Throughout the past year I have sustained mild annoyance over the fact I wasn’t allowed into Abu Dhabi en route to South Africa. Nothing pains me more than foregoing a free travel opportunity, particularly one deemed unworthy of dedicated destination status…and especially when it is Air Canada’s fault. But in one of life’s little ironies, I finally made it there almost exactly one year to the day later. And…well…it turns out I hadn’t actually missed much.
To be honest, after the excitement of Dubai, Abu Dhabi is kind of a snooze. As opposed to its neighbour, which is where Emiratis and the rest of the world come to spend their money and eat like gluttons, Abu Dhabi is very relaxed and overwhelmingly (or maybe under-whelmingly is more appropriate) beige, lacking the showiness and dynamic energy of its younger neighbour. While they are building skyscrapers at a shocking rate, these tend to be conservative in design and the city mostly comprises pleasant parks (no small feat when you see the bleak desert and oil refineries that surround this place), offices and smaller scale shopping malls. It is the city where most Emiratis chose to live and seat of the UAE government and is therefore more conservative and more strictly Muslim. Like Dubai, life here also centres around a shopping complex, this time the Marina Mall and I must hand it to the Emirati: they do shop like champions.
Express buses run between the two cities every twenty minutes, and the drive takes around two hours. Upon arrival we caught a taxi straight to AD’s purported highlight, the Corniche, which is their answer to Vancouver’s seawall. While it offered a pleasant stroll past the city centre via the waterfront, construction was underway along the beach blocking us from the sand. There were views of the Marina Mall and government buildings but other than that it was not outstanding. Quickly bored, we headed for the CBD in search of souks and skyscrapers. I was surprised to find a lot of poor, decrepit apartment buildings which while ubiquitous across the rest of the Middle East were surprising to find in the world’s wealthiest country. These people are mind blowingly, vastly, filthy rich. Unfortunately the CBD didn’t appear to have much to offer either, so we made an executive decision to head back to Dubai and enjoy our last day there instead. The only things I was disappointed to have missed were the museum containing the sheik’s car collection and Ferrari World theme park, both of which appealed to my inner tomboy.
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