If not, then you probably have not visited Dubai. Wifey and I returned a week ago from a land tour and cruise in the Arabian Sea. We visited several locations in Oman and two of the seven emirates in the united Arab emirates, namely Dubai and Abu Dhabi. I have never seen so many BMWs, Land Rovers, Land Cruisers etc. in my life! I was also told during my visit that Dubai is the safest place in the world to live and after spending a week checking out all the sites, I would tend to not disagree with them. Here are some of the interesting tidbits that I took with me from my visit to that area of the world.

There is no socialism. You are expected to work and over 80% of the occupants of Dubai come from other countries with the largest India, with 27%. You obtain some sort of a work visa and must report regularly. If you lose your job, or quit, you have 30 days to find a new one or leave the country.

Rents are paid a full year in advance and if you are renting for two years, you pay the first year in advance and give the landlord 12 checks for the following year. If any of those checks bounce, you go to jail.

I saw an ATM machine Dubai style. It was for gold not cash! You entered your credit card and selected from five different options for gold.

If you are a true Emirati, you receive a car and three houses. You are expected to live in one house and rent out the other two houses for your income.

Dubai has the world's tallest building at over 200 stories. Wifey and I were able to go up to the highest viewing area at 124 stories. Pretty nice.

We also went in supposedly the world's largest mall with over 1200 stores. These were not little holes in the wall but really nice shops. This mall also had a full-size ice rink and a three-story aquarium to rival aquariums at places like Sea world in the United States. This aquarium was located right in the middle of the mall for all to see, free of charge. It also had a Victorias' Secret- I guess underneath the robes the women are the same around the World!

They are also building Dubailand which will be an absolute monster of an amusement park much like a Disney world. I'm not sure what they are going to do about this during the summer when temperatures reach 130°! Maybe they will build a bubble over the entire park or air-condition it.

There is also Ferrari World which has I believe a Lemans type racetrack as well as other amusements.

The architecture is phenomenal on the new construction going in, much of it in the last five years. I saw buildings shaped like a gigantic sailboat. I also saw the building shaped like a giant half-dollar. My favorite was a building that looked like originally a rectangle that they had twisted one way at the top and another way at the bottom. I don't think I saw any two buildings the same in my visit.

They are also reclaiming land from the sea. You may have heard of the palm tree that can be seen from space. This is land that has been reclaimed and used to form what looks like a palm tree with giant frons. This is the first of three they will build and is not just a gimmick. The first one will house over 250,000 people and have all the commercial area, a monorail system, and already has over 50 five star hotels. We also saw a seven star hotel! I didn't even know they existed. They were also really nice housing areas and the wealthy of the world are buying condos and homes there - like David Beckham.

They also have another area they have reclaimed from the sea that is called the world. If you look at it from space it is designed just like our world looks on a globe. If you have enough money, you can buy Australia for example or other countries and design them anyway you want!

I believe Dubai will become the financial center or one of the financial centers of the world due to their attractiveness to businesses. There are no property taxes in Dubai nor are there any income taxes. A foreign country may come to Dubai and build their office headquarters, and make tons of money without owing any income taxes. They may also move their funds to any other country or back home for example without incurring any taxes. You will see many names of companies you recognize on buildings currently being built or recently built in Dubai.

Probably the coolest thing I saw was the indoor ski run with a full-size chairlift! They make snow every night and also have additional slopes for kids and even small children on inner tubes type of ride. At the end of the ski run a hotel is built into the mall where you can rent a room, sit out on the balcony, and watch the skiers come straight at you down the slope. Pretty cool! This is located at a completely different mall in Dubai called the Mall of the Emirates.

We saw very few overweight people and especially the kids. However, we did witness the opening of the 100th KFC! I'm sure obesity is just around the corner for them also. We also saw Baskin-Robbins, Häagen-Dazs, and even Krispy Kreme along with all the restaurants you would normally recognize in the United States. They are definitely becoming westernized.

We saw the largest rug in the world in a gigantic mosque. We also saw the whitest marble in the world at the same mosque. We saw the cheapest gas probably in the world at seven cents per liter or roughly $.22 per gallon. It is very important for them to have the biggest, tallest, most luxurious, most expensive of everything-and they have the funds to do it.

Dubai is a monarchy (sort of like our country, tongue-in-cheek) but the people seem to be happy with what the Royal family is doing. The country is definitely going after tourism and business. They are using much of their oil money to create these two things which will exist long after the oil runs out. It was also fun to see some of their heritage museums which showed what life was like prior to the discovery of oil. All the camel jockeys are now driving fancy new cars as their method of transportation.

All in all, we had a great time and never realized we were just across the waters from Iran. We always felt safe and only saw several police cars in nearly 2 weeks in those countries. We've also been told there are representatives of over 125 countries living in Dubai and they seem to get along better than the representatives at our United Nations. Everyone seemed happy and the country seemed really clean. We did travel quite a bit and never saw anything that would represent a slum or ghetto like we have in our country. I guess that just goes to show what a country can do when it has natural resources and actually uses them. What a concept! This was certainly a fascinating location and I would recommend it to people that like to travel. On our cruise ship, there were probably only 10% Americans. Hundreds of Chinese (I think it was their New Year) and tons of Europeans since it is relatively close,Of the 107 countries I've now visited, this was undoubtedly the richest and probably the most fascinating to me. Previously it had been Singapore. The only disadvantage was a 43 hour travel day returning home from alarm to bed including a 16 hour flight! Getting the body clock was turned around 11 hours was also a challenge.

I hope you enjoyed my travel log and have a good day. Rich