Our non-chatty driver picked us up at 8am and drove us to the Burj Al Arab, a beyond-super-exclusive hotel near the beach. There we met up with a very nice tour guide named Renatta and hopped onto a comfortably-sized bus with a bunch of other English-speaking folk (bonus!).
Our first stop was the above picture, a marjolis (sp?), which is a meeting room for men. Some sheik had this building and land and would have guests come to talk to him about anything going on. The main room is on the second floor and the breeze is lovely. They are working to recreate the gardens with a ductwork irrigation system as well.
The next stop was a huge mosque. Honestly, it was just a photo stop and I don’t have any clue about it, but the building was pretty.
Next, the “wind tower houses.” This is the coolest idea – they build these towers with walls inside forming an X (it would look like an X from the top or from underneath). The idea is that the wind would be caught and funneled down part of the X, while the hotter air would rise up the other sections of the X. Perfect for a beach house!
Next we went to the Dubai Museum and finally to the spice and gold souks (which I hated, go figure).
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