I was flying to Belarus from Vancouver. A long journey. I had already had a layover in London (on Coronation Day) and my next layover was in Dubai. I know that doesn’t make any sense. The shortest route between London and Minsk is not the United Arab Emirates, but this was May 2023 and the war in Ukraine was ongoing. Although Belarus was not actively fighting in the war, they were supporting Russia and using their territory as a staging ground for the Russian military. As a result of this, there were embargoes by nearly every Western country against Belarus and they had cancelled all their flights. Normally, if I was flying to Belarus I could have flown through Germany, for example, but this time, the only way to get to Belarus was via Dubai.
So what this meant was, I had an excuse to go to Dubai. I’d never been to the UAE before and, honestly, I had no interest in going to Dubai for more than a long layover, so this seemed like a great opportunity. I would have two visits to Dubai on either end of this trip.
Arrival in Dubai
Map & Flag of the United Arab Emirates
I landed at the airport in Dubai and no visa was required. A great bonus. Fascinatingly, going through immigration, when they handed me back my passport, they handed it back to me with a SIM card with one gig of data on it, which was kind of amazing. I’ve never seen that in any country before. Of course, I had no interest in being online while I was there so I just left it behind for someone else to use, but what a nice welcome gift. I left my bag at a baggage storage facility at the airport and hopped on the train. I love a city where I can get on a train to go from the airport into the centre of the city. I wish all cities could have this.
The train into Dubai was in itself fascinating because I got to see all of the modern buildings. It’s an above ground train, so riding it was a little bit like being on some sort of futuristic tram ride at Disney World.
Views from the trains of the Frame and the Museum of the Future
The Dubai “Maul”
I didn’t have a long time to visit so I thought that I would try to see the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. I got off the train at the Dubai Mall and from there I should have been able to walk through the mall and then exit it to be at the Burj Khalifa. I exited the train and I walked to the mall, however, the walk between the train station in the mall is incredibly long. I was above ground in this windowed tunnel walking on moving sidewalks, but there’s no way to exit and you just have to keep walking until you get to the mall. It took maybe 20 minutes of fast walking and I found it extremely frustrating. I’d come all the way to the city and now suddenly I was trapped in a tube, walking towards a mall. When I looked out at the city, I was not impressed. There were massive highways and cars everywhere and it just didn’t look like the sort of place that would be pleasant to walk at all.
Views from the stupid tunnel and the only glimpse I got of the Burj Khalifa on this trip
I finally reached the mall, and I walked through it for a bit, realizing pretty quickly that I was not going to find my way out anytime soon. The mall is massive, and I got frustrated. I thought, I didn’t fly all the way to this country to spend my time lost in a mall, and so I turned around and I walked out.
I did see the Burj Khalifa on my second trip to Dubai a week later, but this time I decided to skip it.
Bur Dubai
I got back on the train, and I headed to the closest train station (Bur Jaman Station) to “Bur Dubai”, which is Old Dubai. This was much more my cup of tea. Old Dubai is not the most beautiful or picturesque of Arabic city centres, but it has its appeal.
On the edge of Bur Dubai
It has old buildings and mosques and narrow alleyways and wonderfully a Hindu temple with people outside preparing flower and food.
Near the Hindu Temple
I then made my way out to the water (Dubai Creek) and there’s a waterway that separates the city in two parts. I would, on my second visit to Dubai, go across to the other side, but this time my layover was a little shorter so I just stayed where I was.
Around the Bur Dubai souq
I walked around, had some fresh juice, and chatted with some local merchants.
I then plunked myself down at a table by the water and smoked some shisha and had a bite to eat. It was very pleasant. A young travel and fashion influencer from Saudi Arabia came and sat with me for a while and talked about her travels with her family. And then I just sat with myself smoking and watching the people go by.
Shisha and juice by the water
Finally I got back on the train and went back to the airport. I was pretty satisfied with my layover, even if I had been defeated by the Dubai Mall. I wasn’t that impressed with the little I saw of Dubai, but it was pleasant to go to the city it was interesting to be somewhere new, and somewhere that was completely different from London (to place I’d come from (and Minsk (the place that was going to), but I wasn’t that taken with Dubai. The new buildings are just … big new buildings, and the city does not seem very conducive to walking. The old section is nice, but there are much nicer places to go to see have that sort of old Arabic city experience. I will say that my second visit to Dubai would prove to be much better and I will write about that at a later time.
There were no issues getting back to the airport or getting onto the plane. I spent some time at a fabulous lounge at the airport and then I was off to my final destination: Minsk, Belarus.
