The city of Dubai had impressed me even before we landed. While the airplane was getting down, all I could see through the porthole were huge road intersections and the abundance of the road "nets" without houses that are intended to form build-up-areas around them in the middle of the desert. Then there was an airport terminal where I spent quite an endless amount of time to get to the passport control. In Dubai everything is big, so the airport also bound to be great.

After meeting with Vitaliy and Marat, I first discovered that we will stay in a two star hotel somewhere near the airport. As it turned out, even though it was a two star hotel, a cheap one, but the amenities are much better then all our three-stars and some of the four-stars hotels. By the way, a few days later we found out that our hotel also has a brothel, located there illegally.

We didn’t go to the brothel, no. But Vitaliy said that once he accidentally passed by, and two huge black guys were inviting him to come inside. But when they found out how old he was, they said he was too young for such pleasures.

2. 

So, it was decided to get the most of Dubai for the minimum of money. Dubai is a luxurious and expensive city but as it turned out, you don’t have to be a sheik to enjoy your stay in it.

Food in Dubai is cheaper than in Moscow or any other Russian city, same situation with the public transport. And if it’s three of you, it’s even cheaper to take a taxi rather than go by metro. So we bought some chocolate bars and headed to our first Dubai roofs.

3.

Dubai has very little number of UAE citizens. As far as I heard, immigrants take more than a half of the population of the city. Mainly, people come to work here from less wealthy countries - India, Pakistan, Philippines.

Full flavor of the local population can be seen in the subway, which by the way there is also very modern. Embarkation and disembarkation of the cars at rush hour - it is something. Indians, coming to Dubai in large numbers are accustomed that in overpopulated India they usually do not have enough room in the cars. They do not follow the rules of embarkation. As soon as the doors open, the crowd of Indians falls down into the car, without letting people, who wants to get out at this station leave the car or even pushing them back.

4. A European guy is relaxing on the hotel roof with two Philippian girls. 

In Dubai it is really tough to get anywhere by foot. Excavations are everywhere due to the enormous number of construction sites. The city has very little number of walkways, too, and a lot of highways which sometimes are impossible to pass. To get somewhere you better take a taxi or go by subway, at least.

All greenery in Dubai is artificially grown; all the houses are built in the middle of ​​bare desert.

In Dubai, it is prohibited to walk hand-in-hand or kissing – even for tourists. But no one will ever make girl wear a burqa if she doesn’t want to. They say women in UAE are untouchable: no one will talk to them or touch them. We could not verify this fact, as we travelled in a male company.

I’ve got a lot of impressions about this city. A lot of casual things were surprising and unusual for me.

5. 

In Dubai, mostly we were interested in roofs and views from them. Roofing abroad is not the same as roofing in Russia. Firstly, the laws in the UAE are more severe, and secondly, in Dubai we were tourists, so we had to be as careful not to break the law as we possibly can.

6. The First Interchange on Sheikh Zayed Road 

As it turned out, roofing is not too complicated in Dubai. The most difficult part is to pass the reception deck. And on top of the building, most likely, the roof door will be opened. There are a lot of roofs with pools, or with observation decks for the guests, or with helicopter pads. There is no point of locking the doors because I doubted that someone would jump of the roof, hang there an oppositional poster or sneak with a sniper rifle. The standard of living in Dubai is quite high, so people live leisurely without unnecessary precaution.

7.

By the way, people who work at the reception deck and security guys are surprisingly polite. Once we’ve entered a hotel, got into the lift – and figured out that it needs a card to bring us up. Doors closed so we were locked inside, thinking what to do next. After half a minute or so concierge called the lift and without saying anything, smiled, bowed and held us to the exit.

There was one more case when we got caught- this time at the exit to the roof. It was in the highest residential building in the world - Princess Tower (yes, in Dubai everything is the tallest and the biggest). "I apologize, but you have to go down with me" - said the guard. He asked who we are and what is the purpose of our getting on the roof, he made sure we are not from the Russian mafia, and let us go.

8. A shot towards Financial Center. 

I already mentioned that Dubai is a luxurious city. Everything is real here. The beauty is real, I mean. I got an impression that people here think more about how pretty the building will look before how will they use it. It seems to me that all these artificial islands, all these highest buildings – if they will pay off for the developer, it will happen in a very distant future.

For me, the main paradox was that in Dubai almost nowhere we could get free wi-fi, and if we could, the connection was way too slow.

9. Fountain show at the Burj Khalifa 

10. We get in a subway car filled with Indians to go to Burj Khalifa

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12. It is hard to put Burj Khalifa in a horizontal shot from this building. I did it, but the photo has turned out less beautiful than the one below. 

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14. Next day we were roofing in the Financial Center 

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17. This shot shows you that Dubai has not only skyscrapers. 

18. Less wealthy people also have their homes there 

19. Before the cricket game 

20. Sometimes we saw hot chicks on the roofs but we were unapproachable for them.