Shit Holidays Newsletter #16
Dubai
Welcome back to the Shit Holidays newsletter, which returns after a week off for the launch of our Australia’s Shittest Big Thing competition (don’t forget to vote in Round 2!). This week we discover Dubai, plus share some Facebook feedback on our Rio de Janeiro review.
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Dubai
Dubai is a lot like a Kardashian: ostentatiously wealthy, completely fake, and probably shouldn’t exist for a multitude of very good reasons.
The Emirate bills itself as Disney World for adults but it’s more like Las Vegas if it were run by Mormons. It’s the sort of place where you can swim with a shark in a hotel aquarium, then enjoy a meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant before ending the night in the arms of a pair of Dubai’s many, many prostitutes. Just don’t make out in public, enjoy an alcoholic beverage or be in the vague vicinity of someone who’s suspected of doing something slightly illegal, or you might spend the next few decades in the notorious Al Barsha jail. Dubai’s draconian laws are apparently an elaborate scam to make tourists stay for as long as possible.
Built in the middle of a giant sandpit on the profit of vast oil and gas reserves, Dubai was constructed by an army of virtual slave labourers toiling in 50-degree heat to erect gleaming monuments to obscene wealth before returning home to the shoebox apartments they share with half a dozen other unfortunate migrants. Meanwhile, cashed-up expats blow their pay cheques on cheap thrills to stop them tossing themselves off their opulent balconies out of sheer boredom. All of these immigrants exist to facilitate the lavish lifestyles of the idle rich Emiratis who while away their days racing supercars to the airport and cheating on their wives with supermodels on their superyachts.
Dubai is fond of the phrase ‘man-made’ which is used to describe most of their attractions — this is necessary because God clearly cursed the place and intended it to be a barren wasteland. The city is home to a staggering array of attractions that have no business existing there, from a giant fountain (in a giant man-made lake), to the world’s largest water park (in the desert). Dubai also specialises in things that look like other things: a hotel that looks like a sail, an artificial archipelago that looks like a map of the world, a hotel that looks like a tidal wave looming over the beach. It seems the only thing that Dubai can’t buy is good taste.
Dubai Facts
Population: 3.3 million.
Founded: 1833.
Currency: UAE Dirham, South Asian people.
Language: Arabic, English, money.
Demonym: Dubai’an.
Also known as: Dubious Dubai, Do Buy, Poobai.
As seen in: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. Pope of Scientology and occasional actor Tom Cruise performs an array of ridiculous stunts while he dangles from the Burj Khalifa. Fortunately, an epic sandstorm destroys the city.
Most famous resident: Madonna is rumoured to own a mansion in Dubai complete with dolphins in the living room, where she can rest from her busy schedule of abducting children from the Third World and traumatising the planet with her fossilised ‘sex appeal’.
Top 10 Things to Do in Dubai
Fall off the world’s tallest building
Lose a week’s wages on a camel race
Get deported for having extramarital sex
Go on a shopping spree at the Gold Souk, the Textile Souk and the Slave Souk
Die of heat exhaustion
Break a leg kitesurfing
Go to jail for having a beer on the flight in
Roll a Land Rover down a sand dune
Get lost in a sandstorm
Try not to think about the abused workers who built the luxury hotel you’re trying to sleep in
Fan Mail: Rio de Janeiro
In the summer, it’s so hot that they have workers drop huge blocks of ice into the swimming pools at the 5 star hotels. It’s too hot to go out anyway, so who would want to swim? If you want to cool off, you can go to the indoor ski resort ( yes, you read that correctly) or catch a flight out to Europe. As long as the flights are leaving- once the temperature reaches 49C (most days during summer) , the aircraft are grounded.