or fire resistant trees.
And if the soil is contaminated, why not grow some soil-cleaning fungi and let them have a go at it?
I doubt that this will work.
Partly, because there are physical constraints that genetics can't get around.
You can't have a really fire-resistant tree, as wood is mostly cellulose and lignin.
And both will burn.
There's no way to fiddle with the DNA that would change that.
You probably can't replace both with something else and still have something that even resembles a tree.
Sure, a crab can have a shell that's mostly calcium carbonate and chitin. And that's less likely to burn than wood. However, a tree with a calcium carbonate 'bark' would have all sorts of other issues.
There are, of course, other tricks that might make a tree species, if not fire-resistant, at least fire-survivors. The most famous example are presumably eucalyptus trees. They are 'oily' and more flammable than most other trees. But they drop seeds when they burn. And the seeds are reasonably fire-resistant. And they fall to the ground, where the heat is lower. So while the individual trees won't survive fires, the species will.
But that brings me to the second issue with custom-engineered lifeforms.
DNA has rarely, if ever, a one-to-one mapping to features.
It affects developments, not part replacements.
For example, genetically engineering an animal that has a cat eye on one side and a dog eye on the other side won't work. DNA does not have 'per eye' building instructions. It, essentially, says "this is the instruction for an eye, build two of them, in a symmetrical way". (Yes, many huskies have different eye colours on both sides and fiddler crabs have one claw that is much larger than the one on the other side. But let's ignore these special cases.)
And most DNA changes are likely to an effect on something else es well. If you add more 'malaria resistance' by giving someone blood group 0, you get less 'cholera resistance'. You might not be able to genetically engineer one without an effect on the other. While fiddling with genes can achieve a lot of things - just look at all the different kinds of dogs - its might not be that useful for a better future.
Although that is precisely the point of having a Museum of the Future.
It's easy to look at stuff with a dismissive "No, that's not going to save us. It won't bring us into a golden age where everyone is happy."
The idea of the museum is to answer: "Maybe. But it might. Let's see and find out."
At the entrance, there's a motto, which I liked a lot:
"This is not meant as a prediction. This is meant as a challenge."
Which, as an attitude toward things, seems better to me than "Let's see what we need to do without".
When driving to Abu Dhabi later, an advertisement banner on a bridge also had a good motto: "Surprise the future". (Though I don't remember what the advert was for.)
The museum also had areas about wellness and relaxation, which weren't as technologically challenging, but cool environments to be in. One had a soft carpet to walk on. Swirling sand was projected onto the floor, which interactively moved as you walked around. Technically not necessarily cutting edge, even today, but fun to walk around on.
There was also a sound installation and a calm room with projections of slow moving abstract shapes as a relaxation room.
Most of it matched my ideas of what a museum should do. (My usual idea about museums is that they either should preserve and show historic originals, or they should create experiences you can't easily duplicate at home. As the Museum of the Future can't have any original exhibits, it should provide experiences you couldn't have at home. And on that account, it delivers.)
While I doubt that 2071 will be even remotely like the future shown in the museum, it is an interesting future the museum presents.
From the museum, I was off to the police academy.
That is a slightly unusual destination during a vacation. And the reason for going there had, luckily, nothing to do with the police.
But the police academy has wide, open areas and a helicopter base.
From which a private company starts their helicopter sightseeing flights.
While I had seen a lot of Dubai on the previous day from an altitude of more than 500 meters by visiting Burj Khalifa, I was now going to see the city from about the same altitude, but from more points of view.
We went halfway around Palm Jumeirah, covering the northern part of it, which we had skipped on the dinner cruise.
We passed by the Burj Al Arab hotel and past The World
Then we headed over 'Seahorse Island' and some other manmade islands towards 'downtown Dubai', the Burj Khalifa (where there were probably observers looking down at us).
This was followed by a turn around Dubai Frame, looking impressive in the sunlight, and then a short section along the Dubai Creek towards the coast, heading in the direction of the Dubai Marina, past some impressive looking villas, where the sheiks live.
Finally, we flew one more curve towards the highway and the Mall of the Emirates, before heading down to helicopter landing pad at the Police Academy. (By the way, the oddly shaped grey thing in the middle of the next image is the indoor ski slope they have at the mall.)
I got lucky with the view on the helicopter ride.
The helicopter had five passenger seats - four in the back and one to the left of the pilot. The one next to the pilot is the best as you, literally, have a front seat view. And great views in all directions.
The downside, of course, is that the pilot will photobomb your selfie... (I hadn't even noticed him doing it, until I looked at the picture later.)
The Museum of the Future was thought provoking and the helicopter flight was great for sightseeing. But both were, obviously mostly passive activities.
