When we think about the United Arab Emirates, we usually think about a luxurious lifestyle, tall skyscrapers and the fairly recently built Dubai surrounded by desert. Dubai is surely worth a visit, but the city itself isn't very backpacking friendly, especially if you don't know where to find affordable food and accommodation.
The old town area called Deira is probably the most authentic part of Dubai that you can find. Deira used to be the old center of Dubai before the new downtown and all the skyscrapers arose in the 90's. Wanna eat cheap hummus and shawerma in the street for a few euros? Then Deira is the place to go to. Besides authentic middle eastern food, you can also find REAL amazing Indian street food, like my personal favorites: idli or dosa with spicy sauce (real Indian spicy).
Recently I visited Dubai for the third time. Since I'd seen most of Dubai and Abu Dhabi during my previous visits, I was curious to see what else there was to see in the UAE outside these metropolises. The never ending search for non-touristy areas made me and my partner rent a car to go on a 3 days road trip around the UAE in August. This is low season in the UAE, which means extremely hot temperatures (AC in the car is a must), but also cheap luxurious hotels and not many other tourists traveling at this time.
A small and cheap car, was what I had in mind. But of course, this is the arab countries known for fancy cars - after some convincing by my partner we ended up with a Chevrolet Camaro instead. However, renting an expensive sports car isn't that expensive in the country of luxurious cars, nor is the petrol - in fact, petrol is even cheaper than water. If you've always dreamt about driving a Chevrolet or why not a Porsche, it's probably worth doing it when you're in the UAE.
Sadly the Chevrolet Camaro turned out to be way too big for me to drive (even after raising the seat to the maximum level - girls, keep this in mind when renting a sports car!). However, it was exciting to drive a car that could accelerate from 0-100 km/hour in just a few seconds. The roads in the UAE are in general in great condition, newly built and a dream to speed on - if it wouldn't be for all the speed cameras pretty much all over the country. Keeping the speed limits might even be harder when driving a sports car, but it's a must if you wanna avoid a bunch of fines when you return to Dubai...
Driving out of Dubai was easy, and unlike driving in Asia people are respectful and well behaved in the traffic in the UAE. The roads out of Dubai are big, with 7 lanes and lots of space - and despite this, traffic jams that will test your patience. Once you get out of Dubai though, the traffic is less busy and the roads are great to drive on.
Once we got out of Dubai, we stopped by a small town in the middle of the dessert to have a small break. The town consisted of a mosque and a few blocks of houses. And one half empty restaurant. The atmosphere completely changed just an hour outside Dubai - suddenly you could actually feel that we were in a Middle East country. There were loud prayers from the mosques, women in burqas and men in traditional clothing drinking tea in the streets.
We ordered some juice and water in a small restaurant, and got a lot of steering looks from the men around us. Unlike the very westernized Dubai, people were clearly not used to see a blond girl in a small town like this. People were friendly and helpful though, and as always you usually get a smile back if you behave well and approach locals with a smile. Respecting the dress code as a western woman in a Muslim country is obviously important if you want to get respected. Long pants and long sleeves that cover up will do.
Eager to explore the mountain areas in the UAE, we were driving on the mountain roads Jebel Hafeet and Jabal Jais. I was positively surprised that the condition of these roads were so great - newly built, wide and super safe paved roads all the way up to the top! Even for inexperienced drivers, these roads are easy to drive on. The view from the top is great, and we managed to both catch an early sunrise and a sunset on the top of these mountains.
The first night on our road trip we stayed in a fancy resort a bit outside Al Ain. The room prices would have been way over our budget if it would have been high season. Now it we had a fairly affordable stay thanks to the low season. We enjoyed the swimming pool with a mountain view - cooling off in the pool saved us from melting away in the dry desert heat.
The second night we stayed in Al Faqa, a small town in between Al Ain and Dubai. We were lucky to find comfortable and luxury accommodation for a cheap price here too. To see the sunset, we drove up to Jabal Hafeet and overlooked the border to Oman. If we would have had more time it would have been cool to continue driving across the border!
To summarize, the UAE is quite a perfect country to road trip in; the petrol and car rental is cheap, the distances short and in just a few days you can easily drive around most of the country. The landscapes are stunning - mountains, wast desert areas and beautiful mosques. The food is of course amazing (if you are as crazy about Middle Eastern food as I am!). Away from the tourist areas in the downtown of Dubai, you find authentic meals with hummus, babaganoush, grilled veggies and bread. Pick a restaurant where all the locals go, and you will get the real experience of the loud busy dining, waiters running around and people coming and going in a fast pace. Smoking shisha and drinking tea afterwards will make the day complete!
Do you want to know how our trip continued? Make sure to check out my next post about Muscat, Oman here!
Do you also feel like doing a similar road trip in the UAE? Hit me up and I will give you more tips!