Dubai’s Burjs… Khalifa and al Arab

Time for an article with more superlatives! If there is one thing Dubai is good at, it’s at building Burjs, which means tower in Arabic.

Burj Khalifa

It’s hard to visit Dubai and to ignore the Burj Khalifa. In 2019, Burj Khalifa is still the highest building in the world, with 828 meters and 189 floors. So big that I have really a hard time avoiding the phallic analogy… It was inaugurated in 2009 and gets its name from… guess who? Of course the current president of the UAE, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the son of Sheikh Zayed the founder of the nation! (surprising that the Sheikh of Dubai could not impose his name though; Burj Mohammed would be a fancy name too! As Burj Guillaume would be… Who wants to build my Burj?!) It is in the business district of Dubai, dominating the Dubai Mall, and dominating the entire city. You see this “needle” from almost anywhere. It is connected to a metro station by an air-conditioned catwalk, the longest I have ever used (I am sure it must be the longest in the world… haha!). It took about 15 minutes to reach the building from the metro station! You have a beautiful artificial lake around the tower with a nice promenade on the shore.

It was clear that I would go on top of the Burj, although you cannot go on the top of the tip! I booked an online ticket one day in advance, and chose the 17h time slot to be on top before and after sunset. This was obviously the most expensive time and I paid slightly over 50 euros! For this price, you can reach the 124 and 125th floor viewing platforms.

It was for a while the highest viewing platform in the world, but after the Chinese opened the Shanghai Tower (about 600 meters high), Dubai was pissed off and decided to open the 148/152-154th floors to visitors to get the record title back! Haha! For the tiny price of 120 euro (148th floor) or 140 euro (152-154th floors, tea included!), you can show off and tell your friends you have been on the highest observation deck in the world!

The queuing system to get to the elevators is well organized. You walk what feels like 1 km through floors and stairs and floors with some explanations about the construction, but mainly about how amazing Dubai and the UAE is to achieve such a masterpiece of engineering, blablabla. And you have plenty of time to read that because the queueing time is quite long… about one hour, since there are only 3 elevators. The elevator ride was super quick… about 1 minute to reach the 124th floor, with some nice light and sound show to make you aware of the uniqueness of your experience! I couldn’t find any information though about the elevators being the quickest in the world… so I guess they failed that!

On the 124th floor, at an altitude of about 450 meters, you have a 360-degree view behind windows and a little outdoor platform giving you a 120 degrees view. You can reach the 125th floor which is only behind windows using a little glassed staircase. The view is quite impressive! You are so high that everything looks like a miniature world. However, to be honest, there is not so much to see around the building! Some other skyscrapers… some roads… but it’s not the Eiffel tower view with the Paris roofs!

I loved being there during sunset though, since I could appreciate both the day and the night views. The sunset itself was hard to see because the windows were quite dusty, and I suppose they don’t clean them every morning! Hahaha!

The queue to get down was really long since most of the people stayed longer for the sunset… but after 1h30, I managed to reach an elevator! Before getting out of the building, you are reminded about Dubai’s greatness with a model of the current biggest construction project: a new neighborhood with a super high viewing tower designed by Calatrava. It is supposed to be finished next year for the Expo 2020. The end height is not known yet… but it should be… the highest building in the world, 900-1500 meters high, whatever they manage to build before the Expo opening!!!

20190220_194907 (Mittel)

After reaching the ground floor, I enjoyed the water and light show on the artificial lake, which is running at regular intervals in the evening. I had a little preview from the observation deck but it was a bit far away! I haven’t red it anywhere but I suppose it is the biggest of its kind! And it indeed makes the Caesars palace show in Las Vegas look like a cheap show from the 80s (which it more or less is). The comparison with Las Vegas is quite interesting, because both cities have great similarities. In particular the art of creating tourism based on nothing! Las Vegas is a bit the outdated version of Dubai (with people drinking less alcohol and wearing more clothes!).

Burj al Arab

One of the other iconic buildings which attributes itself many superlatives is the Burj al Arab. I was quite impressed standing in front of it. Not because of the building itself but because it’s one of these buildings you can see in all the travel catalogues, blogs and commercials for Dubai for years! It is built on a little artificial island surrounded with water. Unfortunately, it is only accessible to hotel or restaurant guests and I must admit I didn’t budget such a visit! It is 321 meters high (similar to the Eiffel tower!) and was the highest hotel in the world when it opened, but the record definitely got beaten by the Chinese! You also read everywhere that it is the only 7-star hotel in the world, which is stupid because the maximum is 5 stars… Anyway, it is a cool building, especially with its helipad on the top!

I had the chance to get there twice by car, which was nice since it is not easily accessible by public transport. Once at night during the car ride with my Lebanese friend Rabih and another time with my Couchsurfer host Thomsan end of the afternoon. Not only did I enjoy the car ride on the Dubai roads, but also the nice walk on the beach and tea with Thomsan before sunset. It was the first time I had seen so many people swimming clothed, because the beach is also used by locals and not only tourists.