Driving in Dubai

Posted by Cindy on June 30, 2009

I finally got my drivers license and was raring to go driving in Dubai all weekend long. My friend and I were staying with my folks in one of the Business Hotels Dubai has and were bored to death hanging around the hotel while my folks were constantly at business meetings. My parents didn’t know we managed to hire a car by putting it on their hotel tab. We couldn’t help ourselves, the wide roads the pavements planted with flowers and palm trees beckoned us to drive on them.

We got in the hired car as soon as my folks went off to their myriad business meetings. We were enjoying the sedate traffic when we first hit the road, but it soon turned into a nightmare. Detours sprung up everywhere and these huge multiple flyovers, tracks and speeding vehicles overwhelmed us. I was driving white knuckled until we reached Abu Dhabi. Whew, I much more pleasant drive. Straight roads and no detours from the massive amount of construction happening all the time in Dubai. Abudhabi was dwarfed by multi-storied buildings. I managed too, to keep pace with the 130km/hr everyone was doing on the road. I past a speed camera and panicked, but I didn’t see any flash, so breathed a sigh of relief.

After about an hour on the road we headed back to the city via the famed Emirates road. The main arterial route connecting most of the emirates of the UAE. It was mammoth and a beautiful site, truly a masterpiece of construction. It has eight tracks on each side. Giant power-lines crossed above us and there were so many exits it was astounding. But, I faithfully followed the main crowd, feeling a little lost in the maze of speeding cars and lanes. My friend had a terrific time cursing all the cars which tried to cut us off; I was driving a little slow, but all in all, we managed to reach our hotel in one piece and something to really remember about our boring stay in Dubai. That’s if my folks don’t kill us when they get the final bill from the hotel.