Emirates Airlines offered the cheapest flights from Nairobi to India, but it required a layover in their hub of Dubai en route. Ugg. Rather than spending 14 hours in the airport we decided to break our journey and stay in Dubai for a few days. Besides, it was our 3 year anniversary, and Dubai seemed like a great place for a little "high-class" living. (Okay, perhaps we wouldn't be indulging in "high-class" living, but we'd certainly be heading up-scale from the more normal haunts on our travelers budget!!)

The funny thing was, we couldn't find a hotel room to reserve anywhere in the city. All the internet search engines said that the only room available was the $1200/night "standard room" at the Burj Al Arab Hotel (which bills itself as the most luxurious hotel in the world and is regularly highlighted on the travel channel as the worlds best) and while we'd love to stay a few nights, we're sure that those few days would cost us more than what we spend in a typical month while we're traveling. Nevertheless, we figured that things must be wonky with the internet (Surely there HAD to be rooms available, right!?!) and headed to Dubai without a hotel reservation.

The first thing we were told when we got out of immigration was "Dubai is full." 'Huh? What do you mean full? Well, it turns out that the big Gitex technology convention was in town and all the hotels within a 120 kilometer radius of the city were completely occupied. We tried two travel desks and were turned down, we talked with cabbies and touts and had no luck.... finally, we decided to ask one more hotel reservations counter and we came away winners! The Gulf Hotel (which coincidentally had been the one hotel we'd picked out and tried to book repeatedly with no success in Africa) had a room available and even better the rate was good ($$80 USD per night!)

And let us tell you about this hotel... it was incredible. It had on-demand hot water! A television with cable stations including CNN, BBC and HBO! Our immaculately clean room had both a bath tub and a balcony and there was daily cleaning service that left wonderful things such as toilet paper, soap and shampoo! The hotel also had a roof top pool with wonderful views over the city, a health club, several restraunts... there was even room service!!

Now, you might be thinking,... "What's the big deal?" but remember that we just spent the last 2 and a half months in primarily rural Africa where a hot water shower is a luxury and cleanliness is a relative concept. This hotel was heaven... and that wasn't all. Within a short walk of our hotel was a mall offering entertainment and dining pleasures of all sorts! During our stay we visited Starbucks, McDonalds, Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Baskin Robbins and Starbucks.... and just for good measure we enjoyed some middle-eastern shwarma!

Wandering around Diera, one of Dubai's business/commercial districts where everything is incredibly clean and shiny, we found it interesting to note how multicultural Dubai is as compared to other places we've visited in the middle east. Although we were only in Dubai for three days, our overall impression is that Dubai is a city that blends western and middle eastern cultures in a friendly way... something that is uncommon in these parts. It's wonderful to see!!