In three days I changed my mind about Dubai. Not only the rich will have fun here

I look two hundred meters down at an artificial palm island straight from the world’s highest, 360-degree infinity pool, Aura Skypool, and I feel just one step away from buying my own yacht. Some people around are working on laptops as if these were completely normal working conditions, others are drinking drinks, and still others are on their phones, trying to capture both the view and themselves in the pool. The only thing that prevents perfect photography is the rusty-milky color of the air. I don’t know if it’s the desert dust or the extremely high humidity making visibility difficult, or maybe both. However, in just a few weeks it will get colder, i.e. a pleasant thirty degrees. Both tourists and residents are eagerly waiting for November and the official start of the season.

When I visited Dubai for the first time last year on a layover on my way to Colombo, I thought it was one of those cities I couldn’t live in for anything in the world. Today, after three days spent exploring the attractions and talking to its inhabitants, I must admit to changing my mind.

Is it possible to like Dubai?

The size of the Dubai airport is dizzying, even though everything is perfectly organized here. At the world’s third busiest airport, groups of Buddhists in white robes, African passengers in colorful Dashiki tunics, businessmen discussing final details on the phone and Emirates flight attendants in distinctive red headgear intersect. Some people push strollers weighing heavy with heavy suitcases, others use airport taxis, because the distance between the gates is sometimes even several kilometers. Everyone is flying somewhere or returning from somewhere, and looking at the impressive network of connections, it is not easy to guess the direction. Already here you can get the impression that we are at the very center of the world.

“We’re not into that kind of atmosphere,” I hear from another pair of friends when I tell them where I went. I have the impression that the fashion for Dubai among some is developing in parallel with the demonstrative rejection of this trend among others. I rarely come across opinions somewhere in between.

The highest, fastest, most beautiful and most expensive attractions still work like a magnet for many people and they do not need much convincing to visit them. However, in my internet bubble there is a growing group of those who, for no apparent reason, prefer to stay away from such record tourism.

However, what those skeptical people don’t always know is that Dubai has much more to offer than giant shopping malls and very, very tall buildings. I assure you that you can like Dubai, although its popularity can sometimes be intimidating. It is similar with Dubai chocolate, which is still just as tasty, even if its cheap equivalents can be found at the checkout in almost every store in Poland today.

Extreme walk on the edge

On the first day of my September stay in Dubai, apart from the swimming pool on the 50th floor of the skyscraper, I also included a walk along the edge of the building at an altitude of 219.5 meters and an extreme car ride through the desert known as dunes bashing. I don’t remember ever having so many experiences in a few hours in my life, and in Dubai, planning such excesses back to back is not a challenge at all.

Among my friends, the film showing my feet above the serpentines of highways raging below causes the greatest stir. Edge Walk this is probably the best, easily accessible dose of extreme tourism in a safe version in Dubai. Before entering the terrace, which is not separated from the abyss by any glass or plexiglass, I sign a long declaration of risk awareness, and then I change into “working clothes” and a harness that our high-altitude guide attaches to the safety rope.

Watching the world from this height after a sleepless night is a strange, dreamlike experience. I’m glad that due to the slight time difference I didn’t sleep too well – if I had been more alert, I might have questioned the strength of the rope, but I just obediently follow the belayer’s instructions, who shows that I can safely lean forward and back, smile for the photo, and I won’t fall at all.

The crossing costs AED 499, which is quite a lot for one attraction lasting less than an hour. However, I am afraid that you will be hard pressed to find a more exciting observation deck in the world, so it is quite a reasonable investment, because you don’t have to use any other ones.

A city full of success

SLS Dubai Hotel & Residencest skyscraper, seventieth floor. Here, in an Italian restaurant, 28-year-old Celia from France works. She comes to our table to talk about each dish served, and there are no signs of tiredness on her face, even though it is already late and she is, after all, a chef awarded in the Michelin guide. It’s a pleasant September evening because the air isn’t too hot and we can sit outside. The Burj Khalifa sparkles in the background.

Fi’lia is the first restaurant in Dubai headed by a woman. Celia and I are of a similar age, but I can only admire her energy. She has been working in the kitchen since she was fourteen.