The next day, I wanted to be more active again.
I headed out for the race track.
When there's talk about the Emirates and motorsport, it's usually Abu Dhabi that gets the mention.
That's where the Formula 1 track is located, so the big events happen there.
But Dubai also has a 'Formula 1 quality' racetrack, the Dubai Autodrome. It predates the Abu Dhabi track by five years, but for some reason lost out on the bid for Formula 1.
When there isn't some GT or other race going on, they offer driver experiences on the track, where you can drive around the track with various supersports or racing cars. And some other cars.
I had done something like that in Italy, where I drove in a Ferrari and a Lamborghini around the track in Monza.
It was a fun experience, but seriously expensive.
I drove around the
While the Lotus Exige was slower, it was much more fun driving it.
Partly because it handles (mostly) like a normal car. So you have a reasonable idea of what it can and can't do. A supercar, fun though it is, is intimidating, as you have no real idea what is still 'safe' (in terms of braking power and tire traction). You can't afford to drive it long enough to get a feel for it.
In a supercar, you enjoy being in a supercar.
With a more normal car, you can enjoy the driving much more. (Also, it's cheaper.)
The have a number of different cars for the drive experience on the Dubai Autodrome.
They offer Ferrari, Aston Martin, Porsche and various BMW models. And a Formula DXB racing car. A F1 experience as well, where you can drive a real Formula 1 car around the track. (Preferably all the way...)
In a 'money is no object ' world, I would have chosen the Aston Martin Vantage, which, to my surprise, is already among the cheaper options. I have no idea why - driving the Porsche GT3 costs 60% more. And that has a lower top speed. And driving a Ferrari 488 GT costs even more than twice of the Aston Martin drive. (And you can double that again for the F1 Experience.)
All probably fun to do, but budget was limited, so I went for the cheapest option.
And no, that didn't mean the Formula DXB (though that was surprisingly affordable as well - about two-thirds of the price of driving the Aston Martin).
It meant driving the Mini.
As expected, it was a lot of fun.
Not only does a Mini drive like a normal car, it also handles a bit like a go-kart, so it is really nice to handle around corners. And there's no learning curve before you can drive it properly.
You get a good number of laps as well, so you can also develop a proper feel for the track. (The Mini driving experience is eight laps, while the Aston Martin driving experience, for example, is only six laps.)
The Dubai Autodrome has various possible combinations, depending on where they put the barriers. Basically, it consists of three separate racing tracks (the Club Circuit, the Oval Handling Circuit and the Hill Handling Circuit), which can then be combined using connecting track sections. The International Circuit is essentially the Club Circuit plus the Hill Handling Circuit, the National Circuit is the Club Circuit plus the Oval Handling Circuit. And the Grand Prix Circuit is all three of them together.
I was driving around the Club Circuit, which is mostly a long oval, with a few additional corner pieces attached to the northern side. And a short section up a hill. (Technically, the section up that hill has a few curves, but practically, hitting a few kerbs along the way, you can drive straight up.)
Driving the Mini around the Dubai Autodrome has two downsides, however.
The obvious one is that everything else on the track will be faster than you are.
As a result, you need to get off the racing line a couple of times. (But there aren't that many other cars on the track, so that's not much of an issue. And you got more laps than they have.)
The other issue (more serious in a place like Dubai, where pictures are important) is that the Mini has no camera set-up. The supercar driving experiences tend to offer 'In-Car Video'. For this, the cars have a dashboard cam, showing the track, another camera filming the driver (to be used as an insert for the dashboard video) and some overlays with telematic data, such as current speed, laptimes and position on track.
But nobody brags about having driven a Mini. So, there's no camera installed and no proper mounting point for a camera either.
I managed to find a place near the sunroof of the car where I could clamp on my action camera. But from that position, it mostly showed the roof console and the rear-view mirror, with the track only barely visible at the sides.
And that set-up didn't even work well as a selfie, as the mirror showed the instructor. (They don't let you loose on track without supervision. You get an expert driver as a co-pilot who tells you when to brake and how to take the corners. He's also responsible for paying attention to the other cars on the track, so all mirrors are set in such a way that he can see the track behind. In that respect, you are driving 'blind', as you can't see anything behind you and have to rely on him telling you when you need to let someone pass. As the driver, you only pay attention to what is in front of you.)
At one point, I noticed some smear on the wall at the side of the track and mentioned that this must have been fairly expensive.
It turned out that it was a lot more expensive than I had assumed.
According to the instructor, the 'smear' happened during one of the Formula 1 Driving Experiences. Someone had badly misjudged the corner and smashed the racecar right into the wall. The way the wall looked, the car probably wasn't in any good shape after the crash. Given that used, driveable F1 cars easily cost a million dollars, this presumably had been a really costly experience. And painful as well.
