Dubai the city of the future

G’day all,
How would I wrap Dubai up in two words? Bloody Amazing. Well I’ve just spent a few sensational days in Dubai, the super city of the future. What more can I say than mind blowing, super-modern, space aged, fast, perfect, and perhaps even fake. My first impressions of Dubai were a little different to this as I was caught in traffic jams, surrounded by poor Indian and Pakistani slaved and underpaid laborers, and stuck in a backpacker hostel that nobody had heard of miles out of the city centre. After introducing myself to the first westerners I saw at the hostel I found myself within an hour drinking pints at an Irish Pub for the 4th straight night. The next day me and my new mates Andre and Simon headed to “Wild Wadi Waterpark” right next to the famous sail shaped 7 star hotel the Burj al-Arab. It cost an arm and a leg to get in but once you walk through the gates and see this massive artificial wave with a huge pipeline screaming out ‘surf me’ you can understand why. Growing up in the surf, I couldn’t wait to give it a go and I got so excited that I didn’t jump on the wave properly and got sucked backwards off the back of the wave (as in the video) and it was highly embarrassing. What made it even more embarrassing was the fact the Jamaican surf instructor heard my Aussie accent and built me up as a professional surfer. After my embarrassing moment there we then tried out the many slides we had to choose from. Thinking we were going to be climbing steps all day I was amazed to find out we were jet propelled in uphill slides in rubber tubes and didn’t have to do a thing to get to the top of the hill. One of the slides goes down in complete darkness and another one shoots you down the hill at 80km an hour from a terrifying height which makes you feel very close to getting airborne and hitting the car park with a splat. We had an awesome day at the water park and got there first thing in the morning and were the last to leave when the park closed. We got very sun burnt too but had a ball. On my final day in Dubai I decided I better actually do some site seeing so I did a jump on jump off double-decker bus tour which was really the only way to see Dubai. This is when I really gained my respect for what has become of Dubai and what it will become in 10 years time. Dubai was nothing but a sand desert 60 years ago before it became a tiny fishing and boat making village until 30 years ago when they discovered oil and now it’s the fastest growing city in the world. The old part of the town is nothing but a dingy, old, dirty, traffic jammed, cluttered mess but the new part of town feels like you’re in the 2100. The architecture seems alien-like, the malls look like a set from a movie, the cars are worth more than houses, all the bus stops have air-con, the beaches are perfect, and everything seems to have a different theme. They are building the fastest, tallest, and grandest, of everything in the hope to make this the number 1 tourist destination in the world in years to come. Only 20% of the people in Dubai are actual Arabians and they don’t seem to do any of the dirty work except for driving down to the ATM to pull out wads of cash to go shopping for their 4 wives in their brand new Ferraris. As you drive down the roads all you see are sweaty, hot, predominately Indian foreigners building these skyscrapers everywhere you look. Meanwhile the government gives local Arabian couples a huge beach front mansion for free as a wedding gift with a nice wide driveway for their collection of Lamborghinis. The city is starting to look like Manhattan and it’s only just begun. Only a few of the building have actually been complete whilst if you look around you will see a horizon of cranes and construction sights as far as the eye can see. Even more impressive than the buildings I found were the malls. Each mall has a different theme and these things would give Paris Hilton cardiac arrest they offer so much choice and quality. One mall in particular really impressed me as I’ve never seen something so perfect in my life it was pure stunning. All the buildings were made of sandstone and were styled like something from Santa Fe. They were surrounded by canals with crystal green water and bridges with gondolas like Venice but right in the near distance was the Burj al-Arab poking out over the clear blue sky. On the waters edge were a sting of cafes and restaurants and all the customers looked like movie stars. As you can probably tell I was pretty impressed. One other thing I’ve noticed about Dubai is there is no homeless people and no unemployment and if anything there is a lack of people to be employed. Anyway that’s a wrap up of my time in Dubai. Next update is from Doha in Qatar. Enjoy the pics and videos and leave us a comment.

Woodsy

India…..I love it, but I hate it……but I love it!!

