A holiday in the United Arab Emirates will unfold a group of historic independent states rushing headlong into the future. Once the home of pirates, fishermen and pearl divers, the Arabian Gulf cities today are exploding models of what man can achieve with vision, determination and bottomless coffers of crude oil profits. Once overshadowed by the massive growth of Dubai, UAE neighbours Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Qatar are themselves transforming into 21st Century havens of wealth and conspicuous consumption.
Abu Dhabi has taken a different tack to the glittering approach of adjacent Dubai. With plans to open outposts of the Guggenheim and Louvre in the coming years, Abu Dhabi is positioning itself as a global cultural centre. Visitors to Abu Dhabi are overwhelmed with the choices in shopping and dining from bustling local markets and gold souks to air conditioned palaces of Mammon. Ask your Travel Counsellor to book a dune bashing tour into the Empty Quarter, the vast tracts of sand that even Bedouin nomads fear to cross.
A visit to Bahrain is a must. A chain of islands in the Gulf, Bahrain’s history extends back 6,000 years but it really only came to world attention with the discovery of oil in the 1930s. Bahrain’s capital, Manama, is a small, easily navigable city and is reinventing itself as a financial hub and leisure destination in its own right. The Bahrain International Circuit is the home of Formula One Grand Prix in the Gulf States. Visitors can drive the course in a variety of vehicles, so aspiring F1 drivers should check with their Travel Counsellor for current offers.
Qatar is the thumb of land jutting into the Arabian Gulf, and what it lacks in aesthetic appeal it overcompensates for in natural gas, making Qatar one of the richest nations on earth, and its capital Doha the fastest growing city in the Middle East. A former British colony, Doha clings to tradition despite its headlong rush into ultra-modernity; it boasts an extensive historical and cultural background with many museums to explore before hitting the shops. A perennial favourite is a day-long 4WD safari to the world famous inland sea, a huge inlet surrounded by giant rolling sand dunes.
UAE fun facts
Before the UAE won independence from Britain in the 1970s it was known as the Trucial States
In UAE the emblem on a male owned Rolls Royce is of a flying lady (the Spirit of Ecstasy). The emblem on a female owned Roller is of a kneeling lady
Each of the seven UAE states is known as an emirate, and is ruled by an emir
Fascinating Dubai!
Tuesday 11th May 2010
Travel Counsellor: Karen Wolf-Thom
Travel Counsellors periodically hold internal sales based competitions where those of us who are located in England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Netherlands, South Africa and Australia are put into teams that compete against each other. The theme of the competition that ended in January this year was “Soccer Worldcup” and was sponsored by Emirates.
My team happened to win and in May a group of 20 Travel Counsellors from the participating countries was off to Dubai!
The cab driver who brought me to the hotel for my first night (due to the different flight times from Australia I arrived one day ahead of the rest of the group) told me that ten years ago there was almost nothing in the place that Dubai takes up now. The developments over that past decade must have been amazing and nowadays you find countless skyscrapers in various stages of completion, only slightly slowed down during the world recession. The buildings are in all different shapes, with different exteriors, having pointy... view full story
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