According to surveys, over 5 percent of the Russians traveling abroad in the summer choose the Emirates, despite the temperature of 40 degrees Celsius in the hottest months in this resort area, and even 50 degrees Celsius in the sunshine. The correspondent of the EcoTourism EXPERT found out about the activities of tourists in such hot weather.
The fairy tale starts
The oriental fairy tale started in the Burj Al Arab 25 years ago when the Arabs surprised the whole world by the highest and most expensive hotel in the world built on the shore of the Persian Gulf, on an artificial island made 280 meters away from the shore.
It took 5 years to build the hotel, three of which were required to make a reliable artificial island. The building’s foundation stability was ensured by 230 forty-meter-long concrete piles, going deep into the ground.
The 321-meter high 56-storey hotel looking like a white sail blown by the wind and illuminated with a variety of colors in the evenings, won’t stop surprising tourists with its one-of-a-kind design, as well as its luxurious interiors, panoramic windows and aquariums with huge fish, including sharks.
Over 25 years since the construction of the ‘Sail’, as the Burj Al Arab is most often called, many high-class hotels in the premium and budget segments have been built in Dubai, as well as the new ‘wonders of the world’, including the business center Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. But they say, its record will soon be broken. This year, the construction of an even higher skyscraper - now a residential one - was launched in Dubai.
After the ‘Sail’, the construction of artificial islands was also industrialized. Next to the hotel, there is a ‘Palm’ island in the form of a branched palm tree. Essentially, it’s a real city with blocks of cottages and multistorey buildings, and the roads are laid and a monorail runs along them. Now, this practice of creating numerous and varied artificial islands (in the form of palm trees, a world map, and even the Milky Way) has become popular along the entire coast of the UAE. Local people have realized that living on the artificial islands is much better and comfortable than in the desert, and the most part of the Emirates was a desert just half a century ago.
Ecology: pros and cons
Many people might think, there is unlimited quantity of sand in the desert, which means there is more than enough construction material for making the artificial islands, and they would be wrong. Due to the excessive flowability of the local sand, it is not suitable for making firm ground; artificial islands require the sand from the bottom of the Gulf. And the ecosystem can be hit by this due to the destruction of coral reefs that are the usual natural habitat of plants, fish and sea turtles.
Construction cannot be stopped, but no one has ‘canceled’ the people’s love for nature and creatures. Therefore, a special rehabilitation center for turtles was set up in Dubai, and anyone who finds wounded or injured turtles can bring the animals to this center. By the way, the initial examination, treatment and observation of the turtles takes place in the Burj Al Arab hotel, then they are taken to the rehabilitation center at the Jumeirah Al Naseem hotel where specialists monitor their recovery process. The tourists can visit the rehabilitation center to enjoy watching and feeding the turtles. After full recovery, the ‘patients’ of the center are released into the sea and they are fitted with a GPS device to track their location remotely. One of the two thousand turtles cured here ‘traveled’ even to Thailand.
Now, almost the entire coastline of the Emirates is being developed. Following respectable Abu Dhabi and Dubai, at first, Sharjah and now their ‘younger brother’ Ajman are actively building a resort area. Those who did not have time to see how a fairy tale is being created in the Dubai desert, can make an hour-and-a-half car trip to the place where construction works are in full swing day and night. To attract guests, the Ajman authorities do not charge a tourist tax, 5-star hotels have abandoned the usual money deposits, and alcoholic drinks are on sale in stores there, which is not typical of the Emirates.
The local architects and development companies do their best to create attractive designs of beautiful buildings, but so far, the area looks rather eclectic. The attempts to imitate the amazing ‘Sail’ can easily be seen even in ordinary urban buildings.
It’s hot, extremely hot
Anyhow, why do tourists go to the Emirates at a time when the temperature is much above 40 degrees Celsius? The ‘pros’ list includes not only white-sand beaches, highest-quality service of five-star hotels and architectural masterpieces such as the Burj Al Arab or the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque that is among the largest and most beautiful in the world. This mosque, by the way, is open to everyone.
The Emirates are a hive of cultural activity as the museums are open, and regular and temporary exhibitions take place in the country. Among the ‘pearls’ is the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum, which EcoTourism EXPERT spoke about in detail (https://eco-tourism.expert/ru/blogs/luvr-abu-dabi-mesto-vstrechi-s-iskusstvom-i-cherepakhami-), and the Museum of the Future in Dubai with its interactive exhibition and the opportunity to feel like a member of A Space Odyssey.
When it is scorching hot outside, tourists enjoy the time in water parks (in Dubai, at least two of them - Wild Wadi and Aquaventure - are world famous) and oceanariums that are of huge sizes in the Emirates. In the low season, tourists can go on safari and to the Indian Ocean coast, the tours are offered with a significant discount...
But the Emirates would not be the Emirates if they stopped being eager to surprise. To make the climate more comfortable for tourists and local residents on the hottest days, ‘rain triggering’ technologies are used in the country. To do this, the practice of ‘cloud seeding’ using salt guns is used instead of praying; they also use an innovative method of the electrical charging of air molecules. And even if it doesn’t start raining (rains are extremely rare in these areas), a miracle usually happens because cumulus clouds appear in the sky over the Emirates to the delight of tourists ‘burnt by the sun’.
And I would like to mention a life hack - if you decide to join the five percent of daredevils and are not afraid to go to the Emirates in the hottest season, it is important that your hotel is on the very first line, and the hotel beach is as close to the building as possible. The most comfortable time to swim in the sea is a couple of hours after sunrise and a couple of hours before sunset or after sunset, of course, if swimming in the sea is permitted by the rules of the city beach or of your hotel’s beach. Travelers can also enjoy swimming in a hotel’s large and comfortable swimming pool because the water in the sea is sometimes too warm even for those who like it to be very warm.
Photo courtesy of the author.
