Dubai has grown in leaps and bounds from a humble fishing village it was in the 1960s until it struck oil. An oasis of Western lifestyle in a deeply Muslim world, Dubai has transformed itself from a sleepy creek not so long ago into an ultra-modern sleek city crowded with sky-piercing towers and real estate sparkling like a billion dollars and often described with superlatives.
If ever there is a city as obsessed with being the best and having the biggest or tallest in a multitude of things, it would be Dubai. If seeing is believing, Travelbag suggests you should not miss at least one of the following:
1. The Burj al Arab
Dubai’s symbol for its obsession with luxury, the Burj al Arab exceeds the usual 5-star hotel standards utilized everywhere else. This 7-star hotel has one of the world’s most expensive, grandest, plushest and most opulent rooms a guest could ever dream of. The Burj al Arab has not only become synonymous with luxury, but with Dubai’s ambition itself.
2. The Burj Khalifa
Standing at 2,723 feet up in the air, the Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world that literally looks like a billion dollars; $1.5 billion dollars to be exact. At that height, you wouldn’t just want to look at it; you would want to look out of it and into the horizon, and marvel not just at the feat of engineering accomplished but at how far – or tall – the human imagination can take you.
3. The Palm Island
A man-made island in the shape of a palm can only be conceived and constructed in a city as ambitious to go higher than anybody else. It’s one of Dubai’s sights you cannot really get into unless you own or know one who owns property there, but it’s something you can look at from a comfortable distance. Choose a window seat as you fly in or out of the city, or join an inflatable jet boat trip around it.
4. The Dubai city skyline
How else can you wrap your head around massive engineering feats if you don’t look at it in one panoramic frame? The best way to see the city skyline is to hop on an evening pleasure cruise around the Marina and indulge in a one-of-a-kind visual delight.
5. The Souks
Souks or open-air markets are as much a part of Dubai in the past as it is in its present. Notwithstanding all the glittering and glimmering towers that smell of Dubai’s massive petro-dollars, the Gold and Spice Souks will definitely intrigue your senses. Rows and rows of golden bracelets will mesmerize as bags upon open bags of aromatic spices will transport you back to that distant time and place when Dubai was more of an Arab fishing village than a world-class destination of global conventions and well-heeled jetsetters.
6. Al Bastakiya and the Old Fort
The Dubai Creek is where it all started. Without Dubai’s oil deposits, real estate on this part of Middle East would have been very much like the mud brick houses along the banks of the creek that you still see standing today. Once planned to be leveled to the ground but rescued from the brink of extinction and transformed into a historic site, Al Bastakiya and the Al Fahidi Fort a few hundred meters apart are now a vibrant destination for arts, crafts and culture.
7. The Indoor Slopes of Ski Dubai
Dubai is desert hot, so how does snow hold up in such a sweltering environment? The answer is the indoor ski slopes of 240,000-square-feet Ski Dubai, the largest in the world.