I'm happy to say that I left the Mini undamaged and stayed (mostly) on track (kerbs don't count...)
Though there was a corner I did go into too fast and hit one on the traffic cones on the side. Put no damage done.
After driving eight laps, I also had a "Passenger Hot Lap", where you switch sides with the instructor. And he shows you how it's done properly.
The only do that after you have driven your laps, as the instructor, who is a professional driver, knows what he is doing. And if he does his lap first and you think you can do that as well, it's likely that you get it seriously wrong and add another smear to the safety barriers.
The convenient thing about having a lap in the passenger seat was that I could take the camera into my hands and it had a better view of the track.
As the Mini didn't provide telematics, the actual laptimes are somewhat tricky to figure out. I had a GPS with me, but that stored data points every two or three seconds, so laptimes aren't much more accurate than that. But it seems that most laps were around 01m31s. The instructor laptime was about 01m25s. (To put the times into context - there was a race on the track, about a week after I was there, and a Porsche GT (racing version) set a new track record for the Club Track of 01m06s. That's a racing driver in a racing car, with more than 600hp and a top speed 320 km/h, fine-tuned for the conditions of that day. Compared to a Mini. I think the Mini did quite well.)
I didn't want to drive directly back to the hotel.
Switching from the track immediately to normal streets seemed risky.
I'm not an expert on driving regulations in Dubai, but I'm pretty sure that going full throttle most of the time, braking hard, using the full width of the street and driving across the kerbs when going around corners isn't appreciated on regular streets.
I wanted to have a bit of a 'cool down' period before driving a regular car again.
So I went to the kart track.
Possibly not the smartest idea, based on what I was trying to achieve.
While the top speeds of karts are lower than that of a Mini, not only is much of the driving on a kart track similar to that on a race track (full throttle, hard braking, hitting kerbs, using the full width), but driving is even more aggressive (as mistakes don't have consequences as drastic) and you also drive much closer to other karts.
It might have been more sensible to sit down somewhere for lunch instead.
The outdoor kart track next to the Dubai Autodrome is neat. An interesting track layout that crosses itself at some point with a bridge and has some tricky/fun corners.
The only downside to the track is that racing overalls are mandatory.
And if you are sitting in the kart, waiting for the session to begin, even though it's still early February, you start to regret that you went karting on a sunny day at noon on an outdoor track. It got hot in there quickly. (At least while waiting. Once on track, the headwind helps to cool you down. And your attention is on driving.)
After the karting, I went to the rented car and drove back to the hotel. (Even though going karting didn't help much as a cool down period - in neither sense of the word - I managed to drive back properly.)
In the afternoon, I did something I hadn't originally planned for. I went onto the Ain Dubai Ferris wheel.
It's the largest Ferris wheel in the world, almost twice as tall as the London Eye.
When I was planning the trip, Ain Dubai was closed indefinitely
It had opened in October 2021, but was closed again half a year later for some non-specified periodic enhancements and had remained so ever since.
As it was not operational, I hadn't paid much attention to it.
But 'indefinitely' not only means unlimited, it can also mean an unspecified period of time.
By the start of the year, Ain Dubai was running again.
Something I discovered almost by accident.
I had originally considered a seaplane sightseeing flight instead of the helicopter sightseeing flight I did the previous day.
After a lot of searching, I found out that the company that used to offer seaplane flights ceased to exist (or at least stopped offering seaplane flights) years ago.
But it isn't easy to find out, as there are still at least a dozen of booking sites offering their "Dubai Seaplane Tour". Most of them are reasonably honest about the availability. While you still have the tour description page, giving infos and glowing (years old) reviews, if you actually try to do a booking, you see a calendar that has no booking dates available. Or that everything is sold out and you should book something else instead. But the secondary booking pages all remain visible and of you simply search for "seaplane sightseeing dubai" you get pages and pages of offers (and these are sites that offer you bookings, not travel blogs about things people did in the past). And it takes some time to figure out that none of those offers is valid.
Looking for stuff to do, I came to a booking form for Ain Dubai Ferris wheel tickets.
Given the experience with the seaplane flights, I got a bit grumpy about that, since the Ferris wheel stopped operating years ago (and that was surely better known than the fate of some, admittedly, comparatively obscure seaplane company). I took a look at what booking company did know so little about Dubai that they didn't even know that one of the most visible landmarks hadn't been working for years.
It turned out that the web page wasn't from any booking company, but the official web page of Ain Dubai itself.
The web page was legit. And a bit of searching for news items showed that the Ferris wheel was indeed operating again.
