Dubai: A really good deal

Another catching up post...

You may be asking "Why Dubai?" In a nutshell, we got a GREAT deal on a flight from Delhi-Dubai-Shanghai. Yes, we know it's not on the way to China, but read below to understand why we flew out of the way...

About Dubai:
Just as Singapore is the ideal "first Southeast Asian city" for westerners, Dubai is the same for the Middle East. The brainchild of Sheikh Mohammed Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, who, like his Singaporean counterpart Lee Kuan Yew, is a true visionary.

Dubai is one of 7 regions in the United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi is the largest). Interesting to note, only 3% of Dubai's GDP is from oil. In the late 1970s, the Sheikh noticed that the oil reserves were quickly drying up, and concluded for his region to survive, they needed other sources of income.

Great quote:
"My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel."

So, he took the oil money they had, and set off to create a world-class financial center, trading hub, and tourist destination.

Most people have heard about the craziness of the Burj Al Arab hotel, the Palm Islands and Oqyana, The World (all artificial islands), but there’s a lot more going on here.

To entice financial services companies, travel-related companies, and outside foreign investment, they've implemented very friendly personal and corporate tax schemes (e.g. no personal income tax). Most residents of Dubai are ex-pats from other countries.

To get tourists in the country, they created Emirates Airlines, considered one of the finest in the world. They only fly wide-bodied aircraft (Boeing 777, Airbus A340, Airbus A330), which can haul a significant number of people and cargo simultaneously. Also, they’re building the Dubai World Central International Airport, which will have 3 times more cargo capacity that Fed Ex's largest hub (Memphis), and 50% more passenger capacity than Atlanta, the largest passenger airport in the world.

Having said all that, things aren't completely rosey. Because there are very few native Emeriti, virtually all the construction workers are imported from Pakistan and India (using a foreign guest worker program not terribly different from the one Bush proposed; I personally think he is using Dubai as a model). While the foreign guest worker program is actually pretty slick, human rights activists claim these workers are treated miserably, and have very little rights.

About that deal:
Emirates has a "Free Stopover" scheme, which allows connecting passengers to stay for upto 3 days while paying the same fare as a direct flight. Pretty slick way to advertise your city, and get people to spend money there. We took advantage of this last November, on the way back from our honeymoon (36 hours in Dubai).

Our deal this time was in Emirates First Class, with lounge access, lie-flat seats, 19 inch personal TV with over 600 channels, noise-canceling headphones, chauffeur service to/from the airport, free hotel room at the 5-star Le Meridien Dubai, and a free dinner at the Sukothai restaurant all included in the flight price that wasn't that much more than the cheapest coach ticket on a "safe" airline (read: no Ethiopian Airlines). Guess they're really trying to get people to connect through Dubai!!! Considering we were looking at 6 days in less than luxurious Trans-Siberian train, it was a no-brainer.

Okay, so we did it, it was great, we didn't see much of the city other than malls(since we'd been there before), and got to Shanghai in comfort. Post on China coming shortly...