The Rough Guide to Dubai (Travel Guide eBook)

Rough Guides

Description

World-renowned 'tell it like it is' guidebook

Discover Dubai with this comprehensive, entertaining, 'tell it like it is' Rough Guide, packed with comprehensive practical information and our experts' honest and independent recommendations.

Whether you plan to go shopping, discover sand-skiing, laze on beaches or visit interesting museums, The Rough Guide to Dubai will help you discover the best places to explore, sleep, eat, drink and shop along the way.

Features of The Rough Guide to Dubai:
- Detailed regional coverage: provides in-depth practical information for each step of all kinds of trip, from intrepid off-the-beaten-track adventures, to chilled-out breaks in popular tourist areas. Regions covered include: Bur Dubai, Deira, the inner suburbs, Sheikh Zayed Road and Downtown Dubai, Jumeirah, the Burj al Arab and around, the Palm Jumeirah and Dubai Marina. 
- Honest independent reviews: written with Rough Guides' trademark blend of humour, honesty and expertise, and recommendations you can truly trust, our writers will help you get the most from your trip to Dubai.
- Meticulous mapping: always full-colour, with clearly numbered, colour-coded keys. Find your way around Deira, Jumeirah and many more locations without needing to get online.
- Fabulous full-colour photography: features a richness of inspirational colour photography, including the dazzling Deira souks and the colourful Dubai Aquarium.
- Things not to miss: Rough Guides' rundown of Al Ain Oasis, the Burj al Arab, Deira and Jumeirah's best sights and top experiences.
- Itineraries: carefully planned routes will help you organise your trip, and inspire and inform your on-the-road experiences.
- Basics section: packed with essential pre-departure information including getting there, getting around, accommodation, food and drink, health, the media, festivals, sports and outdoor activities, culture and etiquette, shopping and more.
- Background information: comprehensive Contexts chapter provides fascinating insights into Dubai, with coverage of history, religion, ethnic groups, environment, wildlife and books, plus a handy language section and glossary.
- Covers: Bur Dubai, Deira, the inner suburbs, Sheikh Zayed Road and Downtown Dubai, Jumeirah, the Burj al Arab and around, the Palm Jumeirah and Dubai Marina. 

About Rough Guides: Rough Guides have been inspiring travellers for over 35 years, with over 30 million copies sold globally. Synonymous with practical travel tips, quality writing and a trustworthy 'tell it like it is' ethos, the Rough Guides list includes more than 260 travel guides to 120+ destinations, gift-books and phrasebooks.

Sujets

• Travel
• General officer
• United Arab Emirates
• Middle East
• General
• Émirats arabes unis

Informations

• Publié par: Apa Publications
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781789196351
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 23 Mo

Extrait

iStock
Contents
INTRODUCTION
What to see
When to go
Things not to miss
Tailor-made trips
BASICS
Getting there
Arrival
City transport
Tours, cruises and desert safaris
The media
Festivals
Culture and etiquette
Travel essentials
THE GUIDE
1 Bur Dubai
2 Deira
3 The inner suburbs
4 Sheikh Zayed Road and Downtown Dubai
5 Jumeirah
6 The Burj al Arab and around
7 The Palm Jumeirah and Dubai Marina
LISTINGS
8 Accommodation
9 Eating
10 Drinking
11 Nightlife, entertainment and the arts
12 Shopping
13 Sport and outdoor activities
14 Kids’ Dubai
OUT OF THE CITY
15 Day-trips
16 Abu Dhabi
CONTEXTS
History
Contemporary Dubai
Books
Language
Glossary
SMALL PRINT
iStock
Introduction to
Dubai
Dubai is like nowhere else on the planet. Often claimed to be the world’s fastest-growing city, over the past four decades it has metamorphosed from a small Gulf trading centre to become one of the world’s most glamorous, spectacular and futuristic urban destinations, fuelled by a heady cocktail of petrodollars, visionary commercial acumen and naked ambition. Dubai’s ability to dream (and then achieve) the impossible has ripped up expectations and rewritten the record books, as evidenced by stunning developments such as the soaring Burj Khalifa, the beautiful Burj al Arab and the vast Palm Jumeirah island – testament to the ruling sheikhs’ determination to make the city one of the world’s essential destinations for the twenty-first century.
Modern Dubai is frequently seen as a panegyric to consumerist luxury: a self-indulgent haven of magical hotels, superlative restaurants and extravagantly themed shopping malls. Perhaps not surprisingly the city is often stereotyped as a vacuous consumerist fleshpot, appealing only to those with more cash than culture, although this one-eyed cliché does absolutely no justice to Dubai’s beguiling contrasts and rich cultural make-up. The city’s headline-grabbing mega-projects have also deflected attention from Dubai’s role in providing the Islamic world with a model of political stability and religious tolerance, showing what can be achieved by a peaceful and progressive regime in one of the planet’s most troubled regions.
For the visitor, there’s far more to Dubai than designer boutiques and five-star hotels – although of course if all you’re looking for is a luxurious dose of sun, sand and shopping, the city takes some beating. If you want to step beyond the tourist clichés, however, you’ll find that Dubai has much more to offer than you might think, ranging from the fascinating old city centre, with its higgledy-piggledy labyrinth of bustling souks interspersed with fine old traditional Arabian houses, to the memorably quirky postmodern architectural skylines of the southern parts of the city. Dubai’s human geography is no less memorable, featuring a cosmopolitan assortment of Emiratis, Arabs, Iranians, Indians, Filipinos and Europeans – a fascinating patchwork of peoples and languages that gives the city its uniquely varied cultural appeal. The credit crunch may have pushed Dubai to the verge of bankruptcy but pronouncements of its imminent demise proved wildly premature, and the city remains one of the twenty-first century’s most fascinating and vibrant urban experiments in progress. Visit now to see history, literally, in the making.
< Back to Introduction
What to see
At the heart of the metropolis on the south side of the breezy Creek, Bur Dubai is the oldest part of the city and offers a fascinating insight into Dubai’s traditional roots. This is where you’ll find many of the city’s most interesting Arabian heritage houses, clustered in the beautiful old Iranian quarter of Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood and the waterfront Shindagha district, as well as the excellent Dubai Museum and the atmospheric Textile Souk. On the opposite side of the Creek, the bustling district of Deira is the centre of Dubai’s traditional commercial activity, much of it still conducted in the area’s vibrant array of old-fashioned souks, including the famous Gold and Spice souks. Fringing Deira and Bur Dubai lie Dubai’s inner suburbs , with a varied array of attractions ranging from the absorbingly workaday suburbs of Karama and Satwa – home to dozens of no-frills Indian curry houses, low-rent souks and some of the city’s most entertaining street life – through to impressive modern developments like the kitsch Wafi complex and adjacent Khan Murjan Souk, both exercises in faux-Arabian nostalgia.