So, I bought a ticket. But it was pure coincidence that I went to the web page. And mostly because I wanted to grumble about it.
The Ferris wheel didn't seem to attract large crowds.
There was a lot of space for queuing. They normally seem to expect a lot of tourists. But when I got there, there weren't any queues and I could walk right in. I'm not sure whether that is because Ain Dubai isn't much of an attraction (though I doubt that), because it was already post-season or because it had only been recently re-opened, so many people weren't even aware that they could go there.
In any case, it was comfortably uncrowded. The cabins are designed to hold up to 40 people. And there were only five of us in the one I was in.
The cabins in front and behind were being unoccupied. Although for the one behind us, that was probably normal. There are VIP cabins for private events that have a bar/dinner table in the middle. And that was one of those. They probably don't use that for regular visitors.
The ride was impressingly smooth. In the cabin, you couldn't tell that it was moving at all (except for the shifting view, obviously).
From Bluewaters Island (where the Ferris wheel is located), I took the 'water taxi' back to the marina. (Though the name is slightly misleading - despite being called 'water taxi', it's a regular scheduled transport service. The purpose of the name is probably mainly to distinguish it from the much larger ferry.)
By that time, it had gotten dark and I had one last view of the Dubai marina cityscape at night.
Next morning, I was heading for the hills.
Specifically, the Jebel Jais mountain in the north of the Emirates, located in the Ras Al Khaimah emirate.
I went there for more ziplining.
It was another happy side-effect of search-engine use.
At some point, I wanted to look up something about the zipline in Dubai (the one that started the whole trip). But I had forgotten its name (XLine) and searched for "zipline Dubai". And, together with the information I had been looking for, there was also a result for the "world's longest zipline". I was sure that the one at the marina in Dubai wasn't that long (its prime attraction is location, not superlatives). I had a look. And found out about Jais Flight, a zipline on Jebel Jais peak.
While not close to Dubai, it wasn't that far either. About 2.5 hours by car. (Which had an additional side effect. Initially, I hadn't planned to rent a car, as, within Dubai itself, public transport and taxis will get you everywhere easily. But there's no way to get to the Jebel Jais zipline by public transport. And even though taxis are affordable, a 2x200 km drive will be costly. So I rented a car. And once I had decided on that, I also had the means to easily get to Abu Dhabi, which hadn't featured on my initial schedule either.)
The landscape is rugged, with many sheer cliffs and rubble below.
While you feel a bit 'away from it all' when in Jebel Jais, it isn't that remote. It's less than 10 km away from the coast (which can be seen in the first image above), although there is no direct way towards the coast, so it would be a 60 km drive.
The street leading up there is new, wide, well maintained, with many serpentines.
It would have been a lot of fun to drive up and down that road in a small car, like a Mini or a Fiat 500. But the rental car wasn't quite as small or agile. And the maximum speed for the whole road was 40 km/h anyway. So it ended up as a regular, slow drive.
The zipline was everything it promised to be. Fun. Long. Fast.
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And, for once, being heavy turned out to be an advantage.
The flight was 'superman style', so you go along the zipline in a lying position. And we were asked to keep the arms as close as possible to the body, in order to reduce wind resistance. As, otherwise, we might not make it to the end of the zipline. (Which isn't a problem, but it slows things down.)
But with more weight, you have additional momentum when going down the zipline, so the relative effect of wind resistance is smaller.
I made it to within about three meters of the destination platform. And there is a rope that you can use to pull yourself in the rest of the way.
Others didn't get quite as far and stopped twenty meters or so before getting to the platform. For them, one of the guides needed to clip himself to the zipline, pull himself hand-over-hand along it to the customer, attach a link to the customer and then let himself (and the customer) being pulled back onto the platform.
The platform at the end of the zipline was unusual. It looked a bit like something modelled after Jabba the Hut's barge.
Instead of having the end of the line on solid ground, it's on a platform suspended in the air by a number of cables.
Once you arrive there, you use a second (short, 50 meter) zipline to travel the final section.
The zipline (the main one, not the short one at the end) felt fast, but it is difficult to tell how fast I went.
The GPS data was all over the place. And even after removing the obviously wrong datapoints (everything in excess of 180 km/h) there still wasn't any clear image emerging. Putting in a polynomic trend line suggest that the top speed was about 140 km/h (which seems at least plausible, based on their claimed maximum speed of 160 km/h), but that's mainly an educated guess.
That wasn't the only zipline there.
In addition to the big zipline (the Jais Flight), they have the Jais Sky Tour, a series of six ziplines that crisscross down Jebel Jais.
While not as long (individually) or as fast as the big one, they are each between 300 and 800 meters long.
And even more fun.
