Detailed review by magdadh
magdadh
Perth, United Kingdom90%
Dubai Airport is a huge regional hub, mostly due to its use by the Emirates airline, connecting destinations in the Middle East, South and South East Asia, Oceania and parts of Africa to Europe and Americas. It is also something of a showcase for this most confident and most glittering of the Emirates, an icon of profligate shopping and building that borders on (if not exceeds) arrogant.
Dubai has artificial islands (one of them looking like the world from air, anyway), ski-slope in the middle of the desert, seven-star hotels, the highest building in the world (looking quite a bit like the tower of Babel). It also has the most opulent airport that I have ever had a chance to visit.
We came through Dubai twice, on the way to and from Australia and New Zealand.
On the way out we had a stopover, so we got through the immigration (a bit scary but swift experience) and quickly onto the land-side to spend a night and a day in the city and then come back to board our onward flight. Both times we visited the airport late at night and both times we spent most of the time on the land-side, which is significant because this is where it is at its most gloriously, shamelessly opulent. Dubai airport glitters: the massive main hall is tall and open, with the fluted columns of sparkling white marble (or something looking very marble like, and covered in really! - glitter). There are mirrors everywhere, and the floor is in many places (including lifts) marble, this time colourful and polished to a mirror-like gleam. As the whole space was pretty empty when we were there, the feeling is of an echoing temple abandoned by the faithful on a brink of some catastrophe.
Functionally, it is hard to remembers: it was well enough signposted, and spacious (some airports seem very poky) with enough catering and other things of the sort to be OK, but I mostly remember that glittering marble.
What I also remember is the incredible variety of people that one sees in Dubai airport especially on the air-side as most seem to just pass by in transit: I had lived in London and visited many major European cities which are known for being multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, but it was the Dubai airport that made me realise for real how incredibly rich is the human variety, not so much of ethnicities, as you see that in may places, but of culture, behaviour, dress. In addition to the European and Arab getups that one is either used to or expects, there were colourful Indian saris and shalwar kameez worn with hennaed hands laden with heavy gold bangles, black Iranian chadors (different to Arab female robes) and a riot of pattern, colour and frill of African robes and dresses of all kinds. Women's faces were everything from artfully made up to surrounded by hijab to completely covered by niqab's veil (although I have not seen an Afghani burqa, even once). It certainly makes one realise that there is this vast, rich continent teeming with people, history and culture just next door to Europe: and makes one want to get of the plane to the Little Britain Down Under and explore Asia. Alas, we didn't.
We came back to Dubai on the final leg of our return journey from New Zealand and this time we stayed on the air-side all the time. It was completely different: busy, rushed and full of shops, shops everywhere, round every corner, nothing but shops (obviously there were also cafes and toilets and showers and similar facilities, but mostly, it was shops). I didn't like that side of Dubai airport at all. Some airports make efforts to reduce stress endemic to travelling and one of the ways to do it is to limit the retail as there is nothing as stressful as people rushing to find a (dubious) bargain on very expensive designer items five minutes before their plane is called. Dubai doesn't do it, but then you wouldn't expect it.
Dubai International Airport7
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