Tim Draper/Rough Guides
LOST CHAMBERS AQUARIUM, ATLANTIS HOTEL
A few kilometres southwest of the old city centre, modern Dubai begins in spectacular style with Sheikh Zayed Road , home to a neck-cricking array of skyscrapers including the glittering Emirates Towers. Even these, however, are outshone by the massive Downtown Dubai development at the southern end of the strip, centred on the stupendous Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, flanked by further record-breaking attractions including the gargantuan Dubai Mall and spectacular Dubai Fountain. West of the Sheikh Zayed Road, the sprawling beachside suburb of Jumeirah is the traditional address-of-choice for Dubai’s European expats, its endless swathes of walled villas dotted with half a dozen shopping malls and a smattering of low-key sights.
At the southern end of Jumeirah, there are more iconic sights in the sleepy suburb of Umm Suqeim, including the wave-shaped Jumeirah Beach Hotel , the extraordinary mock-Arabian Madinat Jumeirah complex and the unforgettable Burj al Arab hotel. South of the Burj stretches the spectacular Dubai Marina development, with its densely packed forest of glassy skyscrapers, while offshore lies the Palm Jumeirah , the world’s largest man-made island, which ends in a flourish at the gigantic Atlantis resort.

A little over an hour’s drive down the coast, the UAE’s capital, Abu Dhabi , offers an intriguing contrast to its freewheeling neighbour – slightly smaller, and considerably more sedate, although here too a string of huge developments is increasingly transforming the city landscape. Leading attractions include the extravagant Emirates Palace hotel and the even more spectacular Sheikh Zayed Mosque – not to mention the spectacular Louvre Abu Dhabi.
Elsewhere, there are a number of rewarding day-trips from Dubai, all offering an interesting alternative take on life in the twenty-first-century Gulf. Just 10km up the coast, the more conservative city of Sharjah hosts a rewarding selection of museums devoted to cultural and religious matters, including the excellent Museum of Islamic Civilization. Further afield, somnolent Al Ain , the UAE’s only major inland city, offers a complete change of pace from life on the coast, with traditional mud-brick forts, old-fashioned souks and the country’s finest oasis. Across country, it’s only a two-hour drive from Dubai to the UAE’s even more laidback east coast , with a string of beautiful and still largely deserted beaches to crash out on, backdropped by the dramatically craggy Hajar mountains.

Dubai: second among equals
Given the city’s soaring international profile, many people unfamiliar with the region think that Dubai is a country – which it isn’t. Dubai is actually just one of the seven statelets which collectively form the United Arab Emirates, or UAE , a loose confederation founded in 1971 following the departure of the British from the Gulf. Technically the seven emirates are considered equal, and preserve a considerable measure of legislative autonomy, rather like the various states of the USA – which explains, for instance, why local laws in Dubai are so different from those in neighbouring Sharjah. In practice, however, a clear pecking order applies. Abu Dhabi , easily the largest and wealthiest of the emirates, serves as the capital (even if Abu Dhabi city is significantly smaller than Dubai) and wields the greatest influence over national policy, as well as providing the UAE with its president. Dubai ranks second, followed by Sharjah and then the other emirates of Umm al Quwain , Ras al Khaimah , Ajman and Fujairah , which remain relatively undeveloped and even surprisingly impoverished in places.
The fact that the union has survived despite the sometimes considerable differences of opinion between Dubai and Abu Dhabi is a glowing tribute to local diplomacy, even though it has also created the anomaly whereby Dubai, with its headline international standing, isn’t even the capital of its own low-key country. Abu Dhabi, meanwhile, continues to regard its upstart neighbour with a certain suspicion – although the true relative power of the rival emirates was vividly demonstrated during the credit crunch of 2009, when oil-rich Abu Dhabi was obliged to bail out its dazzling but virtually bankrupt neighbour to the tune of around US$20 billion.
< Back to Introduction
When to go
The best time to visit Dubai is in the cooler winter months from December through to February, when the city enjoys a pleasantly Mediterranean climate, with average daily temperatures in the mid-20s°C. Not surprisingly, room rates (and demand) are at their peak during these months, though skies in January and February can sometimes be rather overcast, and it can even be surprisingly wet at times. Temperatures rise signifi