G’day all,
Well again it has been just a massive few days in India. How can any day not be massive in this crazy old country? If I could put India in 3 words it would almost be impossible but I would have to choose crazy, spiritual, and colourful. I think in any one day in India just walking the streets you could see 1000 things that would just blow you away and things that could only happen in India…that’s why I love it here. I think life without India again is going to be so uneventful but I’m also kind of looking forward to normality again. Anyway enough of my daydreaming back to the past few days. My short 44 hour bus ride from Kathmandu to Delhi ended up being pretty close to torture but finally arriving felt so good again. I met this cool Japanese/French bird named Naomi on the bus so we kept each other sane by just cracking jokes for the whole bus ride as nobody else spoke English on our so called “tourist bus”. The highlight of the bus ride was seeing a UFO out of the window and watching it for a good hour or more. I first spotted this strange cigar shaped bright light out of the window and thought it was moving but couldn’t be sure as the bus ride was pretty shaky. When the bus stopped for petrol I watched this light hover up and down and left and right for a good 10 minutes and I was so pumped when I realized this thing ain’t human. It bounced around the sky like nothing I’ve seen before and moved so fast and silent and smooth that I can honestly say I’ve seen a UFO now. We had to stay a night on the border of Nepal and India as the border didn’t open until 6am. The hotel we stayed at was so rank and ever since that night both my hands and my feet have thousands upon thousands of tiny bite marks all over them and it’s really annoying me. I stayed a day in Delhi before catching an overnight train to Jodhpur in the desert state of Rajasthan towards the Pakistan border. I was very close to missing my train as my cheapness almost got the better of me. I spent too long bargaining with the rickshaw drivers until it got to the point of ‘pay anything now and leave or miss the train’. The rickshaw driver went nuts to get me to the train station on time hitting two pedestrians and a straw cart on our 20 min thrill ride. I arrived at the train station at 8:45pm, the same time the train was due to leave. I then ran to Platform 16 assuming it was mine and launched myself into the moving train Tom Cruise style pushing everyone out of my way and pulling myself and my 30kg bag into the train. Luckily it was the right train however I was about 9 carriages away from where my bed was waiting for me and I was stuck in the standing refugee section for a few hours until the train finally stopped again. Anyway I’ve been in Jodhpur for two days now and it’s an incredible city to be in. It’s called the “Blue City” as many buildings are painted sky-blue to apparently keep the insects away and to keep it cool (as it’s so bloody hot here- many 50+ days) Towering above the sea of ancient blue buildings is a huge 125 meter old fort called Meherangarh. I found the fort almost as impressive as the Taj Mahal and it was a top surprise as I pretty much just came here to see the blue buildings. I spent a fair few hours exploring around the fort and they had a great audio tour included too. It took me ages to find my way back to the guest house as this town looks like something out of a “Where’s Wally” book with a million identical alleyways in a labyrinth of boxy blue buildings. If yesterday was hot then today was boiling. I think it would have been close to 50 degrees so I decided to spend the day in style…in the Great Thar Desert! I vibed my way to the bus station and caught a government bus to the desert town of Osiyan, 65km north of Jodhpur. I was the only tourist I saw all day and being on this crowded bus with a heap of Indians staring at me, I felt as uncomfortable as a fart in a spacesuit. One bloke started taking this piss out of me and saying stuff in Hindi to me in front of everyone then they all laughed at me. The only comeback I could come up with to make it even was to whip out some hard Aussie slag that they had no chance of understanding. I had a little chuckle and nose laugh to myself as I came back and said “settle petal, pull out the big guns shirley ya flam’n galah, think ya top brick don’t ya, ya dopey mongrel…so suffer in ya jocks…ya tool…now rack off ya clown”. I felt like I had the whole of Australia behind me at the time so I had nothing to lose however I think he must have thought I was from Antarctica or something with a language like that. It was one more crazy bus ride to add to the collection but I finally got there and boy was she stinking hot. The town was dusty and tourist free and full of Indians with turbans on their heads, white gowns and tweaked moustaches. After drinking about 3 litres of water I found a little kid that could take me on a 2 hour camel safari through the sand dunes so before I knew it I was smack bang right in the middle of the Indian desert sitting high on a camel. It was such a great feeling being the only tourist or person even to be seen riding a camel through this surreal sandy desert. It was like something out of a movie it was so picture perfect but I was guttered that my camera was broken. As we approached this tiny desert village I was amazed as this mini tornado whipped through the village out of nowhere and almost ripped the roofs off the huts. It hung around for almost 5 minutes and got within about 20 meters from us as it roared and zigzagged around violently ripping up shrubs, sticks, and dust, and spinning them at least 50 meters into the air. I’ve seen many whirly winds before but nothing like this. It made such a loud noise it sounded like a V8 and would have easily been strong enough to pick me up and perhaps the camel too. I was almost in a state of shock but this kid seemed to think nothing of it as it happens all the time here but he said they are very dangerous if you get caught in one. He also said he has been picked up and thrown from one before. I was surprised it didn’t rip the roof of this hut it passed right over but I guess they are designed to withstand mini tornados and they looked quiet strongly built. I had a cup of tea with the local village then rode back through the dunes into town again. After a looking at a couple of ancient temples I was buggered and caught the bus back to Jodhpur again. Tomorrow I head of to the Hippy town of Pushkar so I’m sure as eggs will have more crazy stories to add from there.

Oorooo Cockatoo…Woodsy

PS: Incase your wondering I scabbed another travellers photos for the blog :)