Dubai, farewell, auf weidersehen, adieu?

If travel is about bridging the gap between expectation and reality, Dubai makes things really easy for the visitor. It’s just as you’d imagine: a strange mix of old world Arabia, Miami Beach and Fraggle Rock (except with South Asians instead of Doozers). A forest of cranes tower idly above construction sites where little actual constructing seems to be going on, while in dusty residential areas there are empty lots cleared for future development, should the need arise.

Whether or not the need does arise hangs in the balance. While things aren’t quite terminal, even an economic girly man like me can see they’re pretty dire. In fact, Dubai’s desperation is such that this week it popped round to its neighbour, Abu Dhabi, to borrow a cup for sugar and $10 billion, presumably figuring that, hey, if they’re prepared to buy Man City, they're probably not asking too many questions. But the problem for Dubai (and now Abu Dhabi) is that while it’s staked its future on attracting tourists as well as suits, you have to fly over umpteen more desirable holiday spots to get there.



That’s not to say it’s not a fun place to visit. In fact, a quick glimpse at a city map suggests that town planning may have fallen to a nine year-old on a sugar high, which is never a bad thing in my book. There’s a Legoland fantasy to it. Look at the 160-floor Burj Dubai tower, the world’s tallest building, which bears an uncanny resemblance to a giant flu jab. Then there’s the indoor ski slope in a mall, an unusual blend of Aspen and Lakeside Thurrock. My favourite spot, though, is the Palm, an area of reclaimed land that’s designed to resemble a palm tree (although you’d need a helicopter to appreciate it) which is festooned with the kind of terracota mansions Ali Baba might have lived in had he been a Premiership footballer.

At the Palm’s apex sits the grandeur of the £500/night frieze-lined Atlantis, surely the world’s first hotel with its own whale. To see it requires a stroll down marbled corridors to a cavernous inner aquarium that’s encased by magnified glass so powerful it turns its unassuming inhabitants into monsters of the deep. Peering inside, you’re eyeballed by wrasse the size of Rotherham and reef sharks that could nibble Jaws as a canape. It’s so aquatically over the top Dr. No would weep tears of joy. Paddy and I certainly did (ok, Paddy is four).


While being once-overed by a supersized stingray it dawned on me that maybe Dubai is onto something after all. The thumping Tower-of-Babel silliness of it all is so out of kilter with the brave new credit-crunched world that maybe the emirate has accidentally stumbled on its USP. Maybe this is the rabbit hole we can scurry down to really get away from it all? After all, if skiing through a shopping centre or playing golf in a desert doesn’t take your mind off things, nothing will. They should still free that whale shark, though.