– I like the way they feed there. You know you won’t finish dinner until you’re full, she recalls trips to Italy where she learned the art of cooking. Then she gained experience in the best French restaurants, for example Guy Savoy, in Paris, with three stars. When she came to Dubai, the culinary scene was not as rich as it is now. “Wherever you eat here, you know it’s going to be really good food,” he says.

As a woman and an immigrant in the United Arab Emirates, she feels respected. – However, I came here as an experienced person, also as a manager. But one of the section heads in my kitchen only had two years of experience before Dubai. And she is a machine because she gives her all and has already been promoted several times, she says. – We try to have as many working women in the kitchen as possible. Just a few months ago, there were eleven of us out of a team of eighteen, now, due to personnel changes, there are six of us. I receive a lot of messages from women who see how Fi’lia works and who feel that they can work in this profession and that they fit in, she adds.

Khalid from Yemen, a driver for tour groups in the desert dunes, has lived in Dubai with his family for twenty-seven years and wouldn’t trade it for any other place in the world, although I try to ask him if he would find something that bothers him. Similarly, Talar, who came from Armenia and works at the Museum of the Future. He misses his family and the four seasons, but he appreciates Dubai for its multiculturalism and good earnings.

Suddenly I look at Dubai through the glasses of the opportunities it offers. I imagine that, with a bit of luck, I could be seduced by them too. To have an apartment paid for by the company, to walk in an air-conditioned shopping mall on hot days, to mix with international friends whom I visit after work to eat something, and then to go for walks alone at night to watch the sleeping yachts moored in the marina. I was sold on the idea of ​​living in Dubai in three days, even if it was only a temporary and somewhat naive fantasy.

A trip not only for the rich

Last year I was wondering whether it is even possible to have fun in Dubai without money. I used the metro then, not organized trips with a driver, I also visited a public beach, not a paid beach club, and I ate falafel on the street for a few dirhams, not a multi-course dinner in a Michelin-recommended restaurant. And the only problem at that time was the sun burning the skin, from which you wanted to escape to closed and paid attractions. Now, when temperatures are dropping every day, there is a perfect opportunity for a budget trip.

Dubai attractions are not as expensive as you might think, at least not all of them. You will pay 159 dirhams for a visit to the interior of one of Dubai’s most iconic buildings, which houses the Museum of the Future. Entrance tickets to the spectacular Dubai Frame are even cheaper (AED 50), and you don’t have to pay anything to walk through the maze of souks in Old Dubai, although you’ll probably have a hard time avoiding the sellers. Then, for two dirhams, you can go on a cruise on a traditional abra boat

The desert adjacent to Dubai is free of charge, but without a rented 4×4 car and knowledge of the area, it is better to visit it with an organized trip. However, the beautiful oryxes will walk along it the same way, regardless of whether you choose a private luxury tour for 800 dirhams or a tour booked online with Get Your Guide for 100 dirhams.

You will come across a whole spectrum of prices when purchasing Dubai chocolate, which has surpassed dates imported by tourists in the ranking of popularity of Emirati culinary souvenirs. Before leaving, I was convinced that chocolate-covered kunefe cake is actually a phenomenon only in Poland, and then in the supermarket in Dubai Mall I was lost in entire aisles dedicated to pistachio, a discovery of recent years. The cheapest one can be had for the equivalent of thirty zlotys, and the original Can’t Get Knafeh of It produced by Fix Dessert Chocolatier will cost over five times more.

— Dubai is no longer an exclusive playground for the wealthy. Even luxury experiences—like top attractions or beaches—are often available through combo packages or seasonal promotions. Dubai deliberately creates this diverse mix to make everyone feel welcome, says the Dubai Department of Economy & Tourism.

You can’t compare Dubai to anything

Dubai cannot be compared to anything. It cannot be a Middle Eastern Chicago, a desert New York or an Arab Singapore. Dubai is simply Dubai and for this reason alone, you simply have to see it.

I hope that more people with backpacks will continue to appear here. After all, the four walls of even the most luxurious penthouse can be more limiting than the vastness of the desert. So let’s take advantage of the availability of cheap flights to discover this part of the world, so different from what we can find in Europe.

The trip took place at the invitation of the Dubai Department of Economy & Tourism. The organizer did not interfere with the content of the publication.