Unlike the long zipline or the one in Dubai, which both are 'superman style', you do these six ziplines in 'normal' climbing gear. Basically in a sitting position.
This allows for more freedom of movement and you can appreciate the ride and the scenery more.
All of the six ziplines were great, but the second and the fourth were especially noteworthy.
The second crosses through a gap in a mountain ridge.
Even though there's a lot of room between you and the rock (my legs were probably three meters above the ground), the legroom seems a lot less when you're approaching at speed. You pull up your legs as high as you can, even though you couldn't collide with the rock if you tried.
The fourth zipline look ominous.
From the starting point, it looked like the zipline went straight into a vertical rock wall.
Having seen too many cartoons, I got the impression that at the end of the zipline, I would smash straight into the rock and then slide down, flattened, to the ground.
The view along the way was great, though.
But I still had no idea where the zipline would end. I had the vague assumption that there might be a gap in the cliff and the endpoint would be somewhere out of sight. Or that the top of the cliff might be lower than it seemed and I would end up on the top of it.
But rushing towards the rock wall, it seemed that neither of that was the case.
Only when I was getting close to it, I did see that the zipline did end right at the cliff face. And that there was a platform attached to the cliff.
Cool.
There was then a short wooden walkway to the start of the next zipline.
Oddly, walking along the wooden walkway bothered me more than the zipline. Which, rationally, is a bit odd. I had no problems zipping along a hundred meters above the ground, being secured by nothing than a single cable, a rope and a climbing harness. But standing on a stable wooden platform, with handrails on both sides (and additionally secured by the rope and the harness) made me nervous. Such is the irrationality of vertigo.
By the way, being outside of tourist season was noticeable here as well. While there were other clients on the long zipline, I was the only customer on the zipline tour. With me were two guides 'on duty' (one always goes ahead and sets up the braking mechanism on the receiving platform and hauls you in if you don't make it all the way (which wasn't necessary on this tour), the other always goes last and makes sure that you're properly attached and secured before you zip down the cable) and one guide who went along because it's fun riding ziplines.
From the cliffside, there were more two ziplines before reaching the endpoint next to the road.
Good day with great ziplines.
I didn't want to drive all the way back to Dubai (or even farther) that day, so I had been looking for a place to stay nearby.
While there are some hotels 'nearby' as the crow flies (the coast is less than 10 km away), it would have been at least an hour to drive in order to get there. So I might as well have driven back to Dubai as well.
There was an alternative nearby, but that was - not a hotel...
It looks a bit dubious at first with steel containers painted in desert camouflage and camouflage netting outside.
More like some secret military training facility than proper accommodation.
But it looks more militant than it is.
The containers have air-condition, proper toilets, showers and a fridge.
So, these are hardly tough off-the-grid survival camp conditions.
And the view is impressive.
At least if you like looking at rocks. For anything else, you are in the wrong place.
But in regards to convenience, you can even get your dinner ingredients delivered.
In this case, some drives up to your container in a delivery van and you get all the ingredients for making a hamburger.
Pre-grilled meat patty, pre-cut bread bun, slices of cheese, two pieces of salad, two slices of tomato, some sauces - everything you need. Plus some extras like a small piece of chicken, some corn, some olives and some humus (well, after all, you are in an Arab country).
You only need to fire up the grill and have an relaxed meal under the starry sky.
There's also a breakfast service, where someone comes around in the morning and brings a bag with croissants, pain au chocolat and some cinnamon rolls. And, of course, Nutella and English Breakfast Jam.
It might be an 'explorers camp', but that doesn't mean you can't be civilized.
Initially, there was one more thing I wanted to do in Jebel Jais.
Next to the explorers camp, there is also a Via Ferrata.
And it looked like a nice, doable one.
While it has one long vertical climbing section (with metal staples, like one very long ladder), it's mostly a traverse.
So you go up some rockface (probably similar to the one I had ziplined to the previous day) and then go along the side of it.
When I had tried a Via Ferrata in Italy the previous year my main issue was the amount of uphill climbing. The other elements had been fun.
And while this had one big climb at the beginning, it was only half as high as in Italy. And the Via Ferrata here in the Emirates also had some additional fun features, like cable bridges and (again) ziplines.
Sounded like something worth a try.
But a couple of days before I got there, I got a mail that the Via Ferrata was 'closed due to maintenance works'.
As I didn't want to do nothing instead, I opted to try their 'rock climbing and abseiling' activity instead.
I already knew that this wouldn't be perfect for me, but it would be something to do and why not give it a try?
Abseiling was, as always, fun.
It's something I've done before and enjoyed. And it's something were gravity works in my favor.
