India Trip: Do You Understand the Words that are Coming Out of My Mouth?

FROM 1/5/08:

Being a fairly cosmopolitan town Dubai has two primary languages: Arabic and English. The English, however, is not a form I have ever heard of. Much of the time I have felt wild gesticulations communicated more than any English being spoken to me. Oh wells, I will be in India soon enough. I hear they speak proper Queen's English there. Oh I say!

Anyways, the problem with goal directed wandering is that it is still wandering, and the problem with doing this towards your hotel at night and from a different direction than which you originally started from is that it quickly regresses into just plain old wandering. After walking for more than three hours back from the mosque, interrupted a bit for some dinner at a Lebanese restaurant, I then spent another 30 - 45 minutes circling the neighborhood my hotel was located in but never quite finding it. All I wanted to do was get back to my hotel to have a sip of water and a good sit, but instead I traversed street after street which, though looking familiar enough, were generally not too close to my actual hotel. I finally did find Eureka Hotel and after washing up I promptly fell asleep watching the Orange Bowl. Good times.

The only major highlights for today have been finally finding the Dubai Museum and finally figuring out the water taxi system. The Museum was not much to write about. Just imagine mannequins in Arabic garb with a few captions strewn about. For about a $1 admittance, however, I could not complain. The water taxis on the other hand were even cheaper, and even more enjoyable. If there's anything I enjoy as much as in-flight meals it is boats. Well there are plenty of things I enjoy as much or more than in-flight meals actually, but nevertheless crossing Dubai Creek (about 130 yards across) on what seemed to be almost a glorified motorized canoe with about twenty other people was quite nice. Perhaps it was just because I was off my feet; though, I think I need some arch support.

It probably comes as no surprise that the Westerners are where the money is, but it seems in Dubai that this is also where the Arabs are. Despite being at the Eastern terminus of the Arabian Peninsula the city grew so fast and the indigenous population was initially so small that the Arab population in the city is clearly a minority and is, in general, almost as wealthy as the tourists and businessmen coming to visit. The significant majority of the less affluent population, on the other hand, would appear to be from either SE Asia or the Indian subcontinent. It almost appears to be a colony of the latter at times. Curious.

Well, off to India tonight. Dubai's alright, but I'll be happy to move on and to me up with the other UTHSCSA folk. Just need to get past sitting at the airport for 5 or 6 hours tomorrow morning. Oh bugger!