We only went down a small wall, though. It was more about the mechanism of abseiling than trying to go down any impressive walls.
As rubble pretty much looks like any other rubble, regardless of the size of the rocks, it's surprisingly difficult to estimate the height from a picture.
This picture makes it look like I'm about half a meter above the ground.
The second picture makes it clearer that the wall is a bit higher than that
In any case, no dramatic heights involved. The abseil was probably 8-10 meters. Still fun to do.
The rock climbing part was less successful.
We went to another wall, I got clipped into the safety line. And the instructions were along the lines of "go up there".
To be fair - there were additional instructions shouted to me along the way.
And, admittedly, there aren't many needed. Essentially it amounts to "Find a foothold and push yourself up. Repeat."
Without doubt, rock climbing is no activity for me.
I don't have the body for it. And I don't have the determination (or interest) to achieve the suitable body.
I'm heavy, so gravity is working against me. I don't have the finger strength to properly grip the rock, not the calluses to do so painlessly, not the not ball of the thumb to wedge my hand into a gap, not the arm strength to pull me up, not the slim body to allow me to stay close to the rock and not have most of the weight away from it, acting as a lever.
And that's just the body part of it.
I've also never been in a climbing gym. I've no idea how to 'read' an upwards path and figure the best route to take. I didn't know which moves to make.
Which are all things that I had been aware of. So I didn't mind that much to find out that I'm not a natural rock climber.
I think I got about six meters up the wall, before I couldn't make any more progress. (Basically, the next possible foot rest was about 50 centimeters up. And with my leg bent that far, I couldn't exert enough downward pressure to push me up.)
In any case, it was fun giving it a try. And it gave me something to do in the morning.
From Jebel Jais, I drove down to Abu Dhabi.
In Abu Dhabi, I stayed in an amazing hotel.
The hotel was a bit more upscale than the ones I usually stay in. When I tried to check in, there were only two parking spots in front of the hotel. I didn't want to block any of them, so I asked the concierge where I could park my car. And got the somewhat surprised response: "Do you want to park your car yourself?" Turned out that they have free valet parking. That's not something I am accustomed to. So, I didn't expect it. But I found it more surprising that they seemed to assume that ever hotel guest sees that all the time.
The hotel itself was unusual looking. It had a futuristic design and looked a bit like two giant caterpillars.
But the design wasn't what brought me there. In fact, in retrospect I notice that it didn't interest me enough to take a single picture of it.
What is amazing about the hotel is its location. And its view.
The view from my hotel room was this.
And no, the blue stripes aren't swimming lanes.
The hotel stands at a race track.
My room had a direct view of the Yas Marina Circuit F1 track.
Though obviously not during a F1 race.
During the Formula 1 race weekend, the hotel rooms are essentially unaffordable (I think they are around 5000$ a night, with a minimum of three nights booking).
For the rest of the year, it's simple a luxury hotel. Pricey. But reasonable for what you get.
And that's a front seat view of motor racing.
In fact, even better than front row seating.
What you get is, essentially, your own VIP suite at the track.
Even if it's not a Formula 1 race going on, it feels decadent to go inside your hotel room, make yourself a nice espresso and then go outside on the balcony and see the cars racing by.
It also is amazing.
As in Dubai, they usually also offer driving experiences on the track. If you want to (and can afford it), you can drive a Ferrari, an Aston Martin, a Formula 3000 one-seater or a Caterham Seven there.
But not during the weekend I was there. On that weekend the track was used for proper racing.
There were a number of different racing events going on. They had two races of the Asia Le Mans series going on (each race lasting four hours) as well as three races of the Formula Middle East Championship.
Adding the time for practice and qualifying, there was something racing related going on most of the weekend.
With me having a great view of the action at corners 11 and 12.
Since the Yas Marina Circuit had been designed to also allow night racing, the events didn't stop at sunset either.
And at least I was watching.
Others not so much...
Looking at the grandstands on the other side of the track, it's obvious that there's nobody there. As far as I could tell, nobody was on the balconies to the left and right of me either. (For the latter, there's probably a good reason. During breakfast it seemed like most of the people staying at the hotel were in some way involved with the racing. It's likely that they spent the day at the pit boxes or on the track itself, driving. They might not have the spare time to sit in their rooms and watch the race.)
And now for something completely different...
It has nothing to do with race cars at all, but I was staying at the hotel on Valentine's Day.
And I found this neatly folded towel from housekeeping in my room.
Nice touch.
Back to car related stuff.
What I did the next morning was only indirectly car related.
Next to Yas Marina Circuit is 'Ferrari World', a theme park that is mostly known for fast and outrageous roller-coasters.
Of which I'm not much of a fan (I didn't ride any of them).
But you can walk across the roof of the theme park, which was something I wanted to do.
So I did.
After that, I went to the race track.
Not to my room, but to the regular grandstand on the start/finish line.
A 4h race was about to begin soon and I wanted to see the start of it.
Before the race, they opened the grid lane to everyone, so visitors could have a close view of the cars and the teams.
Even though it seemed like a big crowd on the track during the grid walk, there weren't actually that many people watching the race.
Right before the start of the race, the main grandstand felt almost deserted.
Motorracing is mostly a TV sport.
Except for Formula 1, almost nobody wants to see it on site.
It's not like the promoters didn't make an effort. There was a good mix of food trucks outside, so food was reasonably priced and varied. They had some cool show cars on the parking lot behind the grandstand. And tickets were free. (When you download your free ticket, you notice that it's a free annual ticket, covering all motorsport events on the track - except for the Formula 1 Grand Prix.)
I didn't see much racing action from the grandstand.
The cars did their warm-up lap behind the safety car. Stopped at their grid positions. And the race started.
While the field was close when going around the first corner, everyone got around without an issue.
After one lap, the cars came along the main straight at racing speed and went around the corner.
And there one car crashed into the wall.
The driver got out unhurt, but car parts were all over the track.
The race was red-flagged and all cars lined up on the starting grid.
After less than seven minutes, the race had stopped. (The racing lasted about two minutes. The rest of the time was for driving slowly behind the safety car back to the grid lane.)
I decided not to wait at the grandstand for the restart of the race and went back to my hotel room to watch from there.
About 45 minutes later, the race still hadn't been re-started (it took about an hour) and I had to leave for another activity.
It kind of sounds refined and cultural, but wasn't.
I went to the Louvre Abu Dhabi
Though I didn't go there to see any artwork. I didn't go into the building at all.
I went there to go kayaking.
There's a company offering kayaking trips around the Louvre.
My tour started shortly before sunset, so I got to see the building in daylight, at sunset and also at night, when art is projected onto the buildings around the main dome.
Next morning, I watched some more racing from my hotel room before I needed to check out.
Then I went to the Warner Bros. theme park.
Theme parks in the Emirates, except for water parks, are mostly indoors for obvious reasons. With average noon temperatures in the summer over 40°C, nobody wants to be outside for long.
Even parks that have outside elements, like Ferrari World, have most of the attractions inside. Only some parts of the rollercoaster tracks are outside, with all the queues and loading areas comfortably in an air-conditioned environment.
At Warner Bros. everything is inside.
From the outside, the place looks a bit drab, like some logistics warehouse or storage facility, with some cartoon characters painted on it.
But on the inside, they made good use of the fact that the place will never see daylight, so the lighting designers have full control over how everything looks.
The Batman/Gotham themed area is all kept in dark hues, with a black ceiling and lots of blue and dark gray.
While the land of Superman and the Justice League / Metropolis is kept at an eternal sunrise, with light blue, purple and light grays.
Although the Hall of Heroes might be slightly overdoing the monochrome, gray look.
And once you reach the more cartoony realms of Dynamite Gulch, Bedrock or Cartoon Junction, things get bright and colourful.
As might be obvious from the pictures above, the park wasn't crowded. Most attractions had no waiting queue at all. The only things that required a few minutes of waiting were attractions that had a fixed runtime, like the Green Lantern Galactic Odyssey (a "4-D flying theater experience") or Superman 360: Battle for Metropolis ("a 360°-3D movie experience"), as everyone had to wait until the previous performance had finished. Once that had happened, everyone in the queue got in, with room to spare.
I spent a couple of hours at the theme park, but then I had to head back to Dubai, as I had a flight to catch on the next day.
On the way, I mused about brand recognizability.
And probably got it wrong.
I drove past one large store that had an Arabic logo.
When I did see that logo, I thought "Even though most people I know can't read that, everyone will immediately know what kind of store this is." The combination of the background colour and the colour of the brand name is sufficient to make that instantly recognizable. I bet most people will even be able to tell the names of half a dozen products they sell.
But when I showed that to a few people after the trip, none recognized it immediately. Most still tried to 'read' it somehow. "Hmm, something like Lisil? Maybe Lidl?" (Which, admittedly, also uses similar blue and yellow tones in its logo.) Only after some more thinking, they came up with the correct name, which invalidated my assumption that the brand would be recognizable at once.
In any case, the blue/yellow colour scheme isn't as distinct as I thought.
Even the Warner Bros. logo uses it.
For the last night in Dubai, I went to a comparatively cheap hotel. (Ok, compared to the hotel at the Abu Dhabi racetrack almost every hotel seems cheap. But I also mean compared to other hotels, like the one I stayed in in Dubai for the first few days. In fact, it was cheaper than staying in a container out in the mountains.)
The room was also rather small and didn't have much of a view.
But it had a lot of history and seen a lot more of the world than I had.
From the outside, it looked like this:
The Queen Elizabeth 2 is probably the last of the elegant cruise ships. The design is more like an oversized yacht then something for mass transport.
When I was on the dinner cruise in Dubai, I did see a modern cruise ship.
It was gigantic - like a huge skyscraper turned 90°.
Many of the cabins have balconies. And the rooms are likely to be larger than the ones on the QE2. And there are probably all sorts of cool and exciting things to do on board.
But from the outside, it has all the style of a container ship. A hull and then a stack of identical boxes in the form of a large cuboid on top of it. Except that these are people boxes instead of containers.
On outside looks and style, the Queen Elizabeth 2 wins hands down.
On the inside - not so much.
I had expected some faded elegance. Something that once was stylish and thought to be timeless.
Or, maybe, as the ship was built in the 60s, some misguided attempt of capturing the swinging sixties.
There were one or two places that looked somewhat elegant, like an English club. Or pub.
But most of it looked like the design cues were taken from a 70s motel.
This is (what is left of) the Mauretania Restaurant, the largest restaurant on board.
Metal ceiling, ugly carpet (not the original one, but judging from old pictures, it never looked good) and lots of metal boxes.
I have no idea what their purpose was. Some had knobs, so they might have had heaters for putting food on top of them during buffets. But instead of being in a row, they are all over the place. It feels like the put the restaurant tables right in the middle of some industrial kitchen.
While the Mauretania Restaurant stood empty, they had restored the Queens Grill, the most prestigious restaurant on board.
And that, essentially had the charm of a hospital canteen.
That's where the rich and famous dined, when they were travelling as elegantly and suavely as possible.
You also might have expected some high-class gambling, something where Sean Connery's James Bond wouldn't have looked out of place.
Instead, you have rows of one-armed bandits, like on these duty-free, cheap booze ferry trips.
I also was surprised that they didn't do anything about the long, dull corridors.
They might have put in a few curves and corners to break up the monotony.
It was fun to stay at such a historic place for a night, but going on an Atlantic crossing for four days would not have been my idea of a good time.
Next morning, I had a guided tour of the Queen Elizabeth 2, which went into the more technical areas, like the bridge.
That part was mostly as expected, with technical devices stacked like archeological layers.
Some of the gear seemed to come straight from the 60s, when the ship was built. But it had an engine refit in the late 80s, so most of the controls will have been updated at that time.
And, of course, the ship had to keep up with current navigation and communication developments, so these parts would look almost modern.
(Although, at best, 'almost'. The QE2 was retired in 2008, so even the newest equipment would be 17 years out of date. And that's assuming
that they still updated the ship in its final seafaring years. Realistically, most stuff on the bridge would be at least two decades old.)
There were two things on the tour that surprised me.
One of them was that the Queen Elizabeth 2 has a parking deck for cars with enough room for eighty cars.
They could be driven or lifted in using a hatch at the side and were then lowered with a dedicated car elevator down into the ship. So, if you were seriously wealthy and couldn't live with the thought of taking a taxi or renting a car when you arrived, you could take your own Rolls Royce with you and have it waiting outside the ship when you disembarked.
The other thing that was unexpected was directly below the bridge - the officer's bar
I am not surprised that they had a bar exclusively for officers. No passengers allowed and none of the lower ranks either. In 1960s UK, classes still mattered.
What I didn't expect was that they had the best place on board.
Maybe not with the nicest furniture. But this is the only room (except for the bridge) that has large, forward-looking windows (the grand suite on the deck below has smaller windows) and it would be the best place to either put in the most expensive restaurant there or some sort of panorama bar.
In any case, something exclusive for passengers.
It is understandable that the officers wanted to have the best place on board for themselves, but I assumed that even then the owners of the ship would have said "Yeah, so? We want paying customers in there. You can have something nice and exclusive somewhere below deck."
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And that's nearly all about the trip to the Emirates.
It was an intense vacation. I was there for a little more than a week, but had squeezed in a lot of activities.
Two more things at the end.
Usually, I don't photograph my food. But I had to check out at the Queen Elizabeth 2 and I had a late flight, so I went to a mall, not far from the airport, to waste some time (better than sitting at the airport for six hours) and had some lunch at the foot court there.
And, given that it was some fast food for about 12$, including a soup as starter and a soft drink, I found the look of the bento box unexpectedly nice.
On the flight back, I had a window seat and, about an hour after take-off, had a good view of Kuwait (and later Baghdad) at night
